In France, the worst 10 minutes
Since my wife and I bought a ruined 1830 stone house in a tiny village on a tiny island off the coast of Brittany, we’ve had 30 years to collect the quirks of living on Belle Ile. Some of them are even publishable...
This being France, one of the things we’ve discovered is the importance of lunch.
For instance, we like to bike around to beaches, valleys, nearby villages and even the next town, about 5 miles away. But we’ve learned that lunch controls everything (and dinner controls everything that lunch doesn’t).
So, the second-worst 10 minutes to be caught on a bicycle are during the rush to get home for lunch, when the roads all over the island are suddenly filled with cars speeding and beeping (the French do not honk). The worst 10 minutes to be on a bike are in the half-hour after lunch, when everyone has had a drink or two or three. Â Pull into a ditch and cower; dive if your life depends on it.
Also, on the subject: You can walk completely naked on a country road during the hours of lunch and no one will ever see you, except other tourists. If they do, moo. If by rare bad luck it’s an islander, don’t be surprised if he asks you to marry him, or, failing that, to find an internship back in America for his niece.
A more mellow part of getting around is the etiquette involving cars.
On a smaller road, it is customary when seeing a car coming from the opposite direction to slow down to a crawl to inspect each other. If you are acquainted, a nod will do. If you have dined together, roll down your window and chime in perfect time to their “Bonjour!” as you pass. If you are friends, put the car in park and, with the engine running, plan the next week’s round of activities and aperitifs.  You may turn off the motor if a second car pulls up behind your friends and it, too, contains friends. Just think of yourself as the drive-through window of a fast-friendship restaurant.
Finally, people walk. Not just around the village (about six times a day is normal, although the older folks seems to circulate constantly). But distances. It’s muscle memory passed down through generations who thought nothing of finishing a day’s work in the fields, walking 10 miles to the big town of Le Palais (pop. 1,400), dancing all night and eating galettes (unsweetened crepes made with buckwheat flour) and drinking hard cider. Around 4 in the morning they’d start walking back the 10 miles to home, where after tucking into more galettes, heading straight out to work.
“When did you sleep?” I once asked an 80-year-old farmer after he’d proudly told this tale.
“At noon,” he said. “But not alone.” And then he winked.
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