Читать книгу Cycle Touring in France. Eight tours in Brittany, Picardy, Alsace, Auvergne/Languedoc, Provence, Dordogne/Lot, the Alps and the Pyrenees онлайн

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Public Holidays

New Year's Day (1 January)

Easter Sunday and Monday

Ascension Day (40 days after Easter)

Whitsun (seventh Sunday after Easter) and Whit Monday

Labour Day (1 May)

VE Day (8 May)

Bastille Day (14 July)

Assumption Day (15 August)

All Saints' Day (1 November)

Armistice Day (11 November)

Christmas Day (25 December)

Banks, shops, museums and so on are closed for these public holidays. It is not uncommon for Ascension Day and Whitsun/Whit Monday to be in May, meaning four public holidays in this month alone. The French generally take their summer holiday in the first two weeks of August.

French Food and Wine

For a diversity of delicious dishes and wonderful, world-renowned wines, look no further than France. Each region can proudly profess to be able to rustle up a wide variety of culinary delights, be they based around shellfish in Brittany, truffles and foie gras in Dordogne, or olives and aubergines in Provence. Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne immediately spring to mind when we think of French wine, but there are several other excellent wine-growing areas such as Alsace, the Loire and Rhône Valleys, Provence, the southwest of France and Languedoc-Roussillon, even Jura and Savoie. All large supermarkets stock a wide range of French wines and there is always a good choice to be found on restaurant menus, but why not sample the local wine if you're cycling past all those vineyards? Look out for roadside signs with the word dégustation (wine tasting) on them. It's not obligatory to buy a bottle after sampling the wine produced by a small cave or château, but it you would be putting money into the local community, even if it's only a few euros. And if one of the bottle cages on your bike frame is empty…