Where was your first visit to France?
It is hard to remember now. I think it must have been when I was about ten and travelled with my parents to “the Continent” for a holiday. We were on a coach tour en route for Italy. Along the way we made many stops over several days in France, including Paris, Lyon, the French Riviera. I remember whizzing through the Alps and how afraid my mother was that the driver would miss one of the hairpin bends and we would go flying off the narrow mountain road. I remember the stunning scenery, so dramatic, in the mountains; the long lunches where children did not have to sit still and not make a sound; I remember church bells tolling; I remember descending towards the glistening Mediterranean sea for the first time. We had climbed so high into the Alps and from my child’s eye, it was all to give us that first long-distance glimpse, that astounding perspective on where land slips beneath turquoise water. The white Belle Epoque villas like giant sugar cubes; the yachts; the cries of families playing in the sea; the wash of waves. Monte Carlo where, my mother told me, a Prince and Princess lived in a palace on a cliff-top looking out to sea. It was all magical.
Multi-award winning actress and best-selling author Carol Drinkwater talks to Janine Marsh about her passion for France...
"Long lunches where children do not have to sit still and not make a sound..."
Fontaine de Vaucluse Provence, credit Bjorn Stumer