France

 After the last several days in France I can say it is not my favorite country.  Of course there are croissants and pane a chocolate but those are the positives. 

Things I wish were better that have to be endured.  Small hotel rooms.  We have been staying in upscale hotels but there is no place to unpack and no place to put a second suitcase. Clearly this is probably a problem with my travel style not France

Second up air conditioning.  There is no way to cool the room to a comfortable sleeping temperature   The thermostat will read 19 C and it feels like 25C.    Of course it got down to the 40’s at night and we would have the windows open. This is definitely and upside over US hotels. 

Train travel.   Why is France the only country to require seat reservations. This is over and above ticket prices. This adds from $12 to $52 to each ticket. This was unexpected and I didn’t plan the trip well enough to know what time and which train I wanted to take.  A seat reservation makes it impossible to change your itinerary. 

Impatience of many of the clerks or wait persons. This is primarily due to my inability to speak the language so perhaps it isn’t a France problem and I should work at being bilingual??  

So will I be back?  Probably as I would like to see some of the cities of the French Rivera and this trip was a search for wine I still haven’t found the Cabernet I was expecting. I will probably need to work on some additional French vocabulary before we return 

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