Bastille Day – France en Fête

The French don't call their biggest holiday Bastille Day, of course. For them it's la fête nationale, or simply le quatorze juillet – even if half the country celebrates on the 13th rather than the 14th of July. If geography is on your side, you might be able to catch back-to-back festivities. Over the years, I've had the luck to be in France on both nights, and each experience has been as diverse as the country itself.

The village experience
If you're a Francophile, Bastille Day in a small village reinforces every reason why you love France. Last summer, while I was in the Lot Valley, I was taken by my hosts at Lot Cycling Holidays to the small village of Rampoux on 14 July. Several hundred people were squeezed into two long marquees, where €16 bought you five courses of rustic food and unlimited wine and water – capped off with creamy rounds of cabécou cheese. A band played old-fashioned French songs that required no dancing skill apart from a basic ability to waltz. There was raucous singing that went on till the early hours, and at some point I imagined they had set off the fireworks. We didn't stick around long enough to find out, as we had left by 2am. It was one of the most enjoyable nights I'd ever had in France.

The small town experience
Purely by chance I was in St-Girons in the Ariège one year on 13 July, intending just a quick stopover before going on to Carcassonne where I had planned to spend the festivities. I had no idea that St-Girons was one of the towns that celebrated on the 13th, so a stroll into the centre of this pleasant riverside town in the Midi-Pyrénées quickly revealed a massive party going on. More dancing, market stalls, dodgem cars for the kids and an impressive display of fireworks for such a small town.

The slightly bigger town experience
That brings me to Carcassonne, which has the second-largest fireworks display in France. (Paris comes on top, naturally.) The fireworks are set off behind the ramparts of the medieval citadel, La Cité, where the display has all the drama of a five-act play. By the end it looks as though the Cité is on fire. Utterly compelling.

The seaside town experience
A bowl of mussels on the quayside of Sète, followed by cheesy French bands playing in the main square. Then a manic bash on the dodgems before a cocktail at the water's edge and a brilliant fireworks display. I could think of worse ways of spending a July evening in Languedoc.

The twin town experience
Antibes and Juan-les-Pins sit side by side on the Mediterranean, barely a kilometre apart. By sheer luck, I was in Antibes on the 13th when they hold their festival, and in Juan-les-Pins on the 14th for theirs. As restaurants in Antibes were advertising hugely overpriced menus for the night of the fête, we decided to stock up on food from the market in Cours Masséna and have a picnic on the balcony of the seafront flat we were renting. The fireworks were being held just next door on the beach, where an orchestra was playing the theme tunes from James Bond films. It was entertaining, but there was none of the carnival atmosphere I'd seen at other celebrations. Meanwhile, in Juan-les-Pins, we were guests at the jazz festival on the 14th, when the organisers time the fireworks to go off between sets. Jazz on a summer's night and fireworks lighting up the Mediterranean. Pure magic.

Rimini: La Notte Rosa

La Notte Rosa is like New Year’s Eve all over again – but with better weather and thousands more people enjoying the balmy summer air. Every July since 2005, this 100km stretch of the Adriatic has been putting on one of Italy’s liveliest festivals, la Notte Rosa, which translates inelegantly as “pink night”. Sounds better in Italian.

Everything is draped in pink – from the ancient bridge in Rimini’s old town to the hotels and bars lining the seaside strip. And everyone wears something in that colour, even macho Italian men who nonchalantly don garish pink wigs, T-shirts and shorts. Somehow, they pull off the look with complete panache.

Thousands of people stream through the streets of Rimini, all in a relaxed mood, stopping now and then to dance to a band performing on a street corner. Fireworks along the coast are set off at midnight, but that’s not the end. The party goes on all night: if you’re lucky enough to be awake after 5am, you just might catch one of the world’s biggest beach barbecues on the wide stretch of Rimini’s sands. Or sway along to the music of the pianist who managed to stay awake all night to serenade the partygoers draped on the sun loungers.

You might wonder why everyone joins in with such gusto in a festival that has no obvious link to the region. Usually festivals celebrate a seasonal event (such as a wine harvest) or some of the wonderful food produced in various parts of Italy. But la Notte Rosa has no such straightforward history.

