Categories: Family Travel, Normandy & Brittany
THIS IS AN AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED TRANSCRIPT
0:00
This is join us in France Episode 242. Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent and join us in France is a podcast where you’ll hear pragmatic advice for your next trip to France. And hopefully you’ll get inspired to go beyond Paris and see the rest of France, as well as Paris. On the podcast. I invite travel enthusiasts, such as My guests today, Carrie Turner, to join me for conversations about their trip, how it went, what they loved, what they didn’t like, so much, and give tips about all of these places from their perspective and their genuine. Remember, these people have nothing to sell. So this these are genuine recommendations. Show Notes for this episode are on join us in France. com forward slash 242 242. And on the show notes, you find all these words spelled out that maybe you didn’t catch when you were listening. Join us in France get support from Patreon supporters, one time donors and soon to be released GPS aware tours. I will have more news on that after the interview.
1:38
Gary and welcome to join us in France or should I say be Ave she’ll join us in France. Nasty and he is lovely to have you. We are going to talk about your visit to Brittany and Normandy with a multi generational family which I know is something that worries people It’s us it
2:02
know it can be a little dramatic at times. I plan the trip. So of course I planned what I want to do. And then we get there and the baby’s not, not agreeable, and my mom wants to go shopping or to the beach. And my dad’s wandering off, so it was great, but we had our moments.
2:20
So yeah, your parents with you? Who else was there?
2:24
Yes. So it was my parents, my husband and I and our 18 month old daughter. Okay, yeah,
2:29
yeah, that’s a good age, isn’t it? This one, they start running fast. Oh, yeah.
2:35
She’s a fireball.
2:39
All right. So you speak French? Yes. Pretty well, pretty well, because you spent some time in college in France. Yes.
2:47
I studied abroad in in Paris. I lived on the road a lot.
2:53
Oh, very nice. Yeah.
2:57
Good times. Yeah. And and then I I got my degree in French education. I taught for a year and then hated it and went back. Went back to France as a genteel pair. Okay and spent another year and and some living there I, I finished a pairing and I worked for a company called baby long that teaches English to children’s I was there any. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, it was really great.
3:27
Anyway, let’s talk about Brittany and Normandy and your trip. I assume you landed in Paris.
3:33
We did. We planted in Paris and my husband and I in the baby got there two days before my parents so we were kind of trying to adjust in Paris. And then my parents came over and we picked them up. We went direct. We got our rental car and went directly to shop and then had dinner there and drove out to Brittany. We spent six nights in Brittany and then moved over to Normandy. For four nights, okay, and then we finished our trip. You Barney and Paris. Okay,
4:06
so this is a big area you covered. You must have spent a good amount of time in the car.
4:11
Yes, we I tried to break it up where we weren’t in the car more than two hours. Okay at a time, but yes, we drove a lot.
4:20
Okay. And did you have particular interests for this trip?
4:24
Specifically, the whole thing started because we were trying to do a Europe trip with my parents and my dad one day last year had the epiphany that it was the 75th anniversary of D day. We had tried to go on our last family trip, we went out to Normandy and it was a day, and we missed the beaches completely. Uh huh. And it was something my dad and I have always wanted to do together. He’s a huge world war two buff and so he like, I mean, we got super emotional when we figured out that this was our chance. Yeah, so We started planning and and then I built in Brittany because they no one else had ever been. And I wanted to do something, get some spots in that I hadn’t been to. So we did. I had done the most a Michelle and some aloe before but I hadn’t done any of the rest of our trip.
5:17
Okay. So tell us briefly so you you went to directly to shuffle and then to to normal to Normandy. So tell us what you bring to Brittany. Sorry. Tell us what towns you hit.
5:31
OK, so we we stayed in South here the play again? I would say it’s pronounced PLESGUEN. Yeah, that sounds right. And so it’s like 15 minutes east of Dino.
5:47
Okay.
5:48
So we went to Dino the first day and then we drove down to key barrel. Uh huh. Just see that to see car neck and okay.
6:00
Yes, so Karnak is the stones thing. Right standing stones everywhere you said is What is that like I’ve never been I kill. I’m wondering what it would be like.
6:12
Well, I went with the family I worked for before and it was amazing. It was kind of a cloudy day and there was no one there and we walked along in the fields as long as we wanted to. And I’m have read a lot of like Arthurian legend kind of stuff. And so I absolutely loved it. And my dad, his dad was kind of hoping for the same experience and we got there at four o’clock in the afternoon and it was nuts. They were people everywhere they were sold out. So he didn’t actually get to go in the field but we did the little train tour. Okay, okay all the town so it was still lovely and there are lots of places you can pull off if you plan ahead to not go into the actual anymore of Connect. You can find other places to go Hello.
7:00
Oh, so there are other places where there they have their, but
7:04
dozens of different places you can visit and even in the Gulf of more beyond the island that has standing stones on it. So yeah, you can find them everywhere.
