Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms French Paradox

Yes, we love to moan about them with our centuries old love hate relationship, but sitting here outside the gite sampling their local plonk with the sun streaming down and after a few days pottering about their relatively traffic free country roads (we probably gave them the idea for speed humps) I think the French might be on to something.

Seem to be lots of stress free, happy natives pottering about on bicycles or dining on moules frites etc and all that.

Try to visit these southern Brittany small towns and villages - they are beautiful, but not seen a GB plate all day.

Plus 4 gets a lot of attention. Despite the fab climate, they all seem to drive sensible smallish tin tops.

Wouldn’t want to be poor here though, waiter tried to sell me some kind of sea fruit as a starter for 38 euro.

Must think I’m Mrs May.

It is a great place to visit. Enjoy.

We got back from South Britanny a week or so ago. Coming off the train (tunnel crossing) was a real shock. From the minute we got onto the motorway the verges were unkempt and full of litter and the road surface was in a poor state of repair. Generally in France we had found that litter was under control and there was still a sufficient public service to keep the verges clipped and the place generally tidy. What has happened to the UK? And yes, there is a sense over there that it’s good to enjoy yourself, eat good food and generally live well. Yes I know I might be generalising but it was a shock coming home.

The thing that most strikes me about France is that quality of life seems to be deemed more important than absolute standard of living. I really admire that.

It's simply becoming dominated by shirtless & bald blokes, with a Me culture. No-one seems to care about each other any longer, and people are so used to arguing it's simply social media personified..

I hate the coming home feeling..

We have been to Brittany a couple of times, love it.
Everything seems so relaxed there. I agree that the people seem to be on a different mindset to us.

Excellent

A country three times larger with a similar population helps I expect.

The road quality was really noticeable on our travels down to Sorrento & back.
we went through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy & Austria. Aside from S Italy the roads were far better than the UK.

Couldn't agree with you all more, we have just returned from a trip, Dordogne/limousine, finistere and Brittany, staying in Gites, quiet country roads, good surfaces, many of them new (probably because the tour de France was due through) plenty of car parking and even toilets!! Excellent drives and good scenery, soon as we got off the ferry in Dover....Accident on M11, accident and M25 closed just after Dartford crossing meaning a trip into London to join the North circular, traffic everywhere, potholes everywhere, crazy drivers.
The only down side in France were the elongated speed bumps in the small villages (touched the front of the car on one, small scrape on front lower splitter now)