No, no, no! I knew you were going to do it. Yes, all those non-French speaking people please raise your hands. Let me guess, you pronounced the ‘n’ in the word Salon. Well, that’s exactly how I would have done it. I mean, the letter is there. I, just like you, can see it very clearly. But, you made one mistake. You forgot that we are in France now. And maybe you don’t remember that people speak French here. Which means that in the French language, certain letters, in numerous words, are just there to make the word look complete. It doesn’t mean you must actually pronounce the letter.
The letter is like garnish on a plate of food. All of you are familiar with that sprig of parsley adding a touch of green next to the yellow of the lemons when you order fish at a restaurant. Most people will remove the parsley immediately. A few might eat some of it with the fish. While others don’t even notice it.
In the word Salon the ‘n’ is that neglected letter, the garnish of the word. If Salon was spelt without the letter ‘n’ it would just not have looked right. Salo. No, even the spell checker immediately recognizes the word as odd. Anyway, how would one have pronounced it? Say-low? Or maybe, saa-loo. It would have been too confusing. So, I suppose there is a reason why the letter is there - to round off the word, to complete it by giving it an end.
Immediately you want to know how one should pronounce the word. The good news is that it's very simple. Drop the 'n'. No, don’t remove it from the word as I explained above. Just don’t say it. Like this: Sah-loh. Try it again. Very good. Now it's right. You speak French like a true Frenchman, or -woman. I'm relieved that short language lesson is over. Now I can get on with this newsletter.
SALON WEBSITE AND STATISTICS:
Salon-de-Provence is our current hometown. I suppose I'll always refer to Pretoria as my true hometown so I should probably rather call Salon the town in which we now have a home. While we were still living in South Africa, knowing that we would be based in Salon after arriving in France, we wondered what the town was going to be like.
I immediately looked for information on the internet. If any of you are interested to learn a bit more about Salon please visit the following website: http://www.beyond.fr/villages/salon.html. For those of you who are too busy, or not really interested in the site let me give you a brief summary:
- According to the site the town’s population is 34 054. Well, after we arrived it is now 34 058. Which means it’s not a small village but also not too big a town.
- The altitude here is only 90 meters above sea level.
- Nearby towns are Aix-en-Provence (32km), Cavaillon (24km), Marseille (49km) and Avignon (50km). There are numerous other small villages very close to Salon.
- Initially, as far back as the 12th century, Salon was fortified around a hilltop fortress called Chateau de l’Empéri, which is a well-preserved and partly restored castle.
- Salon’s biggest claim to fame is the fact that Michel de Nostredame, popularly known as Nostradamus, lived here for the last 19 years of his life. There is a museum in town in the house where he stayed before his death in 1566. Apparently many of his famous future predictions were written there, just down the road from where we live.
WHAT SALON IS REALLY LIKE:
Not even a week after our arrival in France, while still staying in Aix-en-Provence, we came to Salon for a visit one hot sunny afternoon. Not one of us knew what to expect from the town since we had never visited it before. Was it going to be horrible? To be honest, few towns in France are ugly, but believe me when I tell you that some of the more industrial towns are not very attractive. Was this going to be one of those towns? We hoped that it wouldn’t be, that it would at least be a fairly attractive town in which one could feel comfortable. After all, the word ‘salon’ means lounge, sitting room or living room. Were we going to find room to live here?
We entered town from the South and drove slowly down a wide boulevard lined with massive plane trees. Although many people were strolling on the sidewalks the roads were fairly quiet. People are away on holiday, we thought. Now, we know that Salon never gets too busy. Obviously there are times when peak traffic congests the roads but you learn to take alternative roads or your bicycle when you travel around town during those times.
After we found parking easily (which, I can assure you, is not the case in many French towns) we walked around the town’s centre where pedestrian walkways make it very pleasant and safe to walk. Since Salon as a whole is not too big the centre of town is also quite small. And, although it isn’t as stylish as Aix-en-Provence it is pretty in a typically Provencal way. One still finds smaller shops in the heart of town, including the bakery, bookshops, clothes and jewellery stores, take away food shops as well as several sidewalk cafés with tables lined up next to the narrow street.
On Wednesdays there is a big market on a parking site in town that is still a free parking area on the other days of the week. On Sunday there is another smaller market next to a park in the centre of town. While we explored Salon during our first visit we immediately started liking the town, were relieved that we didn’t end up in Dumpville.
Salon’s size is one of the most attractive aspects of it. Although it’s big enough to provide all necessary shops and services it is still small enough to give it the feeling of a bigger rural town. One can walk or cycle nearly everywhere. From where we live it takes only about 15 minutes to walk to the centre of town.
Another reason why we enjoy living here is the town’s location. It’s relatively close to many other interesting towns and villages. Access to and from Salon is also very easy. We live in the North of town and it takes us about a minute, if not less, to drive out of town into the countryside. We are discovering many small roads that are a welcome alternative to the national roads or the busy toll roads.
We live in a quiet neighbourhood where we don’t have too many neighbours with dogs. I can assure you that I don’t miss the annoying dogs of the neighbours we had in South Africa. There is no through traffic on our street and it is safe for the children to cycle around the block.
Even though Salon is predominantly a worker’s and middle class town you find all and any type of people here. In general the people are pleasant and seem to live life with a ‘live and let live’ attitude.
Although we have only lived here for two months we have already adopted Salon as our new home. It is a pleasant town to live in and the better we get to know it the more I believe we will like it. What is also funny is that the house we are staying in has got a really big living room for a French house. So, it seems like we’ll have enough room to live in after all.
With that I greet you,
All the best,
André
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