7:14
So it’s just like in the in the cartoon aesthetics. Yeah. Just like that I’d like they got these things stuck up in the ground. Nobody knows what everywhere.
7:24
Yeah, and they’re huge. I mean, it’s very impressive. Maybe they were 10 poles
7:31
or they too far to be 10 poles.
7:34
Um, there, they were talking like miles of stones, and they’re spaced out. Yeah, I don’t remember maybe 12 feet between them. It’s been a long time.
7:46
You could I mean, you could hang like, animal skins and make Yeah, shelter that.
7:54
They’re imperfect lines. And when you stand and you just see these perfect lines. It’s like I told my Husband when I was trying to describe it, it’s it’s like cell phone bars. Hmm. How you see the the graduated bars it’s like an entire field of cell phone bars but there are 12 foot tall all the way down to like little little one foot stones. That’s spooky. Yeah.
8:21
Okay, okay,
8:22
so you don’t have you don’t know why. I mean they didn’t tell you we know why exactly No. Okay.
8:27
Something ceremonial. I mean, it’s the same as Stonehenge. What? Why is this here? Exactly? Yeah, it’s probably religious. Probably.
8:35
Yeah, something like that.
8:37
Yeah. So um, so we stayed that night. We actually left our stuff at our Airbnb in northern Brittany and stayed at one in in more Bo area, Norway, because it was cheaper than driving back and it was $30 to stay there for the night. Yeah, so so we did that. So we could go to van the next day. And then drove back up to Northern Brittany and did say Marlo and drove to the most a Michelle from our Airbnb there.
9:10
Okay. All right. And did you parents? Did you manage to make it all the way to the top of Muslim he shared with your parents? Maybe we
9:17
did. Yeah. Wow.
9:19
So they are fairly agile. me Yeah,
9:21
I’m like my mom’s 60 my dad’s almost 70 Oh, I’m there. Yeah, they were fine. That wasn’t a problem.
9:31
Yeah, they might have had to stop and catch their breath a couple of times, but
9:34
probably know more than me. I mean,
9:36
yeah. It is taxing on anybody unless you’re
9:40
a marathon runners. I’m Glenn. Yeah, no, we’re not none of us are athletic. Yes. My husband’s
9:45
Yeah,
9:46
yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was great. And I had heard from your podcast, you know, to time it properly. So we we got there at 3pm to park and we with the Right, we did the my notes, the horse drawn carriage to go down. Oh, it’s my daughter loves horses. So very nice. We got on the front row and the driver gave me a tour the whole time. It was amazing. He pulled me everything I could possibly want to know about the most and Michelle about the horses, Bambi and you lease bomb babies. And you know how they feed them how much they work and let my daughter hold the reins. So that was great draw good door. He told us that it was super slow that day that we were in luck that there were barely any tourists there. And it was true. Like we as we were driving down there was a huge line for the buses. I mean, 10 buses worth of people waiting probably. And we got there and the last time I went was in February in 2006. And it was packed like Shoulder to shoulder to get up to the abbey this time. You know, we saw we saw people but it wasn’t crazy at all. And we probably saw 10 people. Oh, wow, Bobby.
11:12
So what was what did what were you there? Remember?
11:15
We were there Monday, actually I wrote that down because I knew people would want to know that for planning. Um, it was a Monday at 3pm that we got there and I had checked there’s a coefficient chart on their on their website so I I found the highest coefficient day for our trip and plan to go that day. And so we we got out of the gift shop at the high tide was at 2011 at 11pm. And we got out of the gift shop at 630 and snacks out had a snack. And right at 645 is where we started noticing the tides come in and my mom had said, you know, maybe we should go eat and come back And I was like, let’s just sit for a second because this they said to be here two hours before my time. Yeah, it’s fast. And, and sure enough between 645 and 715 was exactly what we mean. We wouldn’t have cared to stay after 730. Yeah, sure. And we saw it Russian and we saw the first, the ripples, and then whirlpools, forming where that was coming in from three different directions. I think that was definitely one of my dad’s favorite moments. Yeah,
12:28
it’s really impressive. And you’re right, so that’s great.
12:32
You don’t perfect
12:34
don’t ever check that they don’t know. So do it like, carry? Check?
12:41
Yes, yes. Check the tide chart. And yeah, that was the main thing that was super helpful. That I found and that was that was one of the top moments for everybody. I think even me having gone before before they win. There’s still a road and the bridge. Yeah, there were tour buses parked in front of it when I went before and it was packed full of people this this was a totally different experience and so cool.
13:12
It’s it’s, it’s a beautiful sight I, I keep complaining about the quality of the restaurants and the poor customer service and all that, which is real. But if you know that you can plan not to spend a fortune eating and these lousy restaurants.
