Paradoxes, greves, regulations ...but this is La France!

Visiting France is a mixture of wonderful food, lovely scenery and pretty villages full of old cottages you would just love to have as a holiday home or to retire to!  It does have some paradoxes and foibles, but it wouldn't be France without them!  While the country is full of football fans of varying degrees from hooligans (UK, Russia, Czech just to name a few) to just your normal people on holiday abroad and taking in a few matches for Euro 2016, it seemed an opportune time for the President to instigate a major change to industrial laws that have upset more than a few activist unions across the country.  They have responded with strikes, protests, shutting down some trains and oil refineries and even the police threatened to strike too!  The unions want to keep the 35 hour week, jobs for life and oppose laws which make it easier for employers to sack people or change their conditions...even if you are a train driver who apparently can retire at 52 and gets more than 100 days holiday a year! Tax is paid by individuals once or twice a year and not deducted from your pay and the cost of employing people puts many small businesses off and thus less tax is paid. C'est la France!  Vive la Revolution!

Luckily we have had no problems getting around during this time with the only inconvenience being a 2 hour wait in Paris for our AirBnB host to drive 3 kms through a large protest at nearby Montparnasse on Tuesday.  We were well entertained by all the police cars and the sapeurs pompiers racing everywhere, sirens blaring and the helicopters circling overhead. Great to catch up with Perth friends for a couple of days and do some of the sights with them.

Sacre Coeur - the place to view Paris

On the Champs Elysee - specially for Molly!

Lots of people ride bikes in Paris including these Paris hire bikes

 Driving in France is pretty easy with an extensive network of autoroutes and major roads and plenty of roundabouts to join them all together, handy when you take the wrong turn and need to do the u turn!  The autoroutes are toll roads and we have gotten used to negotiating the occasional toll booth or peage having driven about 2000kms so far around Northern France. Speed limit on these major roads is 130 kms, down to 110kms if it is wet.  Think we should try raising the limit on the Forrest Highway??

We have now moved south, with a quick visit to Geneva this weekend and then back to explore Lyon tomorrow and further points south before Nice in ten days or so. Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit and the cloudy skies will clear too.

One of a row of gardens in one of the main shopping streets in Geneva - pumpkin or runner beans anyone?

 

 

 

And finally, on a sleepy Sunday when most shops and cafes are closed in Geneva, this long-suffering lion caught my eye!