La Notte Rosa was inspired by the summertime Nuit Blanche (White Night) in Paris, when the French capital’s art galleries are open all night in a festive atmosphere. So why pink? The local Rimini politician who came up with the idea rather liked a festival that celebrated womanhood – hence the pink. That gender segregation didn’t last long, though, as people of both sexes wanted to join the fun. It quickly turned into a festival that celebrated the beginning of the summer season.

For such a busy event, the atmosphere is remarkably chilled. The streets might be packed with people of all ages, but no one is in a hurry to get anywhere, and nor is alcohol an important part of the evening. The result is an incredibly genial and happy atmosphere that is positively infectious.

There are special events planned throughout the evening. Most are open to the general public, including concerts featuring Italian X Factor winners on specially erected stages by the venerable Grand Hotel. This former home of the film director Federico Fellini is also the setting for a sumptuous private party put on by la Notte Rosa’s main sponsor, Martini. It’s a wonderfully elegant affair, filled with the beautiful people of Italy. But you don’t need to be on the A-list to enjoy la Notte Rosa. It really is a magical feeling strolling along the seafront watching the Italian population enjoying itself. And no matter how late you stay up, there’s always the enormous Rimini beach waiting for you the following day.

Images © Adam Batterbee

Vimy Ridge: Canada's great sacrifice

For nearly 20 years I’ve been zooming up and down the A26 from Calais to other parts of France. And each time I spotted the sober sign saying “Mémorial Canadien de Vimy”, I vowed I would stop one day and pay a proper visit to this monument commemorating one of the most significant battles of the First World War.

It took a recent overnight visit to nearby Arras to make me realise how easy it is to take in this evocative slice of history in a portion of land ceded by France to Canada. Restored trenches from that 1917 battle wind through one large section of the 107-hectare site, where grassy sections are pockmarked by shell holes. Signs everywhere warn you not to walk in areas where there are still unexploded munitions from 96 years ago. They can’t even use mowers to cut the grass, leaving that job instead to flocks of sheep. (Presumably they’re too light to trigger any explosions – one hopes.)

The horrors of trench warfare aren’t difficult to imagine when you see how close the German line came to the Allies’ defences. It was primarily Canadians who fought in April 1917 to take this vital ridge that had been stubbornly held by the Germans since the early days of the war.

Their success was a pivotal point in the war as well as in Canada’s young history, although the price paid for it was 3,598 dead Canadian soldiers. Their memories are kept alive in the quietly impressive monument designed by Canadian sculptor Walter Seymour Allward. Two towering pylons stand on a giant concrete base, where names of the 11,285 Canadian soldiers killed “somewhere in France” are carved. Among the sculpted figures is a woman who represents the young nation mourning her dead. Its simplicity is eloquent and almost unbearably moving.

Teams of young bilingual Canadians give informative tours of the site, mainly to other Canadians who have grown up with the story of Vimy Ridge. They all want to see for themselves the sacrifice their countrymen made for them nearly a century ago – in this corner of France that is forever Canada.


Images © Adam Batterbee

Normandy: Blood, toil, tears and sweat

Normandy's D-Day beaches have a tight grip on the mentality of much of Western Europe. And rightly so, considering the vital importance of the June 1944 Normandy landings that finally hastened the end of the Second World War. Even the countless coaches of tourists trudging along coast can't diminish the impact of seeing first hand the scenes of such bravery, ingenuity and, ultimately, horror.

It was unseasonably chilly when I visited, just two days before the 69th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The wind was quite fierce along the Pointe du Hoc between Utah and Omaha Beach, the desolate spot where US Rangers took on the Germans on a rocky outcrop. The gun emplacements are still there, along the with giant craters created by falling bombs. I've seen photos of children playing in the gaping holes, oblivious to their significance. On the day I visited, only a few people were walking sombrely in the dips and hollows, visualising what the soldiers had to endure.

Just east of here is Omaha Beach, where an enormous, stark memorial on the beach is flanked by a modern sculpture that sits in the sea. A middle-aged American man wearing a Vietnam War veteran's jacket stood at the foot of the memorial, lost in thought.

