434 - Join Us in France Travel Podcast

Category: Provence

Discussed in this Episode

First walled City: Avignon
Second walled city: Aigues-Mortes
Third walled city: Carcassonne
Valon-Pont-d'Arc
La Grotte du Pont d'Arc (Chauvet)
Château de Montréal
Pont du Gard

Intro

[00:00:16] Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 434 – quatre cent trente-quatre.

[00:00:23] Annie Sargent: Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we talk about France. Everyday life in France, great places to visit in France, French culture, history, gastronomy and news related to travel to France.

Today on the podcast

[00:00:37] Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a trip report with Jennifer Gruenke about our weekend trip around Avignon.

[00:00:44] Annie Sargent: Jennifer and I went on this trip the first weekend of October, 2022. We met in Avignon, then went to the Grotte de Chauvet area, the Pont du Gard and Aigues-Mortes. It was a great trip and my second long trip in my electric car. So there was some trepidation about that, but it all went fine. If you’re interested in learning more about Provence and Ardèche, that’s where the Grotte de Chauvet is, this is the episode for you.

Podcast supporters

[00:01:15] Annie Sargent: This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and services, including my Itinerary Consult Service and my GPS self-guided tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app. And you can browse all of that at my boutique JoinUsinFrance.com/boutique.

[00:01:32] Annie Sargent: There is a newsletter to go along with this podcast. This week I’m planning on sharing an email about how it’s never dull in Paris, but I haven’t sent it out yet. But probably I’ll share it this week. If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter go to JoinUsinFrance.com/newsletter.

After the interview

[00:01:51] Annie Sargent: And for the magazine part of the podcast, after the interview, I’ll update you on the retirement age saga. Briefly. Briefly. I’m not going to do blow by blow. And I’ll also talk about something that a few group members have mentioned on Facebook, namely waiters telling you that the service is not included. Is that true?

[00:02:14]

Interview

[00:02:23] Annie Sargent: Bonjour, Jennifer Gruenke and welcome to Join Us in France. Welcome back, I should say.

[00:02:29] Jennifer Gruenke: Bonjour Annie, it’s good to be here.

[00:02:31] Annie Sargent: Lovely to have you, and this time we’re in person, how fun!

[00:02:35] Jennifer Gruenke: How fun, indeed.

Jennifer’s title for the episode

[00:02:37] Annie Sargent: Okay, so you came up with a wonderful title for this episode and you got to share it because it’s too good.

[00:02:43] Jennifer Gruenke: Okay. Weekend road trip in Southern France: A Tale of Three Walled Cities.

[00:02:49] Annie Sargent: Ooh, so those of you listening, can you guess what the three walled cities are? Maybe write it down. Let’s see if you got them right. Three interesting walled cities in the South of France. All right, take it away, Jennifer.

[00:03:04] Jennifer Gruenke: Well, we met in Avignon. I took the train and you drove. I left very early and so I got there before you and saw some of the museums in Avignon without you.

[00:03:17] Annie Sargent: Now, you took the train from Paris, right? Right.

[00:03:20] Annie Sargent: Right. That’s important because the train from Paris to Avignon, it’s actually pretty fast, isn’t it?

[00:03:25] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes. It took me a little over three hours. So I first went up to the Jardin des Doms and this is a lookout over the countryside. You have to climb up some steps and they have a very nice sign showing what you’re looking at. So it’s a picture, like an enameled picture. And I had some binoculars with me, which were nice to see the sites. I also visited four museums. There are a bunch of small free museums in Avignon.

Musée Angladon in Avignon

[00:03:59] Jennifer Gruenke: And one I visited is a private art museum that is not free.

[00:04:04] Jennifer Gruenke: That was Musée Angladon and it’s the art collection of this guy was a haute couture designer. And so he put some of his money into buying paintings by Van Gogh, Modigliani, Degas, Picasso, those sorts of things.

[00:04:25] Annie Sargent: So did you see any piece that was spectacular there? Anything you recognized?

