The Three Frances

There are three Frances. There is local France and there is Tourist France. Between the two, there is Villa France.

Villa France exists in the Hemingway continuum of decades past. While you don’t have to go to the extreme of actually building a life and getting a job in France, inhabiting villa France feels more like ‘living’ and less like ‘touring.’ Renting a villa for at least a week and taking your whole family or a group of friends eliminates the frantic jangle of ‘tourism’ that gave rise to the ‘Ugly American’ image without detracting from the spirit of holiday and vacation. If anything this new spirit of “slow travel”–gaining greater prominence in national and worldwide publications–adds to the appreciation of locations like Mandelieu or Ruffiac which really require at least a week each to get to know.

As a citizen of villa France you take part in the slow travel movement. You eschew guide lists, you throw site-seeing maps to the periphery and follow local information on local transportation, discovering all there is to see, do, eat and drink for yourself. The true beauty of travel is in discovery and wonder. Simply put you can not truly be in France if you sequester yourself away in an American style hotel and eat americanized food served by English speaking waiters. Slow travel means slow food, cooked by you with ingredients picked up in local groceries and prepared with genuine local methods with your new French friends at your own dinner table.

Being a slow traveller, and therefore a temporary resident, you also won’t make the mistake of bringing a bottle of wine with you when you come to dinner at your new friend’s home. Only the ugly American would make the mistake of insulting his host’s selection!