#SFATW: What I Love About France and Alsace

Good morning, good afternoon, good night everyone! How are you? I hope you had a wonderful week. I’m back today and very, very excited (but also slightly nervous) to kick off this Souvenirs From Across The World feature!

For those of you unaware of what it is, here’s a quick recap: Souvenirs From Across The World (SFATW) is a feature created to get to know each other a bit better, especially where we are all from, share a bit of our countries, cities, cultures, traditions, writers, authors. The main goal of Souvenirs From Across The World is to create a link between all bloggers, from everywhere, and to share a bit of the diversity that makes everyone unique on the blogosphere.
➡️ For more info on the feature, it’s here.
➡️ To see the themes for the upcoming SFATW blog posts, it’s here!

This month’s theme is Things I love about my country and/ or hometown. If you didn’t know it by now, I am French (yes, I have an accent and everything… ugh), and I’m living in a lovely region called, Alsace. I already took you more than once to my hometowns (here, and here), and today I will both focus on the country as a whole, and on Alsace because we have some pretty unique things as well. So, WHY do I love my country, I asked myself, and DAMN this was a hard question to answer, but I managed to find a couple reasons. And I’ll make a list, because let’s LOVE LISTS.

Reason 1: FOOD

Okay, I don’t know if it’s the best thing to start with, but I will do it anyway, because if there’s one thing I LOVE unconditionally about my hometown, and my country as a whole, it’s food. Or, gastronomie, as we say it in French. Anytime I am travelling, I’m thrilled to come back home to eat baguette, fromage (cheese) and just ALL THE FOOD. Since I’m very, very nice, I’ll obviously give you some mouth-watering pictures of some specialties…

Top: croissants and other French pastries, cheese soufflé / Bottom: Ratatouille, French Cheese, macaroons. (None of these photos are mine, all credits to the owners)

I’m not going to stay on that point very long, because next month’s theme is ALL FOOD RELATED -and I’ll give you some French recipies and secrets and ALL THE GLORIOUS FOOD IN THE WORLD. So, onto reason number two!

Reason 2: Architecture, monuments, and things to stare at occasionally

If everything doesn’t look like it’s right out of a fairytale – as some people would naively think, I have to admit that somedays, I feel pretty lucky to live in a place where, wherever I go, I’m always surprised by the architecture….and the monuments.

I will be very, very honest here. The Eiffel Tower is just one just tower made of metal. So what makes it so impressive, and how come everytime I look at it I feel… little and overwhelmed? Ugh, crazy.

I could quote all the parisian monuments but… okay. Just one more.

The Sacré Coeur, in Paris.

Why don’t we STOP talking about Paris and highlight some lovely wonders of other places?

Saint Paul’s Church, Strasbourg, France.

The Château d’Eau, Montpellier, France.

La Petite Venise (The Little Venice), Colmar, France.

Reason 4: DIVERSITY

I know, we keep on praising diverse books, well let me get the hang of this and apply it to my own country because, erm, WHY NOT? I love the diversity of landscapes we have in France. North, South, East, West, nothing really is alike, in the architecture, the streets, the people, the monuments, the places, climate… Everything slightly changes, and I love it.

You have the typical little narrow streets of the South of France, sometimes with stairs and just overall cuteness.

The lovely, very hot yet slightly crowded beaches in the summer…

The colorful houses from my hometown…

The typical red bricks houses from the North of France…

The places inspiring ghost and fantasy stories…

Squares with stunning architecture…

And so on…

Reason 5: Lifestyle

I don’t know if we French people are lazy, or bothering. We’re supposed to love going on strike (not really), complain A LOT (…okay, I’ll give you that), drink lots of wine (…okay, I know some people), walk around with bérets on our heads, and girls having a crazy French gorgeous wardrobe (no, and…not so much either).

I’m no Cinderella, I don’t even own a béret,  and I’d rather spend my money on books than spend 1000 €, dollars or whatever on a pair of shoes. THAT BEING SAID, I have a nice compliment coming here, and something I love about France: it’s basically, I’ll call it, the lifestyle.

It’s how we have one-hour lunch break at least when we’re working. How we are allowed much more days-off (…yes, fingers crossed it stays this way). How we LOVE to meet around for café, dinner, how we love to reunite for holidays with the family, and gather for Christmas and other celebrations together, around a great table filled with food, wine (yes), baguette, cheese and every French-cliché-food you can think of.

It’s also how, here in France, we have a special law protecting books. The price of books, actually, limiting the discount on books. Because I love books. Though I wouldn’t be against more English bookshops.

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Alright, I hope you enjoyed this little blog post starting the SFATW feature, and that you’ll want to write about this as well! More bookish, food and fun subjects are coming with this feature, so stay tuned and THANK YOU for reading!

What do YOU love about your country and your hometown? Anything special about it you’d like to share? Let’s chat in comments! 💬

➡️ Are you participating in this month’s SFATW blog post? YOU CAN! You have until October 9th to write your own blog post on that theme, and don’t forget to come back here and share the link in comments!

Dailey Downing 🌎 the Finger Lakes region of New York State, USA
Jamie Wu @ Watch Game Read 🌎 Malaysia
Pamela @ A Writer’s Tales 🌎 Ecuador
Emma Kath @ Llady Literary 🌎 Canada
Salha @ The Journeys of a girl 🌎 Ecuador
Zoë @ Letters on the wind 🌎 Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Tyra Anne @ Green Gables 🌎 Canada
Jesalin @ JBelkBooks 🌎 California, USA
Anne @ InkedBrownies🌎 The Efteling, The Netherlands
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