I’m taking a short vacation this week — short by French standards, anyway, with 3 days off before the weekend. In my current job, I get 25 base holidays, 1.5 extra holidays due to length of time with the company, 2 “bridge” days, 4 employee RTTs and 6 employer RTTs, for a total of 38.5 paid holidays. Per year. The “bridge” days are to be used when there’s a national holiday on a Tuesday or a Thursday — you can take the Monday or the Friday as a “bridge” (pont). RTT stands for réduction du temps de travail and is related to the 35-hour legal work week in France. Since we work 39 hours a week at our offices, we recover that overtime with extra paid holidays, called “RTTs”. Some are “employee”, i.e. can be used at employee discretion, whereas others are “employer”, i.e. only the employer can set them for the employee, up until October, when the employee can then use them at will. These are mainly used for any unassigned time, since we’re consultants and sometimes, though rarely, don’t have a mission. As for sick days, the concept as used in the US does not exist in France, since if you’re ill enough, a doctor will give you an official form (arrêt maladie) for the number of days you need to stay at home. You’re always paid for those days, and regular paid holidays are only affected by sick days if you miss a large amount of work due to illness (after something like 2 or 3 months’ worth, they might take off a few paid holidays).

So in short, I’m using a few of those 38.5 paid days off to relax! Tomorrow I’ll be taking a day excursion to Corsica, and thought I might share how I pack for day trips in this part of the world. I only take one bag, which is my camera bag. In it I put:
- my camera with a fully-charged battery
- lens cleaning tissue
- my mobile phone, also with a fully-charged battery
- sunglasses
- fold-up brush with mirror (it’s surprising how handy a mirror can come in)
- small packet of tissues, because I’ve had it happen often enough that public restrooms had no toilet paper!
- a few bandages and aspirin just in case
- small wallet — not my usual one — with just one bank card, my carte Vitale (French national health care card), one piece of ID, and a bit of cash (not much)
- prepaid bus card for travel to and from the boat (or train or plane)
- keys to my home, of course
- a pen (always seem to use it when I bring one)
- an extra, small fold-up bag for any purchases

In addition I carry:
- a bottle of water
- snacks

The bottle of water is important, because when traveling in France, you can count on bottled water prices to be much higher than in any regular supermarket. The boat to Corsica is fast, but still takes 2 hours and 45 minutes — you don’t want to be stuck on a boat without anything to drink and where a small bottle of water is sold for €1.50, when you can get them in stores for around 30 cents, or fill your own bottle at home for free!

This way you have a minimal amount to carry, making it easier to explore unencumbered, much easier to keep an eye on your things, and yet you have the right necessities to ensure that all will be well in case anything goes awry.

Photos from my excursion will likely be up on Friday.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday 5 August 2009 at 16:35 and is filed under Journal, La France, Travel. Tags for this entry: , France, holiday. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.