Since today is Bastille Day, I’m expressing my undying love, appreciation and gratitude to France.
As with the United States (or, TBH,
anywhere), there’s plenty that you could crab about the country, but its
history, wit, diversity, language, flair and geographic beauty vastly outnumber
the flaws. It fills my soul in places where I didn’t even know there were gaps.
I’ve never been disappointed taking a trip
to France. From my first one—straight out of college, with no credit cards,
riding a bicycle from Paris to Santiago de Compostela and staying in youth
hostels, abandoned houses and highway rest stops—to the most recent involving
comfortable hotel beds and some very nice meals—each one has enriched my
perception of the world.
I love the sense of history in France.
Yeah, the French are subject to selective amnesia as much as the next nation,
but coming from Southern California, chills ran down my spine the first time I
stood at the edge of the medieval boundaries of Poitiers, looking across the
plain in the twilight below and just faintly hearing the echoes of the Moorish
armies that encamped there in 732, before Charles Martel drove them back toward
the Pyrenees.
You don’t get that sort of thing on La
Cienega Boulevard. Not usually, anyway. And certainly not without chemical
enhancers involved.
Moreover—nobody knows how to throw a revolution like the French. Nobody.
Here is the range of France—the Arc de
Triomphe:
And a road sign in Calvados (zoom in):
Vive la révolution!
©2025 Bas Bleu
No comments:
Post a Comment