Not just witches and pumpkins

Half of the road outside the main city cemetery in Castres has been temporarily redesignated as a parking area. The reason? The strong French tradition of visiting family graves at Toussaint, All Saints' Day, on 1 November. Dozens of chysanthemum stalls have set up shop outside the cemetery gates. The town council has even set up a system of voiturettes, basically golf buggies, to transport visitors within the cemetery. (But only from 9-12 and 14-17 heures: even here, the two-hour lunch break must be respected). Halloween is present in France but rather more muted than in England, let alone the United States. And a good thing too.