That is certainly a refreshing view! A british writer talking about the relaxed ways of driving in France. I shall bookmark the page, though in all fairness, you must have been exceptionally lucky, especially round le peripherique… This post hit a spot with me as I am from the very Massif Central region and indeed, the A71/75 is a very relaxed highway though it can be quite hectic at times. Le viaduc de Millau is effectively an exceptional piece, I believe the highest bridge in the world in its category. Certainly beats the Ryanair experience for sure .

Best,

Herve
http://www.bloospring.com

Barga is not a town (or a village as is often quoted)It is a City .. the smallest city in Italy in fact.

It is a champion of ‘slow food’ and yes wild porcini mushrooms and chestnut flour based foods are all locally grown but this is not a truffles area. There are some but they are low quality and generally overlooked or ignored.

There are no cobbled backstreets in Barga Vecchia. Cobbles are smaller rounded stones. The streets of Barga are all much larger dressed stone.

As for your final line mentioning “the sleepy town’s modest annual jazz festival” … maybe you should come and see for yourself just how sleepy this city actually is in the summer.

We have an internationally known and well respected opera festival – Opera Barga and the long running Barga Jazz Festival which brings in Jazz musicians of such international standing as Lee Konitz, David Liebman and last year, Tom Harrell. This year the festival will have as its guest Steve Swallow.

Added to which each summer there are more than 30 art exhibitions including painters of such standing as John Bellany (who incidentally has his own gallery here), book signings, classic music concerts, traditional sagra and religious processions.

Please call in on the barganews.com site and have a look at just what goes on there each summer, you will, I promise be surprised, a) by the quality and b) by the quantity

I will refer it to my friends.

Cheers