13:30
Yeah. Well, we asked the driver and we took the bus back, huh? That was zero cheaper. I think the horses had already stopped and we asked the driver on the way there what restaurant we should go to to get the salted lamb and he said to go to the price, Sally. So we we went to that. I got the lamb. I actually wasn’t that impressed, huh? But the other food was good. Yeah, the oysters were amazing. And the desert was amazing so the oysters
14:02
were amazing because the sea makes those
14:06
yeah oh my gosh there’s
14:11
nothing to do with it
14:13
and then on our way out driving back it was kind of Twilight so we got the great view of yeah the on the way out stopped and took some pictures. It was very pink from the sunset so that was cool.
14:26
That’s great.
14:27
The same Milo was the other best thing about
14:32
about bringing we walked out to the petite Bay and saw the fort. Hmm and I love a good cause way through the ocean that’s like to me one of the coolest things the St Michael’s mount in in Cork in Cornwall, we did that last year and absolutely loved it. So this was kind of similar and when I went to say Milo before I didn’t do anything, but probably drink beer and eat food. So We got out on the beach and played my daughter played with all the like Sikh sea creatures and us cool hermit crabs and my husband and I hiked up to the fort, which was kind of crazy with the shoes that we had on and you can’t really see it even see the path, but there is a path up there. And we they close the doors as we were in there, and we knew we had to be out before the tide came in. Yeah. But they didn’t warn us. You know, this is how long you have until the tide leaves. I knew what time I knew what time low tide was. And that’s what I was kind of basing it around. And so I went to leave and the door was shut. And I kind of had a freak out and I’m looking for my husband where I were. And they they’re like, Oh, it’s okay, you can just go out in the boat with us go back in the boat. So I guess that’s kind of just what they don’t tell you that it’s time to leave because they’ll just drive you back and I was I was I know. My child is down there. Yeah, I gotta get I can swim.
16:04
So
16:05
I guess the good thing about having your parents with you is that you have built in babysitting.
16:10
Yes. And it was we didn’t ask them to do that too much but they did watch her for dinner one night. It was our fifth anniversary. And I’m and then yeah, a couple times my mom would just sit with her and let us do all the history stuff. That’s the other thing about the same malo before we move on is that they told us that you can rent the fort to sleep in on Airbnb, which is super cool. I know there will be people that want to do that. But also know that we looked at the beds inside and they have one of those old beds that like the wooden box and it has doors and the mattress is inside Hmm. You know, that completely closes off from the wind or whatever. And while we were in there we looked inside and it was like a nasty old mattress with just covered in sand. Oh, just
17:10
like a
17:10
full layer of sand on it so just a warning. That’s my my first experience they told me that was like oh my gosh, I would love to stay here and then I looked at that. I said no never
17:22
hopefully they will clean it up before they make the bed. I
17:25
don’t know. I know there were some students staying out there that night so maybe they made the mess. I don’t know.
17:30
Yeah, who knows? Okay.
17:36
Okay, so then we moved over to Normandy.
17:40
And me Sam point on my list.
17:44
We
17:46
we had planned to hit for sure the American Cemetery arrow mo
17:52
want to Hawk
17:55
Omaha Beach. We had all kinds of stuff on our list
17:59
and Generally we we have been pretty good in our travels to hit everything we want to maybe have to ditch one or two things. But that was before my daughter was 18 months old.
18:13
This trip was just like, Oh my gosh, yeah. So
18:19
so we ended up going to pond to Hawk the first day and that was pretty much it. So in con, we had an Airbnb that was hosted by Christine and she was a great hostess. She lives in a building with a courtyard behind it and another building that she’s renovated recently into three different apartments.
18:43
A lovely garden.
18:46
You know, like all the amenities that you would want if you’re eating at home, which we had to do a lot with the baby. Yeah. So you know, there was coffee there, there was sugar there was butter. She had put orange juice in the fridge, you know, all those kinds of special patches very nice, very clean, etc. And she had let us know when we checked in that the traffic would be an issue on D day. Yeah. And so we looked up all the road closures online and then she also let us know that the President’s, I assume of France and the US were eating two blocks away for lunch. So we were going to be under extra extra strict rules in our area. They they cleared all the parking the day before. Yeah, logged in. Yeah. And she had she gave us a letter that said, you know, undersigned, I Christine have these people staying with me so that we could get back in but that we were
19:46
made you nervous. I mean, like, yeah, happening.
19:49
We were mostly just worried that we wouldn’t be able to see anything on actual D day, which was like the whole reason we plan this trip. So right, she said you might have to leave before 6am You might not be able to come back before 11pm. And there were other people. We my parents talked to the other people saying there who were also there for the day, and they thought, you know, you’ll probably be able to leave. It’s just the coming back. That’s an issue. So we didn’t wake up super early or anything. We just got up like normal. I threw blankets, pillows, food, toys, everything we could need if we were stuck out until 11pm. Yeah. And, and we left and actually, as we’re leaving the gendarme said, you, you can’t come back till 5pm. And we’re like, oh, yeah, great. Fine. Yeah. Awesome. So we, we knew from the road closures online that we wouldn’t be able to get a car into any of the five beaches like the main areas and that certain highways were going to be closed. Yep. So we found a little strip in between Juneau and sword. Here’s a straight north of con. Basically That the roads weren’t closed and just started driving. So we put that put, I think we put Leon, me also map into the GPS. Yeah, I started driving and we would just come to a roadblock and they’d say, Nope, you can’t go this way. And they’d send us another way. And then our GPS would reroute, okay, get to another roadblock. So it took probably an hour to an hour and a half to get to the ocean where I should have been, like, 25 minutes, maybe, right. But it was great, because we went through all these tiny villages actually have have the place I want to stay on our next trip. There you go. We pass through like the most perfect village ever. And what was it called?
