Experiencing "Old France"

[hobbiherm]

Greetings,

 

I plan on visiting France at some point, but not in the usual way. I'm not interested in visiting the popular tourist sites. I would like to find a rural "peasant type" village or community where the old traditions and ways are still daily alive and practiced. I'm of French descent so I would like to learn those traditions and ways of living in order to better understand my ancestry.

Does anyone know of a place or places where I could experience those treasures of French culture in order to enrich my personal culture?

I'm grateful for any sincere help. Thank you. God bless. 

[Cassis]

[quote user="hobbiherm"]

a rural "peasant type" village or community where the old traditions and ways are still daily alive and practiced

[/quote]

What - like horsedrawn carts and spinning your own wool?  There's a museum of rural life near us at St Rémy du Val and other musées de la ruralité throughout France.  There are lots of the 'old ways' still practiced (like basketweaving, embroidery, clog making etc.) but most people have electricity and drive a car nowadays.  Sorry if this seems a bit harsh, but you need to be realistic in your expectations otherwise you will be disappointed.

Phil

[Loiseau]

In the early 1970s one or two farmers were still using horse and cart to collect crops from the fields in my corner of the rural Vendee, but very few. This generation have long since retired, and their successors have carried out "remembrement" (negotiating swaps of different bits of fragmented land, so that each farmer gets fields large enough to swing a mighty modern tractor) so, sadly, I don't think you will find what you are looking for. Or only in the context of an Ecomusée, as suggested above.

Angela

[Patf]

I was reading about a traditon that continues - shepherds with their

dogs walking with herds of sheep and goats up to their summer patures

in the Pyrenees. There are certain days when  visitors can come

and watch. Should be more interesting now that they have bears too! Pat.

[Missy]

>>>Does anyone know of a place or places where I could experience those treasures of French culture in order to enrich my personal culture?<<<

You need to watch Jacques Tati's films if you want to find such a France. 'Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot' is a laugh a minute. Any films from the 1950/60/70's. 'Zazie dans le métro', 'le rosier de Madame Husson', 'Un dimanche à la campagne' etc.....

France as you have in mind does not exist any more. That museum has had to shut its doors...... The tourists were too demanding in their home comforts to take on holiday ie cars, TV in bedrooms, supermarkets for their picnic lunches and uniform food eateries ......

Every time I go home to visit my family, something has changed and this old France went away with my grandparents...

Like me trying to find the quaint rural England and Wales. I get rural England, as what I remember from my school books, from 'The last of the summer wine' and old Wales from visiting St Fagans museum....

Sad what progress does but it is unrelenting... 60 minutes an hour...

[Mpprh]

[quote user="Patf"]I was reading about a traditon that continues - shepherds with their dogs walking with herds of sheep and goats up to their summer patures in the Pyrenees. There are certain days when  visitors can come and watch. Should be more interesting now that they have bears too! Pat.
[/quote]

Hi

Many villages in hilly areas have a fete to celebrate the "transhumance".

You can read a bit about it here : http://www.guidesdumidi.com/actualite/actu_article.php?id_article=2575

Peter