There are many good things about France that trace their origin back to Napolean – and the zillions of kilometers of streets in the south of France, lined by plane trees carefully planted to give shade to army troops, is one of them.
Here is as artistic a snap as I thought I could take of a street in the southern French village of Beaucaire, lined with plane trees:
If you think they are all leaning to the right, you’d be right. This part of France lives under the so-called Mistral wind, a wind of up to nearly 75 km/hr that forces trees to grow tilted. I visited in the winter, and there were numerous times I had to stop the Euro Cruiser, my minivan, because the wind gusts were too strong to safely drive.