21:44
I don’t have it written down. Okay. Well, I know. I do know. I do know it was
21:50
pretty good too.
21:51
Yes. Okay. UETOTI loved it for some reason. And we ended up at Luke somewhere. Yeah, and it was great that we parked and all the shops on this tiny little Main Street had World War Two like vintage.
22:11
Like the between the like displace
22:16
the coffer had old 1940s curling irons in the window
22:22
OQ at
22:24
the clothes shops had vintage uniforms. And they were like really playing it up and a lot of the shopkeepers were dressed up and
22:33
yeah, yeah, when I was there last year was the same. Like the Yeah, the ladies at the tourist office, we’re all done up. Like, you know, like, more time kind of hairdos and makeup and clothes and it was really cute. It’s Yeah,
22:49
and we had seen that kind of, you know, obviously like vehicles as David said, vehicles everywhere. Yeah. On your drive. So for three days now. We have been seeing these encampments in vehicles and everything. But this little town had the flags hanging like every town did have all the allies. And they the tourists information suggested going into the park of the Belen, the whale Park. I have like a whale skeleton and there were animals and a playground. And we actually stumbled upon a there some sort of little, I don’t know what kind of room it was if they had it there specifically for exhibits, but it was a British gentleman whose father was a commando during World War Two. And he’d spent the last three years creating his own mini museum based on like his father’s letters, and he had uniforms he had rations he had.
23:52
Yeah, so a lot of neat stuff. Yeah,
23:54
yeah. And and, you know, was telling his personal stories. So my dad sat and pumped him forever. Then we lunch.
24:02
Yeah. You know, in in Brittany, I mean, the DJ area around DJ time there are a lot of people come. It’s like a pilgrimage. Yeah. And you have people who will come and tell you, there were stories and there’s always people that I wonder, you know, was he really there? Did he really right? I mean, even though he wrote the book, I’m sure but that you know what, how? I don’t know I’m always a little suspicious of a lot of this stuff. But there are a lot of people turn up in uniform and stuff like that. And they’re very old by now. So,
24:36
yeah, this guy was in his 60s probably. And so it was, yeah, it was his father. That was
24:42
not very old.
24:44
Yeah, his father. So that’s not what I meant. Okay. But, um
24:58
we had some current more free, more free for lunch there were so good. And as we were sitting there, the C 40 sevens flew over the town. Nice. So, you know, it’s just if you’re like, a World War Two, especially airplane nerds is what our family are. Yeah, it was amazing.
25:19
Yeah. So this is this is important for people to remember is that if you go to date areas around the day on D day, the day before the day after, probably the weekend after possibly the weekend before, they’re going to start to be a lot of events, a lot of things happening, not just not just that Omaha Beach but everywhere.
25:42
Yeah, everyone and we pretty much did none of the events that we had planned on there was a ball that we wanted to go to but with with bedtime, it wasn’t going to happen to a 9pm ball or two fireworks on the beach or the 6am you know, everybody goes out at the time. The troops landed on the beach. We didn’t make it to any of that stuff. But we still saw plenty of amazing things. We met a guy, a Canadian guy at Juno Beach whose three uncles were killed. And he’s like, basically, his family’s like the Canadian version of Saving Private Ryan. And then there’s no other place besides the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, where there are that many brothers together buried in a cemetery. Wow. And they some French students had named a foundation after his family. And we’re reading the names of every Canadian killed during World War Two. And he started the names at midnight, we met him out on Juno Beach, and we I read some of the names and it was just like a super like to look at look at those names of these 18 year olds in this book on the place that happen with family members. It just yeah, it’s sobering. Super memorable. Yeah, yeah. We We kept running into stories like that wherever we went, you know, and and, you
27:04
know, the other thing that people have to keep in mind is because there are a lot of world leaders, especially because this was 75th anniversary. So all the world leaders had to be there. And and so there’s a lot of security and security means limiting access pretty much. So if there’s something that you particularly want to do, then you have to find a hotel where it’s walking dinner area.
27:29
Right, exactly. That’s, and that’s what we talked to him about, because he was blocked out of the ceremony at Juno Beach. We actually we were just like, you know, hundred yards away from the actual site because they had it blocked off for a ceremony. And he was there. You know, maybe by invitation, I don’t know, like, his family’s name is a big name for Canada, but Justin Trudeau was there. And so because he didn’t get there on time. He was like five minutes late. They wouldn’t let him in. Right.
