We went in March. It is hard to put into words what put us off. There were four of us, all spoke French well and one was a native French speaker. We felt very unwelcome and found many of the locals bad mannered to the point of being hostile. They seem to treat vegetarians with contempt and they made it very hard to order vegetarian meals. We enjoyed meeting the artists and looking at their work but that was the only highlight. We stayed in another part of France afterwards and had a completely different experience, it was much more welcoming.

I forgot to mention that the food was disgusting. Leaving aside the vegetarian issues it was very hard to find anything that was not highly seasoned and 'smelly'. Even their bread was horrible, it is not like ours at all. The only thing that I liked was the mayonaise!

i guess everybody is different... i love Paris and have been many times.. always find someting new to do... Yes it's dirty, noisy, crowded, but i'm a city girl and i love it. Athens and London, Rome, Barcelona are all the same...

I am very surprised that you didn't like the food though justontime!

stav1 wrote:
i guess everybody is different... i love Paris and have been many times.. always find someting new to do... Yes it's dirty, noisy, crowded, but i'm a city girl and i love it. Athens and London, Rome, Barcelona are all the same...

I am very surprised that you didn't like the food though justontime!

Stav I think you have hit the nail on the head, I didn't like the dirty, noisy, crowded aspect. I didn't like the roads and as I said before the people were mostly unfriendly. I am not a city person now, so maybe that played a part in my reaction.

The food was more disgusting than I have had anywhere, even worse than the food in Finnish Lapland and that really is saying something.

You either like cities or you don't methinks. I can understand that. I start getting itchy after a couple of days of 'peace and quiet' in the countryside, and I'm sure all that fresh air isn't good for you...