Sally Hammond Loves France

Freelance food and travel writer, author of numerous guides and travelogues, Sally Hammond talks of her love of France and shares her best travel tips.

If someone asked me ‘favourite place to visit?’ in one of those psychological word-association tests, I would almost certainly blurt out ‘FRANCE!’.

Which is far too simple an answer. Many trips, two books, and countless articles along la route, of course I don’t like and admire everything about France, but there’s enough to make my heart skip when I think of visiting again.

And before you ask, no, I don’t speak fluent French. I pronounce a few key words, and massacre the rest. Which is a bit funny, as massacre is a French word. It means the same, but if I say it ‘our’ way, chances are my Gallic friends would not have any idea what I am talking about – which just about sums up my communication-status in that country.

However, I have grown to love Paris more every trip. I discovered the food-centric Place de la Madeleine and its iconic establishments (Fauchon, Hédiard, La Maison de la Truffe and more) on one trip. I explored and fell for artsy Montmartre on another. And, later, I totally lost my heart to tiny Ile Saint-Louis, moored like a dinghy behind the bigger Île de la Cité on which stands the massive Notre Dame cathedral.

Ile Saint-Louis is an enigma, placed within the total mystery that is Paris. Here you can walk without traffic on the central street, eat the best ice cream in the world (the French say it is, anyway) at Berthillon, Seine-side, while you watch the barges and tourist boats go by. You can walk around it, and best of all, I have stayed in perhaps Paris’s most affordable four-star hotel (Jeu de Paume) and been able to wake up there and cross the road for croissants that I then ate in a park at the ‘prow’ of the island.

But my love for France extends much further – to tiny villages, throughout the country. I love so many. But just as in real life, it is impossible to lavish affection on everyone, ‘our’ village (because my photographer-husband, Gordon, has always come with me here) is tiny Azé, tangled in a mass of small roads in southern Burgundy. It is quite unimpressive, I guess, but love makes any object of affection beautiful.

Azé has no real tourist attractions (unless you count some grottes and proximity – half an hour’s drive­ – ­to Cluny) but it has a simple chambre d’hôte which we have stayed in several times, often enough to become friends with the owners who speak even less of our language than we do of theirs.

When we open the shutters, with their heart-shaped peepholes, of the bedroom we always have, we see beyond the plane trees in the gravelled courtyard, a rising hillside of vines. Twice we’ve managed to coincide our visit with vendange and have watched as the grape-picking machines slowly work through the rows.

Our habitual morning walk takes us past a field where we feed sugar cubes (purloined from breakfast) to the grey horse we have dubbed M. Cheval.  No matter how many years separate our visits, he still seems to recognise us. But maybe it’s the sugar lumps – who knows?

We pass the cemetery, the church, the boulangerie, one supermarket, a hotel and couple of cafes – and that’s it. It’s a manageably-sized village, and for us it stands for each of the 30,000 or so villages said to be sprinkled throughout France.

Just like France’s hundreds of cheeses, it would be impossible to know and appreciate them all effectively. For us, a corner of Paris and a village in Burgundy encapsulate what we love best about France. The hidden corners, the chance discoveries, the people – even without a common language, the food (mais oui!) – even faithful sugar-loving M. Cheval.

Unsurprisingly, writing this has made me quite nostalgique! Think we’d better go and book a ticket right now…..

Sally's best travel tips include:

1.    Make scarves your friends. Take some for modesty in countries that require it, a couple to dress up for dinner or an evening, a pashmina for style and warmth or to double as a light blanket when travelling, and a bandanna to mop your face and hands in hot countries.

2.    Always carry a face washer and shower cap (if you use them). It’s amazing how many hotels and B&Bs don’t have them. And the shower cap makes a useful impromptu ‘rain hat’ for a camera (or even yourself) – so maybe take two – and keep one in your day bag.

3.    Roll your clothes in the bundle method. Lay each garment flat on top of the one below, fold in sleeves and roll. It’s a safe way to carry a bottle of wine in the middle too!. Things some out virtually crease-free, and if your bag bursts a seam, you are less likely to lose a garment.

4.    Take a couple of small things you thought you’d never need: rubber bands, sticky tape, paper clips. Surprising how often they come in handy.

5.    Wear flight socks (compression socks) on any flight over an hour or so. They work for me, and ballooning ankles (and, the threat of DVT) could be avoided.

6.    If you plan to send a lot of postcards, before you go print your friends’ and relations’ addresses on sticky labels. It’s a good memory-tickler, and saves one step in what can be one job too many when you are travelling.

7.   When planning your outfits, start with the shoes. If your feet aren’t comfortable (especially when walking for hours on cobbled streets, or country tracks) then nothing else matters.

Alison Carmichael-Rulten

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