France is one of the most preferred destinations worldwide for holidaying or even exploring. The iconic Eiffel tower, the scenic Louvre museum, the style city of Paris and fashionista figurines dotting the country’s landscape are major attractions. But the other, unexplored domains of this beautiful land can provide surprises galore with exquisite offerings. Check out the following lesser known facts about France that will seriously awe you with its weirdly exclusive realities.
FRENCH IDEALS OF ROMANCE
- France is probably the only country, or rather the only entity that grants you permission to marry a dead person. The only requirement- you need to be able to prove that your to-be now deceased partner was also interested in you before the loss of life. The French President will go out of his way to make your wedding dream a reality!
- Love is for sure a French emotion! French laws not only allow you to marry posthumously but can also grant you divorce on grounds of ‘intellectual’ infidelity. So smoking excessively or playing too much soccer and indulging in phone sex can all drag you out of wedlock.
- But even with so much love abounding in the romantic French environs, it’s still illegal to kiss while aboard a train in the country.
- Piggy love in France sure does not exceed the extent of emotions for Napoleon. There is a law which prohibits people from calling their pigs after the famous Frenchman.
- France has the highest number of depressed people. Not even affection can save you from emotional bankruptcy, it seems!
FOOD MATTERS
- Pro tip for obtaining your coffee at a discount while in France. Be polite and meet and greet people before placing your preference.
- Baguette might be a simple three ingredient preparation, but handling it is not so fuss free. Turn one bread stick upside down and you will land up in serious bad luck.
- France can be bizarre at times. Who else would make potato illegal?? France would, between 1748- 1772, as they found this much loved veggie to be at the root of the life threatening leprosy.
- The first and perhaps the only country that forbade supermarkets from throwing away food, France commands our respect for making it mandatory to donate the day’s unsold stuff to charity food houses.
- France is home to 1200 different kinds of cheese. Though the official number is pegged at around 400-500, there are actually different varieties within the same kind that serve to inflate the actual figure.
ODDBALLS
- April Fools’ Day in France might be ‘celebrated’ with children trying to stick paper fish to your back, while calling you out as a ‘Poisson d’Avril’ (April Fish)!
- With 28 UNESCO World Heritage Sites to uphold tourists preference for France as a travel destination, the country is a true aesthetic delight.
- Even with picturesque locations and its reputation as a fashion destination, Paris sometimes fails to live up to expectations as a truly spectacular locale, which leads to a strange ‘affliction’ specially among the Japanese people who get drowned in the Paris Syndrome.
- Ironically, Paris chooses to refer to its oldest bridge as Pont Neuf, or “new bridge”!
- Paris in France has a rather unique ‘event’. Jam Haynes from the national capital has been inviting total strangers for dinner every week for the past 30 years. Don’t forget to book yourself a seat at an upcoming dinner of this one of its kind ‘carnival’, details of which you will get here.
- Also,pants were illegal till 2012. France for you!
- And if you have wondered about the Paris Syndrome, brace yourself for a more unusual phenomenon that has actually been considered as a epidemic. The Dancing Plague of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that afflicted Strasbourg, Alsace, in the Holy Roman Empire in July 1518. Close to a few hundred people collapsed or even died after health concerns that arose out of dancing for days without rest.
- Adrenaline addicts in France can buy a basic kidnap package where they’ve bundled away, bound and gagged, and kept incarcerated for four hours. Clients have no idea when the kidnappers will strike in order to maximize the surprise.
- The French has been a digitally advanced nation as well. With an early version of the internet called Minitel as long back as 1984, Frenchmen could pay bills and shop at home using the Minitel service.
Viva la France!
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