Most visitors head straight to Omaha Beach's American cemetery and memorial, where the simple white crosses of the gravestones stretch into the distance towards the sea. The memorial museum is intensely moving and enlightening – and doesn't just focus on the American aspect of the operation. I thought I knew a lot about the invasion, but, thanks to one display in particular, I learnt about the vital role of the Ruperts, the 500 dummy parachutists dropped during Operation Titanic to fool the Germans. I shan't think of the name Rupert in quite the same way again.

Further east was Juno Beach, where the Canadian soldiers played their valiant role in the invasion. There is no cemetery here; in its place is an evocative and simply eloquent memorial consisting of countless names of the dead on blue plaques. On the way to the beach is a grey sculpture showing Paul Verlaine's poem "Chanson d'Automne", which was the signal the BBC used to alert the French resistance to the invasion.

Summertime on the Normandy coast brings out the crowds on the beach, eager to bask in the sun. It also evokes the memory of so many thousands of Allied men and women, whose sacrifice is inescapable.


Images © Adam Batterbee

An evening with Verdi

One by one they introduce themselves, shaking hands. Nabucco, La Traviata, Rigoletto, La Forza del Destino, Otello. I was meeting the members of the Club dei 27, a Verdi appreciation society unlike any other. Every Thursday, they gather in a vaulted wine cellar in Parma, the central Italian city that celebrates the opera maestro in a particularly spirited manner.

Verdi was born 40km away in Busseto, but that’s close enough for the Parmigiani to have adopted the man who changed Italian opera, and was the inspiration behind a wonderfully elaborate opera house that rivals La Scala in Milan.

The men of Club dei 27 – and it’s only men – have been meeting since 1955 over a glass of wine, sharing their love of Verdi and genially arguing over his music. They each take the names of Verdi’s 26 operas – plus his Requiem – which makes the introductions somewhat surreal and sweetly amusing. Un Giorno di Regno (real name: Enzo) ushers me into the vaulted meeting room, where wooden chairs are neatly lined up against the wall. It’s not their usual Thursday, and about a third of them have made a special exception to meet me on a Monday.

As we all shuffle into the room, Un Giorno di Regno says: “This is what we do when we welcome guests.” The lights dim, and the club members line up in front of me. Someone has turned on the CD player, and the sound of the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" from Nabucco seeps gently into the room.

The men begin to sing along to the recording, quietly at first. Their eyes are half closed, moved by the music as it crescendos. I am too, and I can feel my eyes pricking slightly. It is one of the most evocative pieces of music Verdi ever wrote, in which he transposed the 19th-century Italian desire for statehood to biblical times.

I’m still enveloped in the cocoon of sublime music when Un Giorno di Regno tells me about the other work that the Club dei 27 does. Its greatest pride is the education programmes it runs in local schools. Children as young as six are introduced to opera in an entertaining and unintimidating way, which has proved a huge success. Some have gone on to study classical music and opera formally at a conservatoire, Un Giorno di Regno tells me with a beaming smile.

I’m then shown the opera wall of fame, on which stars of the opera world have been given maestro status by the Club dei 27. Singers and conductors have been awarded this honour, some posthumously, others in the room in which I’m standing. These stars, too, are given the same musical welcome I received. I spot Placido Domingo’s photograph on the wall.

“So Placido Domingo was here too? And did you greet him the same way you greeted me?”

“Yes,” the men answer.

“But wasn’t it a bit daunting to sing in front of one of the world’s greatest tenors?”

“No,” says Un Giorno di Regno, in all seriousness. “Singing this aria is like singing our national anthem. We sing it with the same sense of pride, and no fear of who might be listening.”

Opera for the masses indeed.

A visit to Auschwitz

It’s the numbers you can’t take in. The 1,300,000 people murdered systemically at the two main camps at Auschwitz, 90 per cent of them Jews. The numbers of people sent directly to their deaths at the second camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The numbers slowly or quickly tortured and terrorised and worked to death at the first camp set up in 1940 near the Polish village of Oswiecim.

