We returned from Paris to the Languedoc yesterday, and I remarked on how crowded the TGV was. It seemed as if the train had more people than seats; several travelers seemed to spend hours standing in the small spaces between cars.

I was informed that the Saturday following Bastille Day — and this is what it was — is the busiest day for internal travel in France.

Basically, it is the opening of the month-and-a-half of summer when nearly everyone in France goes on vacation.

Perhaps you have heard about numerous businesses in Paris shutting down for the whole of August.

I can vouch for that. It’s true. This bakery. That butcher shop. Even some cafes and bistros and brasseries. Their regular customers are mostly out of town, and it makes sense to shut down the shop if it is not in a tourist area — the tracts of Paris which seem nearly empty.

The typical French worker gets five weeks of vacation, annually, and he or she seems to prefer to use most of it in this six-week window.

At the newspaper formerly known as the International Herald Tribune, editors annually brought on four or five “summer replacements” (I was one, once) to make certain the publication could be produced while much of the full-time staff was off on vacation.

Historically, the internal travelers, in France, head for the sea. It could be Normandy or Brittany, but it is more likely to be somewhere warmer and in the south — the strip of beach just north of Spain, which includes Biarritz, but more likely in Provence, over against the Italian border, or the Languedoc, which is west and south of Provence.

These parts of the country have what seem to be entire seasonal towns which remain empty for much of the other 10.5 months, then spring to life in mid-July like some sort of exotic plant.

Even in our little town, the French shift from north to south can be felt.

A few weeks ago, some of the expats who own property here turned up for their annual three months in the warm and mostly dry Languedoc, and the town of 700 became more like a town of 750.

Many of them are English speakers fleeing their sodden country. One couple we met have been spending summers here for the past 15 years, and they seem to feel far more at home than do we — who have been in town for most of the past six months.

This weekend, the French who own locally or are staying with relatives seemed to make their arrivals.

In a small town like this one, you notice the new people. The car never before seen. The sole cafe, which is open later, and more often, and puts people out on a terrace.

This is when the ability to cross the street without seeing someone ends. In winter, a person could go on an hour walk and not meet anyone in the street or in the hills.

Our town has few amenities, but that does not disqualify it from being a target for travelers from the north. It is a short drive from here to two towns with a major supermarket and a McDonald’s, and it is only a slightly longer drive to the beach resorts, from Sete on down to wind-swept Narbonne.

The apartment buildings inshore from Marseillan Plage, the most appealing beach area near where we live, stood empty the first half of the year but are buzzing now. The long strip of formerly shuttered commercial activity — restaurants, novelty shops, bars — makes sense now. As do the block after block of parking lots and the little amusement park with the kiddie-sized roller coaster.

Apparently, this will go on till the latter days of August. School in France begins on September 1. We are reliably informed “the season” continues on through September, but with much less force than we are seeing now.

I always wondered why the French do not stagger their vacations a bit better. But they seem to like being off all at once, even if it makes for sudden crowds where none existed a few weeks before.

Summer has officially begun.