Since today is Bastille Day, la fête nationale, 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:
(The real thing, commemorating
real events that evoke deep passion in the people.)
And a road sign in Calvados (zoom in):
Vive la révolution!
©2026 Bas Bleu
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