Friday, December 22, 2006

Kissing in Cherbourg (Normandie, France)

Another town I visited during my holidays in Normandie was Cherbourg, an important harbour in the Cotentin paeninsula. I went there to visit an interesting Fine Arts Museum and stayed there only a couple of hours, but this let me learn a little about the practice of the bise in Cherbourg. You could imagine it is similar to that in Bayeux, couldn't you? Well, you will be wrong. For what I have seen, the most spread number of cheek-kisses was four. I remember a pretty girl who kissed an elder man four times. I also saw people exchange two bises and others just one, but one kiss looked as the most unusual option.
In a small village in the internal part of Normandie, called L'Aigle (The Eagle in English), I saw people exchange three or four kisses, the latter being the most frequent.
In both cases, I couldn't observe many people who practised this gesture, but this can already provide clear evidence of how much the French kissing custom varies not only from region to region but, I would say especially, within the same region. That is why la bise is the most puzzling custom even for the French!