Notes on France
This item appears on page 55 of the October 2014 issue.
I have just read my first issue of ITN, which I received unsolicited, and have just subscribed.
• I loved the article by the 16-year-old about her stay in Montpellier and that region of France (Aug. ’14, pg. 38), which I’m very familiar with. It is probably our favorite part of the world.
My wife and I have visited Montpellier about six times, four times staying for a week in the nearby village of Montpeyroux, near the town of Clermont-l’Hérault. Our last visit was in 2013, when we stayed in a self-catering gîte (vacation rental home) owned by an English couple.
The gîte is called A Place in the Vines (Montpeyroux, France; phone +33 [0] 4 67 44 49 14, www.aplaceinthevines.com) because it is completely surrounded by vineyards.
One place the author missed was La Couvertoirade, an ancient walled town very similar to Carcassonne but much smaller and far less crowded. I would skip Carcassonne for that town any day.
It is so great to know that young teenagers are venturing out on their own to foreign countries and learning from their experiences. So few do, especially from the USA.
When I was nine years old, living in England, I used to travel alone to visit my grandmother. This involved a short walk followed by a local bus ride followed by a 2- to 3-hour train ride, a journey on the London underground and, finally, another short walk. If I were to do that as a 9-year-old today, my parents would probably be arrested.
• I was pleased to see a no-holds-barred article about pickpockets in Paris and elsewhere in Europe (Aug ’14, pgs. 2, 67). In my almost 70 years of travel, I have been pickpocketed twice in Paris, not counting an attempt in the Métro that I foiled.
I fail to understand why the police there are so powerless. As an experiment six or seven years ago, I once spent about 20 minutes in the Gare du Nord RER station looking around to see if I could see any pickpockets. I had no trouble identifying about half a dozen, actually seeing two of them attempt hits (both failed). If I could do this, why can’t the police?
• Oh, and I completed the crossword (pg. 71) in no time flat.
DAVID SELLEY, Toronto, Ontario, Canada