It’s the corridors filled with photographs of the murdered – taken in their striped uniforms and looking dazed. Two Czech identical twin girls who died within two months of each other. Members of the Polish resistance who were betrayed and sentenced to death.

It’s the cells where prisoners were starved to death, or left without oxygen to die slowly. It’s the small wooden bench where prisoners were strapped before being whipped. Beside this barracks is the death wall, where thousands were shot after being tortured.

It’s the infirmary where prisoners who wouldn’t get better were given lethal injections. The inmates called it the crematorium waiting room.

It’s the gas chamber and the ovens.

It’s the look of shock that hits the faces of teenagers on group tours when they reach the room of children’s shoes. The long window case beside this is stacked with suitcases covered with names, dates of birth and addresses of Jews who were told they would be reunited with their belongings as soon as they came out of the showers.

It’s the knowledge that once you leave Auschwitz I and travel 3km to Auschwitz-Birkenau, you leave a camp of torture and sadism to a camp with only one purpose: extermination of the Jewish race. As quickly as possible.

It’s where the railway track goes under the gate of death to the end of the line. It’s covered in snow when I visit, and the biting wind cuts through layers of modern hi-tech winter clothing.

It’s knowing that most of those who survived until January 1945 had died on the death march when the Nazis evacuated the camp.

It’s realising that only 7,500 were found alive by the Red Army.

It’s the numbers you can’t take in. And the evil. 

... In with the new

We decided to see the year out in northern France, with nothing planned beyond booking a hotel room in Boulogne-sur-Mer's old town. The French love New Year's Eve – probably more than Christmas. Time to bring out the oysters, foie gras and champagne, and it's on New Year's Eve – not Christmas – when people sell bunches of mistletoe to be kissed under at midnight. With this in mind, I thought that even a diabolical weather forecast shouldn't get in the way of a fun French new year.

It did, of course – at least in the beginning. The ferry crossing was truly awful as the ship bounced its way across the channel. Thank goodness seasickness disappears the moment you step off a ship.

Most of the old town's restaurants were resolutely shut, or had no plans to stay open for le Réveillon de la Saint-Sylvestre, as New Year's Eve is called in France. Eventually we found Le Parisien, a cosy little place that was taking bookings, albeit with a €5 deposit. Seconds after walking out, we were accosted by a restaurateur we tried earlier but who wasn't opening that evening. He was out of breath. "I tried to stop you. Did you make a booking there?" Well, yes, we did. "Oh God, it's horrible. Really nice owner but the food is terrible. You'll regret it in the morning." Marvellous news.

Still, there was the town to wander round, which we haven't done for many years. Twinkling lights hung everywhere, keeping up the festive air. The mulled wine in Le Français café was delicious, and it was just as entertaining watching the elderly locals file in two by two for their glass of sparkling wine.

Dinner ended up being perfectly adequate – nothing worse than some of the mediocre meals we'd had in France before. As it was only just past 10pm, we headed into the lower town to find a place in which to see in the new year. Bars we had seen open earlier were closing their doors. It wasn't looking promising. We spotted a crowd outside Le Français smoking under the awning. Ah, just the spot. "Soirée privée" said the sign. Oh. The smokers commiserated with us and helpfully pointed out another bar down the road that should be open. "Where are you from? Are you from the region?" We're from Britain. "Eengleesh!" said one woman delightedly. "Oh, they'll let you in. Come on, let's find the owner." Sure enough, the anglophile owner – who had a poster of Princess Diana and Union flag bunting on one wall – was happy to let a couple of strangers loose among what was obviously a close circle of friends.

Hilariously dire French television was broadcasting a cabaret extravaganza as we drank wine and waited until midnight. The bar owner ostentatiously placed a chair under a large bunch of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. Midnight struck and the room erupted in a frenzy of cheek-kissing – four pecks each in this part of France. Not surprisingly it took a while to get to everyone. The person who gets kissed under the mistletoe is guaranteed happiness for the year. I stood under it and my husband gave me the now customary four pecks. "Not like that!" the crowd chorused. "On the lips!"

