I visit rural Europe somewhat frequently. Rural Europe is different to the rural US. Of course Europe is a large place and some might be quick to point out that in some parts of Europe you can have a more isolated rural existence that mirrors the US. This is true, particularly in parts of say interior Spain which has staggeringly low population density. For the sake of this essay though we are talking about countries such as Germany, France, Austria, the Low Countries and so on. Rural Europe is different in that you are never seemingly too far from a relatively robust town or city. Suburban sprawl has been a largely American phenomena and sometimes the demarcations of city, suburbia blend together somewhat. Europe, especially mid sized cities or large towns tend to have quite defined limits. You leave them and enter to what amounts as the rural countryside.
This countryside changes from place to place and is dotted with small villages and hamlets. It is not unusual for these places to be served by a local bus or train. This makes the journey to the local town and onto a larger city easier for those without cars but in my experience most rural Europeans are car drivers first and foremost. The buses I ride on are low frequency and most of the day run seemingly completely empty. This of course means they are state subsidized and it is generally seen as a valuable service for many that there is not the kind of grumbling you would see in the US, and during the work commuting times a fair number of people still do take the bus into the town to work and back again. Rural Europe is old and aging. In the region I visit most frequently there is a charming local custom of painting the announcement of a child’s birth with their name and maybe an image, a butterfly or something to announce a new birth in the village. This of course is a custom of a high trust community that wants the others to share in the joy of new life. It is very quaint and innocent.
These villages and hamlets are largely just places to live though. Farming is the main occupation and whilst the slightly larger villages might have a post office most today survive with just a post box, the local large town being only a 15 minute drive or bus for most people. There was a small kiosk in the village closest to my relatives that sold newspapers, cigarettes, and coffee but it recently closed and there are no signs of it reopening. Self payment farm stalls exist where you can buy milk, eggs, and locally grown vegetables which is nice but they are unstaffed. Villages like this have likely waxed and waned in who set up shop, most buildings in this area would likely have been a workshop of some sort on the ground floor and living accommodations above. A cobbler, a saddlemaker, and so on. Those of course are all gone, either to the larger town or just disappeared into the void of offshoring and cheap goods from the Orient. What does remain though are tiny restaurants that open maybe a few days a week. These are the community gathering places and the food is often surprisingly good. Made by actual Europeans in the back kitchen. Simple and hearty fare, but you had better be on time. I once walked into such an establishment at 13:30 and was informed lunch service was finished, come earlier next time! These places often have special events during the hunting season where local hunters will donate (or sell at low cost) game such as venison and duck and the kitchen puts on a special fare for all to enjoy.
Almost every small village or hamlet will also have a Church. These are still proud buildings and well maintained but they seem empty and abandoned. People are no longer religious in most of these places. Perhaps on the important days they fill up but many lack a permanent priest. Like the towns and the people in them they are dying. Slowly but surely. The young are drawn to the cities and whilst a fair few do return to the family towns most do not and with the dwindling birth rate of past years that is felt all the keener. I love walking in this landscape, along the public footways that criss cross it. Past friendly farm dogs and champion rabbit breeders. As you dip in and out of these towns there is always the looming sense of history and the architecture of the past is well preserved. A place I stayed some years ago was next door to a rarity in the modern age. A tobacco drying barn. Grown right there in the local region and hanging to dry in this tiny town, our rental creaked and groaned in the night with the old wood stoves from centuries past still installed and ready for use. It was a quiet peaceful place and you had this mild aroma of the drying tobacco lulling you in the cool spring air. In places like this the wooden benches and seats are well polished, gracefully aged and there is a warmth that always lingers.
Rural Europe is a charming place although it feels stagnant. These places have just about skated under the radar but the Great Replacement is beginning to be felt in these places too. The rural people must venture into the cities and see that hustle and bustle. Smaller French towns seem to always have surprising numbers of Africans and Arabs these days, still not in the rural villages or hamlets but ever encroaching. A once monoethnic kitchen staff start to see shades of color, you glimpse it only for a moment when the kitchen door swings open but it is there. Just hidden. You feel the change in the air as one senses the change in the seasons. A colder wind is blowing. The boomers who inhabit these towns are at odds with the modern world. It’s changed beyond recognition for them. In a way they are a curious generation because for a lot of their live what they have seen is loss. Not that they haven’t become wealthy like their American cousins. The loss they have seen is in these rural places slowly folding. One can’t help but feel keenly how different their childhood would have been in these small rural places. If we drift back further into history things become even more different. These communities were even more full of life. Even if it weren’t for the Great Replacement these places feel lost and dying. In many of these rural locales there is no sign of the invaders. The promises of work from anywhere and an easier life have not really helped these places. They do not have the same problems of rural America with meth or opiods. America has both the desperately poor in their rural areas and in their cities but Europe seems to have less of it. I could be wrong about this but it feels an obvious different, there isn’t wealth in these rural areas but there is not the absolute poverty you see in rural America.
Rural Europe is a lovely place. Each country and region have their own traditions. Many are still preserved and alive even if others have died and withered away. I’m not sure what the future holds for these places. One of the real costs of globalization and offshoring we talk of is mainly around factories and larger industry but in some sense it is also these rural places that suffered as well. These villages and hamlets are nice places to live and thanks to the smaller scale of these places these people can get to the larger towns for the goods they need. There is this idea that floats around that things like 3d printing and ever increasing technological innovation could revive these smaller hamlets and villages. It’s less convincing to me over time if the rural places remain the domain of the elderly who are just naturally less inclined to pick up and use such technologies. Rural Europe, if it can survive the Great Replacement, has opportunity waiting for it. It remains to be seen if the younger Europeans will seize it.