View Full Version : I'm shocked at how beautiful France is.
Richard_Rides
07-14-05, 02:32 PM
These aerial shots of the mountains and valleys, the beautiful
rooftops and streets. There are many great things about the Tour,
but the scenery is awe inspiring. I had no idea France was so wonderful.
I'm gonna visit as soon as I can scrape up the money.
yeah, its hard to imagine a stretch of road without garbage strewn about or Taco Bell's every ten miles.
Mind you, Hamilton, Canada looked great at the 03 World Championships on TV, it is one ugly town.
Laggard
07-14-05, 02:40 PM
yeah, its hard to imagine a stretch of road without garbage strewn about or Taco Bell's every ten miles.
I heard they're building a Taco Bell on top of Ventoux.
I heard that when they crashed that NASA probe into the surface of that comet last week, the final images clearly showed a Taco Bell, with drive-thru.
France is magnificent. Provence in the southeast is wonderful, full of beautiful villages and traces of the Roman Empire. And of course Paris is one of the great cities of the world.
The Tour is probably one of the most ingenious tourism marketing programs ever devised ;-) Regions and towns and villages lobby to be included on the route, especially as ville départs and ville arret, promising things like road improvements, adjunct festivals, etc. The whole country really puts on the shine for the event. I always marvel at some of the displays along the road, like the painted cows, the giant bicycle mobiles suspended from cranes, the haybale sculptures, the cars or kayaks parked to spell out Le Tour.
Welcome to Europe.
A lot of Europe looks incredibly awesome, and you'll see stuff like that all over.
Good camera angles and helicopter shots help bring out the best of France too, I'm sure.
Koffee
... I had no idea France was so wonderful....
sounds like someone let the national geographic subscription lapse? so are england, spain, portugal, germany, switzerland, austria, italy, greece..........................
And big. Bigger than Texas (432,271 sq. km. to 547,030 sq km for France). We drove all over the country for 3 1/2 weeks and saw so little of it. France has such varied topography. Large parts of it remind me of California, but parts of it are really weird. Like the Camargue - south of where tomorrow's stage is going. Flamencos, wild horses, swamps, mosquitoes, and gypsies. It is really a weird mix of Florida and Romania.
Beautiful it is, though why it comes as a shock I can't imagine. Probably the constant French bashing on TV.
My little corner ... http://perso.wanadoo.fr/masong4
oboeguy
07-15-05, 05:28 AM
Beautiful it is, though why it comes as a shock I can't imagine. Probably the constant French bashing on TV.
Exactly what I was thinking. To be honest, I find the French bashing to be pretty idiotic. On another forum when I posted that the wife and I were off to Europe, someone actually posted "No matter what you do, don't go to France and spend your money there!". WTF?!? I think we were in and out of France four times on that trip (including the Alpe d'Huez TT, booyah!). :D
OP, visit during the Tour next year. :D
fore0121
07-15-05, 06:38 AM
Beautiful it is, though why it comes as a shock I can't imagine. Probably the constant French bashing on TV.
My little corner ... http://perso.wanadoo.fr/masong4
My wife and I backbacked through Euorpe for four weeks a few years ago. We flew in and out of Paris as it was the most economical way to go. Pairs, and France in general was the part of the trip I was least looking forward to. We planned a few things there, but nothing major. I wanted to do so many other things in Italy, and Spain. After being there France, and Paris in particular, was one of our favorite parts of the trip. So much so that we cut short a few other pieces of our trip to return a day early to Paris for the end of the tour before flying out. I'd love to go back there and spend some more time soaking up the history.
We also went to (and loved) the central wine region (Beaune) and the champagne region (Reims and Epernay).
Absolutely beautiful country.
Corsaire
07-15-05, 06:44 AM
To think that I even had a french girlfriend once, and I never accepted her invitation, she was from Tour. (duh!)
Corsaire :)
Cycliste
07-15-05, 06:45 AM
Exactly what I was thinking. To be honest, I find the French bashing to be pretty idiotic. On another forum when I posted that the wife and I were off to Europe, someone actually posted "No matter what you do, don't go to France and spend your money there!". WTF?!? I think we were in and out of France four times on that trip (including the Alpe d'Huez TT, booyah!). :D
OP, visit during the Tour next year. :D
Yep, you'll hear bashing (mild term) on both sides of the pond. Listening to these people who make these idiotic comments is just limiting our world to theirs (which quiet frankly I cannot describe how tiny it can be :rolleyes: ). You guys have the ability to see beyond all this. Let's make this contagious.! ;)
EventServices
07-15-05, 06:47 AM
I'll take Sallanche.
If I could find a job there....
galen_52657
07-15-05, 08:34 AM
And why is France (and for the most part, the rest of western Europe) so beautiful?
Can you say big government? Can you say restrictions on land development? How about strong planning commisions who can and will say 'no' to that Toco Bell?
Being older, smaller and with less land, with a better educated and more forward-thinking populace, these countries have enacted laws restricting the shopping-mall-suburban-hell we here across the pond call home.
oboeguy
07-15-05, 08:44 AM
And why is France (and for the most part, the rest of western Europe) so beautiful?
Can you say big government? Can you say restrictions on land development? How about strong planning commisions who can and will say 'no' to that Toco Bell?
Being older, smaller and with less land, with a better educated and more forward-thinking populace, these countries have enacted laws restricting the shopping-mall-suburban-hell we here across the pond call home.