Another glass of sparkling wine later (on the house) and we left the bar on a tide of goodwill and shouts of "bonne année!". Even the rain had stopped, and we were ridiculously pleased with ourselves for having stumbled into such an unexpectedly delightful New Year's Eve. The glow carried on into New Year's Day, when the sun came out and we joined what looked like half the northern French population  taking a seaside stroll along the promenade in the nearby beach resort of Wimereux. Lunch of mussels and whelks at the Cap Nord restaurant on the seafront was an excellent way to start the year. Even the sea behaved itself and was as smooth as glass on the return crossing.

As so many of my travels have to include meticulous planning ahead, sometimes it can be a joy just to go with the flow.

Out with the old ...

I'm not alone in thinking that New Year's Eve is horribly overrated. Too many expectations, too much hysteria and far too many restaurants charging five times the usual rate for a "special" menu. I like the idea of marking the end of a year and the beginning of a fresh new one, but I'm not so keen on the forced jollity.

The best New Year's Eves are the ones that take you by surprise – when nothing is planned yet everything falls into place. Some years ago when I was living in Bristol, my friends and I were at a loose end one New Year's Eve, having left it too late to sort anything out. The only restaurant table in town was for 7pm. All right, we thought, at least we'll be well fed. Just around the corner from the restaurant was the only pub in town that didn't require buying a ticket in advance – and it had a decent DJ. Great, a bit of dancing would go down well. There we ran into mates who told us about a nearby party hosted by mutual friends. Armed with plenty of booze we had the foresight to buy earlier, we were welcomed with open arms. Snow was falling gently when we walked home at 4am, marvelling at the night sky and pleased we weren't shivering in a horrendous queue for non-existent cabs.

I had the great luck to spend a couple of New Year's Eves skiing in France, and if I had my way (and the budget) I'd do this every year. The French love the occasion even more than Christmas – and why not, when it's another excuse to bring out the oysters and champagne? In a Pyrenean village we joined the party in the local ice skating rink, while people of all ages strolled with streets with bottles of champagne and somehow turned outdoor drinking into a civilised event.

And this year? Well, it's France again, but not quite in a magical mountain setting. We decided on a whim to book a ferry to go to Boulogne on the northern French coast, a place we'd visited many times before – but never on New Year's Eve. A quick trawl through the internet revealed a distinct lack of restaurants that can be bothered to open, and those that are have put on one of those dreaded "special" menus. So we're off with no plans, nothing in place – apart from emergency supplies of cheese, pâté and fizz. The only thing that's certain is the dreadful weather forecast. Wish me luck. And Happy New Year.

Olympics guide to London transport

This summer, London's beleaguered public transport system will be hammered as rarely seen before. The expected mass exodus of the natives to avoid the Olympics is unlikely to happen to any great extent, so millions upon millions of people will have to be squeezed on to our antiquated Underground. This will result in an awful lot of grumpy people (that'll be me, then) muttering in disbelief at tourists' inability to grasp the basics of travelling in London. Here are a few tips to reduce the grumpiness, if only by a smidgeon.

1. How to use the escalator in a Tube station
Patronising title, I know, but believe me, people still need a lesson in this. It all boils down to this: STAND ON THE RIGHT AND KEEP THE LEFT CLEAR FOR PEOPLE TO WALK. Wonderfully simple logic, I know, but hard for many to grasp. It's not just tourists who ignore this, of course. But, really, it's just good manners. That leads me to ...

2. Don't block the entrance
You reach the entrance, or the exit, or the ticket gates, or the train platform, and there they are – a cluster of people who arrive and just stop. And don't move. And then wonder why you're scowling at them as you try to get through the throng. Shuffling over just a few feet will make a difference.

3. How to board a train
More patronising tones, but I'm standing firm on this. A Tube train finally arrives and what do you do? We'll, what you don't do is stand in front of the doors and prevent people from getting off. Because this will just delay your chance to get on the train. Another simple piece of logic routinely ignored. And once you do board, bear in mind that there's a pretty good chance that someone will be behind you and will want to get on the train as well. This is not the signal for you to saunter on and just stand in front of the doors. Expect to get nudged forward, with varying degrees of politeness.