27:58
Yeah, it’s it’s very It’s, it’s very controlled. So you have to understand that if that’s what you want to do pick one thing you want to do that day on on January six on June six, sorry. And just be very close to that. So you can walk to it, and plan on spending plenty of time standing around waiting for things to happen. Exactly. And it’s a similar thing with Tour de France. And I know this has nothing to do with it. But and the total farce The same thing happens is they closed roads. And so if you want to be in a specific spot, you’ve done your research you want to be there show up a day before the night before and then you will definitely be there otherwise not gonna work.
28:42
Well, the the British man we had spoken to actually let us know that we could get, you know, to certain places from there that he had already tried it out. Yeah. And so at that point, actually, we we were trying to get somewhere. I don’t even remember And the there was a line of military vehicles like 30 vehicles long all these Dutch people with their vehicles. I mean there there were like trailers the entire Netherlands were in Normandy
29:17
there were two vehicles that week.
29:19
Yeah.
29:21
I mean young people i was i was like if I were 22 again, this is where you would find me I’d be finding this group of young people with army jeeps
29:35
Yeah, no it’s very fun if you can do it do it but planet Yeah, don’t don’t over plan don’t think oh, on D day I’m going to be on this play this place in this place in this Now you won’t curse you won’t they won’t let you go anywhere. Unless you Justin Trudeau and then, you know, yeah.
29:54
Yeah. But so the the next day, the seventh was our last day. Do da stuff so we had you know a bunch of stuff on our list arrow Marsh was where we ended up having the best time we hit the American Cemetery that morning and couple other places but ended up at arrow Marsh and we parked and got out of the car and started walking down to the beach. You know, we didn’t really know where we were I had been there but up on the bluff where the actual monument is, so we were actually down in the town. Walk down. We were on the far I guess probably the far west side of town. And as we’re walking down the beach, a duck comes out of the water like it was it was actually like driving around in the water arrow motion comes up and all these dudes are just Sinhala top like and met. We met a bunch of Americans who this was like Their moment to shine they had spent $5,000 per vehicle to ship them over from New York. And they were basically just like doing out like we’re all here together we spent this money we’ve got our command cars and we are living it up here in North that’s great. So now my dad and husband are like how do we get one of these car?
31:25
Well in Normandy It seems there are a lot of them when you’re there. Yeah, you know last year it was like you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting your an old motorcycle or an old car or something.
31:35
Yeah, for sure. And so that I told my husband we made a pact in the car. We before we die, we’re going to buy one and restore it that’s that’s why empty nesters. So it’s fun. Yeah, so we walked through town and saw some fringe people dressed up like young French people dressed up in resistance clothing and uniforms and stuff that was That was pretty cool.
32:01
So it seems to me that your favorites of the whole trip were really mostly Michelle. And the D Day celebration. Yes. Yeah. You say your father got his is where his hopes met like expectations met.
32:18
Yeah, I think
32:22
he’s um he’s never impressed by what you think he’s gonna be impressed by so the the parachute stuff he was kind of like it was fine. But then the most a Michelle blew him away. And the I think the Aaron Walsh he he really loved to so yeah, yeah, he was fine. He he liked it. And he was just happy to be there in the middle of all of it. Honestly. That’s you just it’s how most people say you should do France anyway. Right. You just live in the moment.
32:57
Yeah. Be there. Were there needs specific Difficulties having to do with being a family of multi generations. I mean, seems to me since your parents were quite mobile, it actually wasn’t an advantage for you not so much of a problem.
33:13
The biggest issue I mean, we got pretty crabby between all of us at certain points with food. We’re used to being in Paris a lot and you can find food anytime so while I knew from from you specifically, like 12 to two, you’re going to be our windows I was like surely will be able to find food if if, if we’re hungry or especially if the baby’s hungry and she, she has allergies, she’s actually allergic to three different things. So you have to treat not just tree nuts and dairy make it hard to find restaurant food a lot of times. So, the food, food was bad. We only ate dinner out twice, which is I’m there for the food like that’s Yeah, one of my main reasons for traveling, and
34:06
yeah, but that’s hard when you have a baby. Yeah, she
34:09
was ready. She was ready to go to bed and yeah, I can’t sit in a restaurant and have her misbehave
34:15
because she I mean, if you were in America, you said well, we’ll just see earlier what you
34:20
can but that’s not an option. And once we got into Paris again, it was fine but um, but yeah, out in the countryside, not an option and so we tried to time we would try to get her to nap where she woke up and it was lunchtime. And that worked fine lunch was generally okay but but dinner dinner was rough and luckily there were enough meals that I missed for the grocery store meals from just living with friends families and stuff that I would just cook you know we did like mega is because you can’t get a good mega is in America. Right and we did Pope yet. Yeah, seems like it. Yeah, like good meets specific quickly and fresh, fresh fruit and things like that, you know?
