Sporty bars

The Café L’Ancre is a 'bar tabac, jeux',a type of cafe still found all over France and is an unmissable experience if you want to dip into the French Culture. Café L’Ancre lies less than an hour and a half away from the French port of Ouistreham, in the town centre of Mortagne-au-Perche nestling in the heart of regional forest parks, the equivalent to Britain’s New Forest national park in the UK. Montagne-au-Perche is a wonderful mellow ochred stone town with streets lined with cafes, bars, and independent shops as expected for a smallish town. Mortagne-au-Perche is known for its Boudin noir (black sausage) fair and for the stately Percheron workhorse used for pulling timber from the forest. Close by is Alencon, capital of the Orne county (the river with the same namesake runs through the area to the sea) and to the south of Mortagne, are the picturesque towns of Mamers and Belleme, both worth a visit especially the teahouse - for those who don't like sporty bars there is an upmarket charming Salon de Thé Le Comptoir du Porche for the petite bourgeoisie who live in the town, with arts and crafts also sold.

Where else should the Cafe L'Ancre, five star rated sporting bar be located, but in la Place de la Republique located No.29 on the corner of a convenient square, with free parking enabling an easy stroll around the rest of the town. In the opposite corner of la Place de la Republique, there is a sympathetic redesign of the old cinema now known as a mediathèque, a new word which has supplanted the French word for library (bibliothèque) because of the digital age.

Cash in on French culture and order a coffee or a beer, buy a lottery ticket, bet with the PMU or get a vape refill, for this is a typical bar tabac, jeux. On entering it becomes immediately apparent that this is the town's hub where all the local information and gossip is passed on in audible Chinese whispers, rumours are passed on for the nth time. Sit at a table or stand at the bar, and listen, test your French out, but there are plenty of local phrases and sayings which will confuse someone not native of the area. A couple at the bar are in deep conversation with the ‘serveuse’ talking about a funeral they had attended, it was of one of their neighbours, and her friend was far keener to boast about her fashion, having bought items online originating from the UK and USA.

Contrary to belief not everyone was drinking alcohol despite it being midday, mostly coffee and not much in the way of food. We ordered two simple coffees each at just over one euro, and enjoyed listening to the locals as they came and went, a mixture of age groups, but missing are to one arm bandits, and pinball machines, in an age where computer games have superseded and gambling is online. Instead, ordinary folk, the life and blood of the town, come in to meet friends, take a coffee after shopping and 'potinage' -gossip, and buy their lottery ticket.

The baby foot, the absolute mainstay of the cafe de sport, bar tabac, is no longer popular

Few of the ‘old school’ sports bars exist in France today which are reminiscent of the 70’s with their linoleum floors, baby foot tables, one arm bandits or pinball machines, catering for shift workers, the postman or locals but they are the hub for sporting events and horse racing. This bar reflects modern France, a sanitized example of the bar jeux. L’Ancre has been redecorated to fit with the times, fashionable greys as is in the UK, but inside the décor retains its stunning beautiful original plaster work.

My wife who is French and from Normandy hadn’t been back to France for a while, let alone to a town in the country, in her own words as guest blogger she describes in a later blog how she felt when returning back to Normandy where she was born. and taking a coffee in the bar tabac.

Next time we are in the Perche region we will make a trip to the salon de The in Belleme Le Comptoir du Porche