4. A couple of Tube tips
London Underground trains have buttons on the doors that indicate "open". They don't actually do anything. The doors will open automatically. Also, regular Tube passengers are accustomed to a juddering stop-start motion of the train as it tries to leave a station. This means people are leaning too heavily against the doors, which will prevent the train from leaving. So don't lean on the doors. Yes, it is your fault.

5. Other forms of public transport, namely Boris Bikes
London's bike-rental scheme has been a huge success – too much so for many people (yep, me again) who find it considerably more difficult to find a functioning bike now that everyone can rent one easily. The problem is that many people who happily hop on one of these things have no idea of the rules of the road. You wouldn't get in a rental car and blithely ignore the law, yet that's what people do with bikes. Not just naughty, but dangerous. Here are a few basics.

5a. We drive and cycle on the left – gauche – sinistra – links – izquierda – esquerda – levo – etc
That also applies to bike lanes. Do try to bear that in mind. And don't let your kids weave all over the path, even if it's within a park. You might think you're in a safe place, but there are plenty of speeding cyclists (this time not me) who are in a hurry and have little patience with people who get in their way.

5b. Know when to give way to oncoming traffic
When you come to a crossing or any sort of junction and you see broken lines in front of you on the road, that means you do not have right of way. Let other people – be they pedestrians or other cyclists – pass first. I really wouldn't ignore this rule. People will get hurt.

5c. Indicating when you're going to turn would be helpful now and again
Stick the appropriate arm out if you're turning left or right. We can't always read your mind. This inability to indicate applies to cars as well, but that's another story.

What all of these points boil down to is to remember that there are other people travelling with you – in London's case, anything up to nine million people. So take a moment to pay some attention to your surroundings and you might just keep some of the natives (including me) from growling too loudly behind you.

Hotel websites – less is more

It's an easy trap to fall into. A hotel wants to revamp its website and has a quick trawl through the web to see the latest concepts. It finds a web designer who assures the client that all the latest online bells and whistles

will be just the thing to entice potential

guests. The result is a website that is so

teeth-clenchingly annoying that the punter is put off before he even thinks of setting foot in the place.

This is a familiar whinge from travel writers, whose needs are often different from an average holidaymaker. We're usually up against a deadline and need to find basic information very quickly. A phone number, for example. Or an address. These would be quite handy to have on the opening page. Too often they're not. And I don't want to know about a toll-free number that doesn't work for international callers. (US hotels, I'm looking at you.)

But surely travel writers aren't the only people who sit impatiently while an elaborate intro wastes your precious time. If a website gives me the choice to "skip intro", I always will. There's nothing in the intro that shouldn't appear in the main site.

And then there's music. It doesn't belong on hotel websites. End of discussion. No arguments. The mute button goes on at once.

Photo galleries are lovely, useful and all part of the fun. Please make them easier to click through. Don't have each photo open its own window. It's very tiresome.

My biggest bugbear is one that involves a fundamental reason for choosing a particular hotel: the room rates. I want a list of tariffs for all types of rooms and showing the different seasons. A minimum and a maximum. Very simple. What I don't want is to have to input my dates before I'm told what offers fall on those dates. I need to know early on if the hotel is within my price range. Going through the whole inputting-of-dates rigamarole is another time-wasting nuisance. It also doesn't endear me to the hotel, as I automatically assume that it's afraid to be honest in its dealings. Why does price have to be something to hide? I'm fully aware that hotels want to have the flexibility to drop their prices at certain times and will offer incredible discounts. But I'd rather have a reasonably clear indication of the price range to begin with.

When I read flowery prose about the "essence" and the "philosophy" of the hotel, my eyes glaze over. And then I get angry when they neglect to tell me important information about the hotel's layout – such as that new annexe they built that is a 10-minute walk from the hotel.

But all of this matters not a jot when I can't get on to the site to begin with – because it's only in Flash. So that immediately excludes iPhone and iPad users, those people who are being continually bombarded with brilliant new travel apps for their devices. So don't forget to ask that clever web designer to come up with an HTML version too.

I'm curious to hear what experiences hoteliers have had with their websites and how they've affected business. Feel free to pass on your thoughts.