The reputation is not deserved

The French have a reputation of being arrogant and antisocial when dealing with other nationalities particularly the English but our experience is that their reputation is not deserved.

I commented a few days ago regarding the greeting one gets when entering or leaving a shop or business but their friendly contact goes much further as exampled by:

Young lads riding their bikes, albeit on the footpath, wishing us good day as they rode passed

Group of young adults congregating near a carpark, a group that from a distance you would normally skirt, doing the same as we walked passed

Elderly lady standing outside her house this morning acknowledging us as we walked passed (occurred twice today)

Today, in a local restaurant which by this time was getting full, a gentleman entered through the door near we were seated and though he obviously knew most in the restaurant given his subsequent actions acknowledged us before speaking to others 

We go for a daily walk back home and you usually have to embarrass those you pass by saying good morning to even get a smile - not so here as the French usually have got their greeting away first!

We walked into Jonchery-sur-Vesle late this morning for lunch at the restaurant referenced above, starting off through the vineyards. Once there we again admired the village which is as well presented as any we have been to

A well kept property 

And another in contrast confirming it relies on agriculture to survive 

We returned to Vandeuil taking a road through the countryside and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery 

A paddock with recently sewn new winter crop

Spot the difference - first wooden home we can recall seeing in France 

Vandeuil in the top left corner 

Herd of Charolais beef cattle 

Château D’Irval

Lake on the Château’s property 

Getting ready for the grape harvest tomorrow 

Vandeuil church - we hear the bells every 30 minutes from 7am to 9pm

A map showing where the 7 Champagne producers in the village are

Later in the afternoon we drove to Lerclerc to get something for our evening meal and when we returned we went for a walk through the vineyards - the grapes though they appeared to us to be small will start to be picked tomorrow 

And from the vines at the top of the hillside there was a nice view of the village and also our accommodation 

Peugeot left side a third way down photo 

Tomorrow we move to Mézières-Sur-Seine a village slightly (40 odd kms) to the west of Paris for an overnight stay so that on Friday we don’t have far to travel to visit Monet’s Gardens at Giverny before later that day driving back to the east side of Paris to return the car and take up residence at a hotel at Charles de Gaulle airport (30kms NE from central Paris) for 3 nights which will allow us to take the train into Paris on Saturday and Sunday to have another look at that great city before flying to Singapore on Monday.

Kms driven today:7