Travel Drinking In France

When I finished the first draft of this characteristically incisive piece of investigative

journalism (and it is investigative journalism), I read it back to myself and found that

I’d mentioned France’s night-life / drinking culture on just one occasion and mentioned

boobs over a dozen times. There are, of course, reasons for both of these ...

1. Outside of the big cities, the French don’t have the same kind of night-out-on-the-lash ethos that we

relish so much here in the UK.

2. Boobs are always good to talk about and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Let me clarify that first point:

This summer, I road-tripped across the south of France and it was only in Toulouse – a sizeable university town

– that I discovered anything you’d recognise as bar-life culture. Although it did feature my perennial favourite

in foreign countries: the English theme pub. This one was called The George & Dragon and looked for

all the world like it had been picked up out of London’s East End and just dropped onto a French street corner.

Including an utterly thuggish-looking bouncer. Maybe they thought that was the best way to try and recreate

East London? Armed police would have probably done the job better...

Notwithstanding this lack of pissed-up hedonism, I don’t want to sound like I’m decrying a French road trip,

which was nonetheless jolly good fun. I started in the principality of Monaco, and I hate to come over all

Stephen Fry (now that is an unfortunate choice of phrasing) but there is a Quite Interesting fact about Monaco’s

foremost non-car-related tourist attraction. Back in 1878, faced with the kind of bankruptcy-driven financial

oblivion that everyone in the UK now considers to be entirely normal, King Charles III of Monaco opened the

Grand Casino on a barren mount to the north of the harbour, in an effort to rake in

some quick cash from the very gullible, National Lottery-style. So successful was the venture that he was

not only financially rescued, but could then cheerfully abolish income tax. A tax haven was born. In

celebration of his achievement, the now heavily populated mount on which the casino was erected was

subsequently named after Charles.

Hence ... Monte Carlo. Cool huh?

Having said all of that, my actual Number One favourite piece of trivia about the world’s second smallest country (it’s ok; I’ll save you the trouble of Googling it – Vatican City State is the smallest) is that there are more people in its National Orchestra than in its National Guard. Brilliant!

And I can’t resist showing you the following image of a statue I passed near the royal palace, where the lack of oxidisation does tell quite a tale about which parts of the metal surface have been rubbed the most over the years.

Human nature, eh? Satisfyingly predictable...

On a related theme, I then spent a couple of days in Nice, incoherently sobbing with lust on the various topless beaches, before heading westward to the resort of Cap D’Agde, where I incoherently sobbed with lust on the various topless beaches.

Somewhat uncharacteristically for France, Cap D’Agde is a standard, purpose-built, touristy resort. Think Blackpool without the tower. And without the drunken revellers that look like stock footage for a news item about binge drinking. And with vastly betterweather. And the aforementioned topless women.

Okay, Cap D’Agde is nothing like Blackpool at all.

But I was treated to an immaculately scripted moment of comedy when a small aircraft trailing an advertising banner flew past over the sea. The banner bore the legend ‘LUNA PARK’, apparently the name of a nearby water park for the tourists. True, not a barrel of laughs thus far ... until it had completed its marketing spree and returned the way it came, now singing the praises of ‘KRAP ANUL’.

All right, I’m sorry. I know it’s very basic humour, but it made me chuckle...

A word of warning, though: Cap D’Agde can make the unusual claim of being home to Europe’s largest naturist resort, and while trying to leave I got laughably lost and ending up driving right into it.

It was an accident, all right?! I swear blind I wasn’t trying to just cop a look at yet more breasts.

Truth be told, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of naturist resorts. The one in Cap D’Agde plays

home to 20,000 people at any one time, all evidently eager to air their genitals in public. Think about that

realistically: it’s unlikely to be 20,000 singularly fit, nubile young people, all pert and rosy.

You see where I’m going with this. 20,000 random naked people probably equates to something in the region of 7,000 old men’s wrinkled cocks.

That’s re-set the mood somewhat. Let’s move on to Carcassonne:

Although Carcassonne is a sizeable working city, the part which everyone actually visits is the historic walled section to the south, which is only about 200 metres long, a freakishly small yet bizarrely hard-to-navigate maze. It can boast the unusual claim of having

a set of walls within a set of walls, which is kind of overkill in itself, but what I find quite entertaining about

the city is that at some point someone still felt the need to build a massive castle inside the city walls. So

that’s a fortress within a fortress within a fortress. With a sign at the front saying “No Fucking Way Are

You Getting In Here!!!”

(I also rather like the fact that the 19th Century architect who restored the castle goes by the most manly French name of all time: Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.)

After about an hour of wandering the small, cobbled streets staring at a collection of identical-looking restaurants and tat gift shops selling plastic helmets and swords, I concluded that Carcassonne is a bit of a Wonderbra – the overall appearance is far more impressive than the actual contents.

Again, I’m in danger of sounding as though I’m turning into my dad by visiting places in order to just subsequently moan about them; let me finish by emphasising that I had a storming time! Yes, the French do booze that’s right up there with the best of them – they just lean very heavily on the wine factor (which I’m not complaining about) and they seem to feel the need to throw in a 3-course meal with every bottle you buy (I guess I am slightly complaining about that).

So, to wrap up, how to summarise French culture? Truth be told, I don’t think I

could surpass what Eugene Delacroix has already achieved with his 19th Century

masterpiece Liberty Leading The People (right). One can only imagine how he

painstakingly tried to imagine and capture the spirit of France in a single image:

“It must be a depiction of the physical embodiment of Lady Liberty, holding aloft

the Tricolore and leading the people of France over the bodies of their comrades,

who fell in the name of freedom, to a new life conceived in the ideals of Equality."

“Oh, and she should have her tits out as well.”