35:04
Yeah, so you so you, you got your fill of French food but just from the grocery store instead of fresh broccoli, it’s a different it’s a different experience. But it makes total sense when you have a baby and especially a baby with food allergies. You have to be Yeah, I have to be more accommodating. And since I’ve been home I like I came home and I made before going home because I didn’t get anything like that there and I’ve been you know, I’m going to make Kimberly tonight so
35:35
here comes when you mix in the egg yolks. Yeah, don’t mix it when it’s hot. Okay, you have Yeah, yeah, follow the recipe, otherwise they will not work.
35:46
Yeah, the first time I made it, I had that it was hurdled ago. Yeah, but
35:51
so things so you’ve mentioned several Airbnb ease and places like that. And I will put all of your references everything You sent me with the details day by day, all of that on the website. So under your episode, it will be under guest notes. But so if you want to see all that go to the guests notes, but what I want to know is what would you not do again? What would you do differently? Because you were in a multi generational family or just because because you wouldn’t.
36:25
Okay, so first and foremost, we didn’t spend enough time in Normandy.
36:33
I going back I would have cut most of Brittany, specifically Dino that was rough with a stroller. I mean, yeah, the issue with the stroller is you can’t live with it and you can’t live without it. You know, we’re used to piling everything in it. So we started Denali went to the market. We had all this junk so we piled it in the bottom of the stroller. Well, halfway down the what’s the road That goes down to the river, your jersey OJERZU okay it’s like this beautiful medieval cobblestone street with an incline of like 45 degrees and it was a hike after we had done the the two level market and yeah you know we had had to walk from parking because it was morning market morning. It was too much to do with a baby. Yeah, we could have actually probably driven down to the harbor and and just maybe walked from Dino to Leo or taken the boat ride from Dion to Leo and had more fun than hiking down that. Yeah, it was awful. So I probably would have caught that completely. We did really enjoy the Gulf of more beyond. We went to the beach of the Asheville. Are that doesn’t our songs I don’t know
38:00
afterglow
38:01
it’s yeah it’s like it’s a natural stone arch that sticks out on the key Berlin peninsula Okay, so we did a coast walk and that that beach and I love I love English channel beaches like and you know eastern coast of France with all the rocks and the cliffs and stuff that’s one of my top things so that was great but I maybe would have cut van and cut you know
38:27
yeah yeah I mean it’s beautiful but it’s it’s another little medieval town with we did have our best meal there
38:34
Ah which it was Shayla Sheila nasty soup
38:41
so that that was kind of worth it But yeah, I would have pared down Brittany to probably just say Milo and maybe a day at the go have more beyond and spent more time in Normandy so that we could just kind of drive around and see what we wanted to see and
38:58
ride because you covered a lot Ground
39:01
yes
39:04
and
39:06
that yeah the we took the baby carrier with us some and that’s great if your child will stay in it but not ours won’t so help for sleeping but firstly things like say malo and most a Michelle, you can’t take a stroller So yeah, that’s just a little tiring. Oh yeah,
39:25
I can’t imagine a stroller up some awesome you should shoot me now.
39:33
So yeah, the that’s the main thing is just yeah. So focusing on the one thing that was important and I got a little bit ambitious because we’d had so much luck.
39:44
Well, you know, young and that’s when you do crazy things. We have children. Young you have the energy because when you get older you like oh no, that looks too hard. Yeah, I’m doing that.
39:57
besides just the car because the cars okay. If If my daughter was napping, the car seat and stuff so and then there’s all everything to see in the car but we also stayed six different places and that was rough getting packed back up everything in the suitcase and moving it. And we hadn’t planned to go to Annie but I didn’t buy the tickets. I we didn’t know if we were going to go one day or the next. I knew I needed to buy the tickets ahead of time.
40:28
But I waited till the day before. Yeah, cuz there I mean, there are times you don’t need tickets you buy for a specific day, morning or afternoon.
40:36
Yeah. And so we went on the website the day before and there were no tickets available. I tried three different the Ticketmaster and the other two options. They were all sold out. And so we could have gone and seen if we could get tickets, but that’s basically if that was our option. You know, go and see or just move on. We always moved on because we didn’t have the time to waste in a line or driving somewhere. If we Didn’t know if we could go. So that happened actually twice. We’ve tried to do the canal, say, Martin, because we’ve done I mean, we’ve done every parasite like a million times. So we try to do different stuff. So this was like I had, had written a moped and moped on the canal St. Martin before, but I hadn’t really spent time there. So we were trying to do the kendo Rama. And that was the same thing. I don’t know if it’s because in France, like, you can’t buy the tickets that, you know, there’s a time limit up until this point, you can buy it online afterwards. You have to go to the ticket office,
41:32
probably. And so what happened in both cases, but yeah, but you know,
41:36
I figured that might be the case, but I didn’t want to chance it.
41:40
Yeah. Because they don’t want to open the tickets too early or too late.
