Monday, April 11, 2011

Ode to Sainté


While my post on canine landmines was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I really do like Sainté. When I first started teaching, my students would always ask me what I thought of Sainté. Not knowing the town all that well, I'd say I like it well enough. And I do:
  • I'm glad to not be in a village of 500 people. 
  • I also find that for a town of 180,000 residents, it has a pretty vibrant cultural life.  There's an Opéra-Théâtre, more than one theatre, an art house/foreign language cinema and more.
  • I find that the city, if not les citoyens, try hard to beautify it: they plant numerous flower beds around town, have made the main town square pedestrian-only, and are trying to encourage transit and vélib use.
For all the drawbacks of a small town, I tell my students it could be worse.  And that being from a small town is a blessing in disguise.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great piece on St-E,can't wait to pay a visit to St-E. It seems to be a very nice little town.

Vanessa said...

I'm trying to think of Canadian towns of 180,000 or less with as vibrant culture, but none come to mind. I think 180,000 is "metro" Sainté because we have a municipal police force and I read those were only for communes -10,000..

ANKA said...

Charlottesville has 175,000 and I find it has a far more vibrant culture!

Vanessa said...

If I recall, the France 2010 Lonely Planet guide actually includes Saint Etienne, only to diss it completely, saying it is a "dreary place whose only redeemable quality is its museum of modern art."