I agree with you that being Aussie rather than Pom is an amazing advantage in rural France.
We have visited Paris many times but like all big cities, it can be impersonal. You have to be careful of pickpockets in crowded places!
We stayed in a farmhouse (home exchange+ car exchange ) for 2 months. On previous occasions we had motored around for a few weeks at a time and moved on.
Once our neighbours discovered that we were Ossie we were included in all community activities like picking walnuts, tomato sauce making, sport, socials and amazing BBQs
We were even taken on an afternoon plane ride over the italian Alps, north to Switzerland back down over Grenoble and back "home"
We had our bread & cheese delivered 3 times a week by the local lady baker and if we were out, there was a note in the letterbox saying in cryptic english that our usual order was left next door.
And the evening before we left, there was a community social & dinner to see us off where the local Mayor gave a speech on how grateful France was for our Diggers contribution to France's defence in 2 WWs, Two high school kids sat beside us and interpreted
When I hear posters bagging the French about a silly Sub deal that we stuffed up it really concerns me because from my experience, the rural French people we have met have been "the salt of the earth"
Despite walking about 20ks a day, we put on kilos but to our amazement the locals were relatively fit with only the odd one slightly overweight.
