I’m not a prolific player by any means, but Mr. brown and I like to play petanque. We got started on bocce a few years ago, but shifted over to petanque because we can play it anywhere there’s a flat, finely graveled field (like the infield at a baseball diamond). Bocce needs a long, rectangular court.
The games are somewhat similar, and they’re both highly addicting.
Anybody else toss out a pallino or a couchon on occasion?
We play Bocce a lot (never heard of petanque).
We play it as a “play anywhere” type of game. Anywhere there is a lawn.
Are there some official rules I don’t know about that require a regulation size court to play on? As long as we have a good 10-20 yards throwing distance were good to go.
Yep. Petanque balls imported directly from France in coat pockets in order to elide weight rules, hehee.
Brits have an indoor version called carpet bowls or somewhat like.
Petanque is very big in the nudist community.
Actually, you can play it pretty much anywhere. there’s no need for a finely graveled field. Uneven dirt is perfectly OK.
I’ve been aware of the other names of this game, but it’s always just been boule(s?) to me.
I just bought a Bocce set last month. It is a very nice set in a damaged case and was marked down from $59 to $25 at Modell’s
I use to play alot as a kids. We just played in on the Lawn. I was fun.
I plan to play Labor Day.
Bocce is loads of fun and now is the time to buy the sets on sale at the end of summer.
I probably have three sets all in various states of mismatching.
There is a bocce ball hall in Lake Orion, MI that is hugely popular. Haven’t been there yet.
Haven’t ever played petanque, but wouldn’t turn it down.
Petanque? You gotta have balls of steel to play that. 
Wife grew up in Belgium and played lots of petanque as a child. I bought her a regulation set for Xmas a few years back, but we haven’t busted it out, yet.
[size=1]Lazy? A bit, but two kids in rapid succession didn’t help the sitch… :p[/size
I had never even heard of Bocce until I moved out here. My husband’s immediate family loves the game, and every small family holiday (such as birthdays, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or just being invited over for a simple barbeque), my FIL gets out the Bocce junk.
It seems like it might be a pleasant game to play, normally.
My husband’s family is all men. They try to curb the violence since I’ve joined them, but it can still be a pretty rough game. This is usually advantageous to me, since while they set each other up, insult, curse, and beat each other up, I quietly wait my turn, and even my unskilled hand can win a game or two while they’re busy hunting each other down. Lawn darts, croquet, same story. Croquet has been particularly violent. Mallets are bad news.
And don’t even get me started on Yahtzee. shudder Yahtzee is the worst. I nearly lost an eye last time.
I’ve only ever seen bocce played on a court, which is a long, gravelled rectangle enclosed by 6" high wooden walls. There’s a combination pizza joint/bocce court place in Los Gatos, California, and it’s a fun place to play. You can bowl with a glass of Chianti in one hand, if you want, and two of the courts are indoors, out of the sun.
Anastasaeon, do your in-laws really duke it out over bocce? I thought French petanque players got a bit, er, volatile over their game, but I never thought of bocce as the sort of game to spawn fisticuffs.
Oh, yeah, all the time. Trust me, if they can make Yahtzee violent, they can make any game violent.
It’s really something to see… I come from a very quiet, calm family - never a raised voice in the house, problems were always solved logically. I married my husband because he is a kind, gentle person. Then I met his family. Wow. Just wow.
Last time we played bocce with them, my FIL knocked my BIL flat on his ass… he claims it was an accident, but we saw the fleeting intent, then the look of utter glee that crossed his face for a split second when he saw him go down. Don’t get me wrong, none of them are abusive in any way, they just roughhouse with each other a lot - and they’re grown men! They also treat me like a lady… hell, they treat me like I’m the only lady in the whole world, and they often scold each other for cursing in front of me… or in the case of that last Yahtzee game we played where I said I nearly lost an eye - that’s hyperbole, but the dice were thrown by my BIL and somehow managed to flutter in front of my face. He was scolded immediately that he could have hurt me, and he quickly adjusted his dice throws so that they were aimed more towards his father, with the hopes that he might take out* his * eye instead.
Even if there is nothing to be rough with, the games are always loud. I can hear a cribbage game going on in their house from four blocks away. It’s great fun. 
I play boule too, and I have always wanted to know if it’s the same as either petanque or bocce. 