Your French Escape: Le Joli Mois de Mai, a Village & a Paris View
Inside this FREE Substack: May Day in France, a lovely village in Alsace, and a photo to make you dream of Paris.
Bienvenue to your FREE weekly newsletter!
Bonjour mes amis!
What a pleasure to have you back with me today – Sunday, 4 May 2025! We have officially entered “le joli mois de mai”!
In this free edition, you’ll:
Learn about the “joli” month of May in France 🌿
Discover my French village of the week 🇫🇷
See a beautiful photo I’ve selected to make you dream of Paris 📸
✨ Stay tuned for the PAID subscriber edition next Wednesday:
“May in Provence: What Caught Our Eye – and Might Catch Yours Too”
This is what we found, and why you might want to go next Spring!
Last Wednesday, I shared my post “That Day I Shouldn’t Have Picked Lilies of the Valley in the Forest”. Curious? You can still read it!
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Enjoy and à bientôt!
Pierre
This is May in France: Le Joli Mois de Mai
There’s something about May in France that doesn’t behave like any other month.
It’s not just spring — it’s something messier, more beautiful, and slightly unpredictable.
One minute you’re drinking chilled rosé on a sunlit terrace, the next you’re watching snow fall on cherry blossoms (true story — it happened to me in the Alps).
Shops close without warning, train stations fill up for no clear reason, and strangers hand you tiny white flowers wrapped in foil and say, “C’est pour le bonheur.”
Meanwhile, the country is half-asleep, half on strike, and entirely alive.
It’s a month of contrasts — soft light and sudden storms, sacred processions and street protests, folk songs and old women warning you not to plant your tomatoes just yet.
I’ve lived it again and again. And this time, I wrote it all down.
The stories, the signs, the sayings.
The rhythm of a month where France seems to slip into a dream — a bit chaotic, a bit poetic, and entirely irresistible.
French Village of the Week: Beblenheim, Alsace
Tucked just off the bustling Alsace Wine Route, the little village of Beblenheim feels like a secret whispered among the vines.
I remember arriving there on a warm summer afternoon, not expecting much—and being immediately charmed.
Flower-laden half-timbered houses, some dating back to the 16th century, peered out from the edge of the vineyards like old friends waiting to tell their stories.
It’s peaceful today, postcard-perfect even, but it wasn’t always so.
During the bitter winter of 1944, the village was nearly wiped out in the fierce battles of the Colmar Pocket.
Rebuilt with care and love, Beblenheim now stands as a quiet symbol of Alsace’s resilience—and its irresistible beauty.
And then, there’s the legend.
Because, of course, a place this picturesque couldn’t exist without a legend…
They say that Noah’s Ark didn’t land on Mount Ararat after all, but right here, on the sun-drenched hill of the Sonnenglanz.
Apparently, even the Patriarch knew good wine when he tasted it.
And so “Bab el Noem”—Noah’s Gate—eventually gave rise to Beblenheim.
Coincidence? I’ll let you be the judge…
Photo of the Week: Shakespeare & Co. in Paris
A perfect spring morning on the Left Bank of Paris... Just across the Seine from Notre-Dame, tucked beneath blooming cherry trees, stands the world’s most famous English-language bookshop: Shakespeare and Company.
I arrived so early that morning, the streets were still quiet and the shutters were closed — the shop hadn’t opened yet.
And honestly, I was glad of it. For a few precious minutes, I had the place to myself.
No queue, no tourists, just the sound of birds and the scent of blossoms, as if the books inside were still dreaming.
But behind that green-and-yellow façade lies a treasure trove of stories — not just on the shelves, but in the walls themselves.
The shop was founded in 1951 by George Whitman, an American with a bohemian heart and a love of literature.
The building, a former 17th-century monastery, still carries echoes of quiet contemplation.
George liked to call himself the frère lampier, the monk who lights the lamps at dusk.
Originally named Le Mistral, the shop became Shakespeare and Company in 1964 — a tribute to the original bookstore founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, just a few streets away.
Her shop had once welcomed the likes of Joyce, Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald. George wanted to revive that same spirit of literary camaraderie.
And he did. From Allen Ginsberg to James Baldwin, from Anaïs Nin to Henry Miller, the list of writers who passed through these doors reads like a who's who of 20th-century literature.
Even today, the shop offers shelter to young writers and travellers, letting them sleep among the books in exchange for a few hours’ help and a promise to read a book a day.
They’re called the Tumbleweeds — and yes, it’s all real.
🇫🇷 Fancy learning French with a personal touch?
Whether you’re just starting out or want to brush up before your next trip to France, I offer online French lessons via Google Meet — 40 minutes of relaxed, friendly conversation, sprinkled with helpful grammar tips and cultural insights.
I already work with wonderful learners from the US, the UK and Australia — and I’d be delighted to welcome you too.
You’ll find all the details on my website. 👇
Or simply reply to this email and say bonjour — I’d love to hear from you!
I've never put words on it as Pierre does so nicely but yes, May is somehow a chaotic month in France. We once had significant snowfall here in Aveyron over the May 1st weekend, and I've always known our spring weather to be capricious at best, and downright lousy at worst.
And then there is whether it's a good year -- like this one! -- for "les ponts" (long weekends) or one of those awful years where the 1st and the 8th of May are on Saturdays or Sundays.
And can't it occasionally turn out that Ascension Thursday falls on the 8th of May, or some such? I may be wrong on that, but it seems there has been some sort of doubling up of the May holidays at some point in my time here.
a lovely tribute to the month of May in France, merci Pierre! when I was a student in vet school in Toulouse, I loved May so much that I usually chose to enjoy myself, so I'd fail half of my exams at the end of the school year in May-June, and retake them in the following September of the same year.
I never actually had to do a year over; I found it easier to study in the summer months when everyone was gone. Needless to say, I got a bit of reputation for being a "bohemian" while I was in school 🙂.
Also really enjoy your Alsace vignettes as I lived in Alsace for 11 years. I "escaped" to Touraine (I must tell that story one day) and have been here in the Loire Valley ever since.
Au plaisir de découvrir tes prochains textes...