<applause>Bravo!</applause>
It also helps when you have that amount of land with only 60.5 million people in it. Unlike the UK with a similar population ... all living in a space the size of Oregon! Imagine Oregon with 60 million people :D
On another forum when I posted that the wife and I were off to Europe, someone actually posted "No matter what you do, don't go to France and spend your money there!".
My mother and step father are also slaves to whatever the TV tells them to think. So we took them to France with us and they had to admit by the end of the trip, the French are lovely people. You have to know the rules, however, and I recommend the book "CultureShock France" to anyone who is traveling there. You will learn why most Americans are treated "rudely" in the shops, for instance (we don't acknowledge the proprietor - and why would you when you are used to going to the mall where snotty kids can't help you find a pair of pants!).
Travel is good for people - it lets you see how much we have in common with each other - and how little we have in common with the people that govern us.
Cycliste
07-15-05, 12:22 PM
Travel is good for people - it lets you see how much we have in common with each other - and how little we have in common with the people that govern us.
I couldn't have said it better.
I would even ad that by travel, we should mean exposing your senses to other countries culture and living. Too many people travel within very confined and protected conditions which in the end bring them back home pretty much with the same perceived ideas they had before they departed.
I couldn't have said it better.
I would even ad that by travel, we should mean exposing your senses to other countries culture and living. Too many people travel within very confined and protected conditions which in the end bring them back home pretty much with the same perceived ideas they had before they departed.
Which is why I personally hate those guided tours, and why I prefer travelling solo by bike. You really have no choice but to interact with the people and culture, and you walk away with a deeper understanding of the place you visit.
Koffee
And why is France (and for the most part, the rest of western Europe) so beautiful?
Can you say big government? Can you say restrictions on land development? How about strong planning commisions who can and will say 'no' to that Toco Bell?
Our planning commision building got demolished, to build a Taco Bell.
Which is why I personally hate those guided tours, and why I prefer travelling solo by bike. You really have no choice but to interact with the people and culture, and you walk away with a deeper understanding of the place you visit.
Koffee
guided tours: visit a beautiful foreign country surrounded by the idiots your trying to get away from. All they do is complain about the food and lack of air conditioning.
France is nice outside of Paris, Parisiennes are total a-holes.
Italy is amazing, the country of food, but avoid tourist areas and $15 coffees.
Basically, the best way to see Europe is to take a map of the country, draw large red circles around tourist attractions....and avoid them at all cost. You will have more of a life experience in a day in a small village in Pays Basque, than you will in a year in Paris.
briscoelab
07-15-05, 12:51 PM
And why is France (and for the most part, the rest of western Europe) so beautiful?
Can you say big government? Can you say restrictions on land development? How about strong planning commisions who can and will say 'no' to that Toco Bell?
Being older, smaller and with less land, with a better educated and more forward-thinking populace, these countries have enacted laws restricting the shopping-mall-suburban-hell we here across the pond call home.
While this is true to a large extent... I have to disagree with a few points. Europe is a beautiful place to be sure. But it is far from "un touched" and planned well. There are VERY few places you can go in Europe, especially western Europe that have old growth forrests for example. Most of the country has been touched by man. If you are fed up with suburban life in the US... take a trip to some of the western states. Talk about HUGE areas of simple beautiful wilderness that are by large untouched. The thing I really dislike about certain places in Europe, like the Alps, is the amount of man's intrusion into nature. There are so many ski resorts and especially the tourist gondolas to moutain summits.... But those are just offshoots of people living in an areas for litterally thousands of years. I love the small villages and small towns tucked away in valleys though.
I really can't understand why France being beautiful would be a suprise to folks though? But, then again I think most places have a lot of beauty once you get outside of Urban sprawl... even places like Kansas and Nebraska are impressive when you think about the sheer size of the prairie stretching out to the sky.
I've been to Kansazzzzzzzzz.
Cycliste
07-15-05, 01:56 PM
While this is true to a large extent... I have to disagree with a few points. Europe is a beautiful place to be sure. But it is far from "un touched" and planned well. There are VERY few places you can go in Europe, especially western Europe that have old growth forrests for example. Most of the country has been touched by man.
True, up to I think the 13th century, France was essentially covered with forests and vinyards (he he) and reforestation goes as far back as the 18th century with the Landes project, one of the largest in Europe, which had essentially for objective to reclaim vast areas of wetland. Continuous loss of forestation to fires (caused by draught but also criminal activities) is a real problem particularly in the South.
There are very protected areas in France, grouped in National Parks like in the US and other areas that need similar attention. Like for example, an area close to where I grew up, north of the city of Toulouse, where a project for building a new airport with massive industrial complex threatens to destroy ancient soils with lot of untouched wildlife and some of the oldest vinyards. I know every square mile for having riden my bike there.
A constant battle with the local authorities and a huge economic player that is Airbus Industry. Price of land rises every day and farmers are all too tempted to sell their land. Sometime, when I see what the preservation groups manage to achieve here in the US, I think it may be a better solution to save this area instead of relying all too often on the regional and state authorities.
If most of the territory has been touched, agriculture remains very predominant and is a good way to keep open spaces unexploited to urban development and that is a challenge.
Someone mentioned the Camargue region, that is another protected area, at least as long as the gypsies and local camarguais remain there. Some say the first cowboys came from this region, but that is another story :)
most of the lines of those large trees beside and close to the roads in TDF were planted under orders of Napoleon Bonaparte to keep his soldiers cool while riding.
you cannot own a farm in Tuscany unless it is kept active. No TBs in Tuscany.
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