I was down in the very south of France in like Toulouse and Bordeaux and Aix-en-Provence during the summer and it got really hot, like really hot. It was 44 degrees celsius for a couple weeks at a time which translated to like 108 degrees fahrenheit.
In Paris, it can rain crazy during, you know, like the spring and the fall, even like the winter seasons. And then during the summers, it can get really hot. And in Paris, you have to, you know, like ride the subway every time. And there's a lot of people, it gets really crowdy, and, you know, the smell of sweat and everything. It's, you know, it's pretty hot in the summers. And, you know, it rains a lot too. So we kind of got both polar opposites over there.
The weather was something about France that I really, really, really loved and enjoyed. I loved it because there were all four seasons. The spring was beautiful, fall was pretty, the leaves would change, and I was in a really pretty area during fall. Summer was extremely, extremely hot because I was in the south and so it was very hot and humid, but it is a little bit more humid in in southern France depending on where you're at. Some places are more humid than others. You're going to have really hot days, really freezing cold days, and then you'll have a lot of perfect temperature, 75 degree days, and it's beautiful and the absolute best. So I couldn't really complain much about about the weather there.
The south of France is typically pretty warm, especially during the summer. During the winter it can get a little bit cold, but during one particular kind of winter, springtime, we had a really bad cold front. It was like this Siberian wind that was coming through, so it brought a lot of cold air, but also even brought some snow to some places that don't normally snow. And the result of that was kind of crazy. All the snow melted in the next few days, and the freeways were just kind of flooded, so some sections were completely closed off. There were all these big semi-trucks that couldn't even move, well they couldn't get through the floods, they couldn't pull over, whatever it was. So we had all these crazy experiences driving through snow, driving around just these lines, miles of semi-trucks just stacked up on the freeway. And that's because south of France doesn't know how to deal with snow.
In the south of France, it can get very hot. In Perpignan, it got up to one day 47 degrees Celsius, which is about 121 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was doing what's known as the Canicule, which is just an extreme heat wave that usually comes each year in normally July or August, and yeah, it's very intense, especially not having air conditioning. So yeah, if you're in the south during the summer, in places like Perpignan, Nîmes, Marseille, Avignon, places like that, it can get extremely hot.
When I was on the coast in northern France in Calais, and Calais, like I said, it's right, you know, it's where the Channel comes out, right on the English Channel. And while there, it was during the winter, it rained and it rained and it rained for an entire day and it poured on us. I was wearing a red tie at the time. And when I came in at the end of the day, to change, it had rained so much that the dye from my red tie had actually gone into my white shirt and gone about halfway down my shirt. Needless to say, I don't wear that tie anymore. But it was something that, you know, was funny and amusing at the time.
In the south of France, usually it's very hot, especially during spring and summer. I was there during summer when we had the heat wave and that was extremely hot. Also, be prepared that you can go out when it's very sunny and warm and then after like 10 minutes it can get very rainy and cold, so be prepared for that.
In the south of France, during the summer, it's really, really hot. So, actually there's a lot of canicules, that's what we call it in French. So you better have a hat, sunscreen, and just drink a lot of water because it gets really, really hot there.
I'd say most of it is pretty mild. It doesn't, I mean it snows in some places and it gets kind of cold and it gets hotter in the summer but it's never anything too extreme. I think the most unique weather that I experienced was when I lived in, I was served in a city called Caen and it was up in Normandy and in Normandy, especially towards like the fall winter time, it rains all the time. So there was like periods just where it would rain constantly every single day and so other than that, it was pretty mild but I think that was the most unique, was just how much rain we got while we were there.
So weather-wise, France is a lot like, I'd say a lot like Seattle, which is where I'm from. It rains a lot in the winter. I remember when I was serving in Paris, there would be some days where the morning it'd be really nice out, and then by the evening it would just, it would be as if the sky was falling down. It was raining so hard, there'd be thunder, lightning, almost like little flash floods. So be prepared for rain. I bought raincoats there. Also, it can get pretty cold in the winter, but do not, don't buy a coat from the United States and bring it there. Wait till you're in France and buy a winter coat there because they're just better quality and they look more French, more stylish.
Something I was shocked by was how much wind there was. In two of my cities I literally would like get blown away by the wind. I didn't really buy any winter stuff until I was there, just because my first winter I stayed in the south so I was super warm. There was a little bit of some like cold days, but it's just easier to buy a coat there and like buy some scarves. French people believe in scarves, you better wear them.