WHEN YOU have fallen in love with the French way of life you are as enchanted to sit outside a village auberge and watch the cows come home as you are to be blinded by the bling at a portside café in St Tropez. In fact, you probably prefer the cows.
Perhaps this is just as well, since the awful truth is that the most popular parts of France are not popular any more with that country’s greatest admirers. When Porsches line the tiny winding streets of “your” village in Provence; when you can buy Marmite and samosas at the Saturday market and the maison de la presse offers Hello! magazine alongside Paris-Match, you know it is time to get on your vélo.
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