41:43
Right, right. Yeah. So something
41:46
right. If you try and get them too early, it’s going to show sold out when really it’s not. It’s just that they’re not open yet. And if you go a few hours before, maybe it’s not going to show them either. So
41:56
yeah, so definitely I just recommend 48 hours in advance. Trying to solidify if you know it’s a big tourist, like we did the affiliate the new media I bought those three weeks in advance and I said, this is we’re just gonna have to be here at this time no matter what
42:12
are you the one who posted this video’s to the girl? The Oh, that was so good.
42:18
That was so cool. We that was like one of our other top moments just
42:21
so she actually went up and
42:24
so she um, it was during the Van Gogh exhibit. She we there was a room that was all mirrors and so they had in this the ceiling has the color has basically it’s like a kaleidoscope. Yeah, of swatches of whatever’s on the walls at the moment. And so there was kind of a colorful light going in there but it was just geometric patterns on the ceiling and she goes and she sees herself in the corner. And because it’s the corner, there are four of her. She sees three of herself and so I got a video of her, like dancing with herself. But it looks like she’s like a ballerina because there are four of her. It’s like synchronized swimming are
43:07
the most adorable.
43:10
Yeah, no, that was I was just standing there. Like, this is so amazing.
43:14
Yeah. Yeah, that was cute. But it’s it’s such a group if you want to.
43:24
Yeah. So Paris, the second time in Paris was much better than the first time when we first got there because she was adjusted to time and yeah, and we were able to do more stuff. But
43:33
yeah, yeah.
43:35
It took five days for us to get on to time where we weren’t awake at two o’clock in the morning just with a screaming child.
43:43
That’s what happens to me. It takes me five days, no matter what, you know, to be comfortable in the new time zone and there’s people who just think, you know, I’m dead. I just take a sleeping pill, whatever, and I’m done. I’m like, no, that’s not normal.
43:59
I can sleep Because I’m so sleep deprived anyway, I got on the time first day, but yeah, um, but yeah, I mean advice. I hate to hate to say this but between like 15 months are basically when your child starts running and your child turns three is probably the worst time to travel. Right Go Go while there while they’re less than one. Yeah, it’s amazing because you literally just strap them in and do whatever you want to do. And they’re just there for the ride. Or after that or wait until they’re a bit older. Or Yeah, like my niece. My niece has been traveling Cornwall with my my animals. This past week, and she last year when we went with her
44:46
she was kind of whiny but now she’s almost three and she’s done a great job. So yeah,
44:51
yeah, it’s it’s I mean, you’re the only person who knows your kids, but you take that into account but don’t don’t absolutely love being taken. around to all these places that they won’t remember anyway. So
45:03
yeah, they just she just wanted to run and it was hard for me to feel comfortable in most places just letting her run. Yeah,
45:10
yeah. Just don’t want to do that.
45:15
That will not work a lot of places.
45:18
But it sounds like you had a good trip. Right? We did. It was It was great. And
45:23
we’re going to take a
45:24
little break, I think, yeah, give it a bit.
45:28
We, we did the Euro Cup in 2016 and had the absolute best time. So we’re going to try to do that next year. And I think we’re going to just travel locally until that and give her some time. So to grow up a little bit.
45:43
Well, I am delighted that you came on the podcast to tell us about all of this. It’s it’s good to know that it can be done even if there are some difficulties.
45:53
Right. It was worth it.
45:55
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. You have any last last word of advice. That I forgot to mention or
46:04
I don’t think so. Okay, I’ll post if I think of anything that people absolutely have to know I’ll just make a post in my facebook group,
46:11
make a make a post and maybe copy me on an email so that I can put it on the on the episode page for this episode because Facebook, you know, people will see it and then two days later, nobody knows where it is anymore.
46:26
Yeah, and I’m like, I’m gonna blog about specifically the Normandy stuff.
46:32
So I’ll try to post a link to the website. Yeah, what with more specific details and stuff for people to help plan.
