Mooooo-ve out of the way
For those of you not on Facebook, here are a few pictures from where I've been at this week - down in the south of France, in "les Landes":
The town and village names in Bretagne can be crazy, but over the years, I learned how to pronounce such names as "Plonévez-du-Faou", "Locmiquelic" or "Ploublazlanec". Down here though, it's like a whole 'nother language, with names like "Arou-Ithorots-Olhaïby" or "Moncayolle-Larrory-Mendibieu". What on Earth kind of names are those??
I (stupidly) forgot to bring my GPS, and had just thought "Oh, well I'll just take a quick look at Google Maps before I go and get an idea of the major towns along the way" - but I had no chance of remembering names like that. So I got lost in the foothills of the mountains (several times) and ended up quite late for my scheduled visit.
Being late though was really the theme of the week - how could I not be when I spent my drives stuck behind various tractors, trucks or other slow-moving vehicles. I had to laugh though when I was delayed due to the following:
Can you imagine having to tell your clients "Sorry I'm late, I got got stuck in traffic behind a herd of cows!!"Labels: Small-town France, Travel
posted by Ksam @ 9:55 AM
8 Comments:
But, they do come from a different language, don't they? The langue d'oc. :)
Oh, I guess I was thinking they were maybe Basque names. But the langue d'oc is a good bet too.
Getting stuck behind sheep and cows on the roads is a regular occurrence in NZ. I chuckled at the bike though, fancy rounding up your animals by bicycle!
Hopefully, the residents of the area are also regularly stuck behind herds of animals or poky farm vehicles when they're trying to go somewhere, so that might be a very acceptable excuse for being late in that part of France. Or you could just say that you were stuck in traffic (no need to elaborate further!).
You haven't lived until you've been stuck behind a honey wagon.
Have you ever read the book 'the discovery of France' by Graham Robb? There is a really interesting chapter on local dialects and also a chapter on how towns got some of these weird names. I thought it was a fantastic book and can't recommend it enough.
Thanks for posting the pics here, too. I'm a man without a face(book).
lol, Angie and I got stuck in traffic behind a herd of sheep in New Zealand. Similar picture, really.
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