46:42
Excellent. Thank you so much, Carrie. You’re welcome. Thank you, Annie. All right. Well, thank you Susan, Chef Meyer, Patty Lind and Monique one. Yeah. I guess in English, you might try to say that when you The it’s a French name its 20th for pledging to support the show on Patreon this week, and my thanks to all the other patrons who support the show month after month. Thank you so much for giving back, visit patreon.com forward slash join us PATREON. Join us no spaces or dashes to see the different reward tiers and thank you so much for giving back. My thanks also to Jenny when him and Denise O’Connor for sending in a one time donation by using the green button on any page on join us in France. com that says tip your guide anyone who donates via Patreon or gives a $20. One time donation gets an invite to a secret Facebook group where it’s much smaller than the big join us in France close group on Facebook and where I more active and answer your Questions. For my personal update this week I went to Paris for just the one day but it was a very long day. To test the GPS aware tour, I tested two of them on this trip into the city and
48:16
doing the test and using the apple, they really helped me understand how to make the most of this technology. And I think you will enjoy these tours because it really brings the area to life. And it’s quite simple to use. And also, especially in the market where it’s so easy to get turned around and last, it helps you get to the best places efficiently. How soon will the tourists be available? I’m hoping a week or two but this is my first time going through this. So I’m not sure what all the steps are involved but I’m working on them as fast as I can. And two bizarre things happened to me on that trip. One someone tried to steal my stuff and I’m going to tell you about that in a second. And two, I almost lost my ID at the security check the airport. I’ll tell you about that because it’s quick. When I approach the security area, you know, where you put all your stuff in bins. I had just a backpack and my printed boarding pass and my French ID. On the other hand, French ID is like this, it looks like it’s like a credit card just bigger, you know, maybe two and a half times the size of a credit card. And so I had both of these things in my hand and the guy who was supposed to help me just grabbed my ID and my boarding pass and put them in the plastic bin. And I go through the stuff and when I get to the other side, my ID was gone. And a panic because I wanted to get home right. So I talked to one of the persons and moral of the story is The people who do the security check do not need to see your ID Don’t let them take it, put it away in your bag. I, for some reason, I’ve done this dozens of times, I’ve put my passport even in that bin, and it never jumped out, but I guess it must have the guy must have just put it instead of putting it into bed, he probably put just slightly to the side of the bed and he it dropped underneath the system. They found it eventually. The problem is it took a good five minutes because there are so many people working that line that it’s hard for them to stop everything and look and Anyway, it was very stressful. But all ends well. In the future. I will never put my passport or my French ID in the bin no more. And the other thing that happened to me in Paris this time is that somebody tried to rob me. Okay, let me try and get through this quickly. It’s pretty funny. Straight forward, I was going up some stairs and somebody was right behind me and try to unzip my backpack zippers and get stuff out now I had seen it coming. So I was hyper vigilant. And when I realized that he was right behind me, I knew and so I turned around at the sound of the first zipper. No, it was actually the third zipper he managed to open so things go pretty fast. And I turned around and I yelled at him and and you know, no big deal. Nothing happened. But I was really, really hyper about it. And I was really, you know, your heart’s pumping and you’re just so angry that something like this has happened. So let me give you some advice as to what to do about situations like this which are really, really common in Paris. The only way to prevail against these people is to have nothing on you. And by nothing, I mean, okay, take take 20 bucks today. 40 bucks however much you think you might need in cash that day, take one credit card.
52:07
Apply for a passport card, so that you have official ID with you but it’s not your the ID you need to go home, okay? But do not take your driver’s license, do not take your work, Id do not take anything like that, that will take a while to replace, take as little as possible. And if you do that, then you can relax because even if they get you they’re not going to get that much. The issue for me is that I was just in Paris for the day. So I didn’t have a hotel room. And I had to have my ID I had to have some, you know, some cash, whatever. And I was doing some work so I needed Yeah, there was some things I needed, but be hyper vigilant. These people are really easy to spot. The problem is it’s hard to describe them without sounding like a jerk because as far as I can tell it’s always the same people who do this and that is Roma people. Now I got taken to task on the join us in France close group on Facebook for calling them gypsies. And yes, I’ve since done some reading and realize that probably I shouldn’t use that term. I didn’t mean it as a racial slur, I didn’t even know it could be seen as a racial slur. But you know, whatever you call them Roma people Romani people, Manu, z, Ghana, whatever it is, these are people and they’re not all like that I’m I never even think that they’re all like that because I know some personally, there’s some that live in my village, you know, five houses down and they don’t go around robbing people. But there are some of them that you know, they did you survive in Paris and what they do is they try to rob tourists. In Paris, unfortunately, there isn’t. There isn’t a lot of police that can deal with them. There. You will notice lots of military police lots of people with machine guns, they are completely ready to deal with a terrorist. But dealing with pickpockets is not a big priority. That’s because Paris doesn’t really have a municipal police force. They have. They have national police and they have john down and they have you know, all sorts of high powered cops that can you know, jump off buildings and put out fires, but they don’t have people for to protect you against these petty thieves. And so don’t have so much with you. It worked out for me, but it could have really if they had taken my ID I would have been in trouble. Otherwise you just told you I almost lost My ID
55:04
so yeah.
55:06
So anyway, I’m really excited about the GPS aware tours. I’m happy I went to Paris to do this, but it’s a little bit stressful to to encounter unpleasantries like that. But otherwise Paris was just as just as lovely as ever. If you want to recommend the podcast to someone who already listens to podcasts, just tell them they’ll find the join us in France travel podcast, anywhere they get their podcasts, if they listen to music, but not podcasts on their phones, tell them to search for join us in France on Spotify or Pandora. We’re also on the smart speakers. You can find us on the smart speakers as well. And if they don’t normally listen to anything on their phones, send them to join us in France. com and thank you for listening and for spreading the word send questions or feedback to any at join us in France. com Have a great week of trip planning there will not be an episode next week because I’m going to the beach. I’m really looking forward to it all over the join us in France travel podcast is written and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2019 by addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution non commercial no derivatives license
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Episode Page Guest NotesCategories: Family Travel, Normandy & Brittany