[00:04:30] Jennifer Gruenke: Well, I mean when you see a Van Gogh, you know that it’s a Van Gogh and especially from the Arles, is that right?

[00:04:36] Annie Sargent: Yeah, Arles.

[00:04:38] Jennifer Gruenke: Period of Van Gogh. Arles. I’m still working on my French. The Modigliani did look like a classic Modigliani with a sort of elongated face portrait. They weren’t the most famous examples of Van Gogh or Modigliani, but they were, I think, worth seeing, if you like that kind of art, which I do.

[00:05:00] Annie Sargent: Yeah, mighty find indeed.

The three free museums

[00:05:02] Jennifer Gruenke: The three smaller museums that were free were Musée Calvert, Petit Palais and Requien. Of the three, my favorite was Petit Palais. And this one had a lot of Italian Renaissance paintings and I especially liked this set of paintings called the Cycle of Theseus. They don’t know who painted it, but it is very, very detailed.

[00:05:29] Jennifer Gruenke: It’s the mythological character Theseus painted, but as a Renaissance knight. So it’s kind of an unusual set and these pieces were in different collectors’ hands and they have brought them all together in this one museum.

[00:05:48] Annie Sargent: Yeah, it was really interesting because you told me that I should really see this, and so we went back the next day, once I arrived. And I think it was really stunning. So there were six pieces. Four of them belonged to this Petit Palais in Avignon and they will probably keep them on display for a long time. But they also borrowed two pieces.

[00:06:09] Annie Sargent: One belonged to a well, still belongs to private collector and the other was a Louvre Museum loan, but they look really, really different. They are so bright and just spectacular-looking and they depict the stories of important Greek myths. And it’s well explained like, you have the painting on one side and the explanation on the other side. If you’re patient enough to read the whole thing, it’s really quite interesting. And this is a temporary exhibit. It’s not going to be there for much longer, but probably they’ll keep the four that they own at the Petit Palais in Avignon for a while.

[00:06:49] Annie Sargent: And I thought Avignon is wonderful because all of these little museums, well, most of these little museum are free. The city actually wants to keep it free because they said that’s access. If it’s free, it’s, you know, you give access to everybody. And I really say Bravo. I mean this is cool because a lot of cities cannot afford to do this and so they do a good job.

[00:07:11] Annie Sargent: Yes, agreed. The other two little museums I saw were probably skippable and we didn’t go back there, but I mean, if you have time to kill, there’s nothing wrong with them.

Hôtel Kyriad Avignon

[00:07:19] Annie Sargent: That evening we stayed at Hôtel Kyriad Avignon.

[00:07:25] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Kyriad. Yeah.

[00:07:26] Jennifer Gruenke: And this one was very close to the center, so excellent location. It was a fairly small hotel room as you would expect for something right in the city but very modern in its decoration updated.

[00:07:39] Annie Sargent: Yeah, I thought it was a great location, especially because it’s like literally steps away from the Palais des Papes and you know, there’s a lot of cafes and things happening just in that area in general. So it’s a great place to stay. So I had a car and there’s a really nice parking lot underneath the Palais des Papes. I was very, you know, I have this thing about French parking lots.

[00:08:07] Annie Sargent: I hate it when I pay for parking and it smells like pee and they play horrible music. This one was very civilized. It did not smell like pee anywhere. And they were playing baroque music, which is not my favorite, but still it was fine music and they had car chargers for 50 cents.

[00:08:26] Annie Sargent: So I was able to, I had a connection fee of 50 cents and then I was able to charge overnight. Well actually I kept the car plugged in for 24 hours while we were looking around. It was charging mighty slow though. So it took 24 hours to charge my battery fully, but it’s fine because I needed, you know, we were going to stay in Avignon that long.

[00:08:47] Annie Sargent: So, I recommend the parking lot as well.

Palais des Papes

[00:08:51] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah, the next morning we went to the Palais des Papes and left your car plugged in while we were there.

[00:08:55] Jennifer Gruenke: So that got us to the afternoon. The Popes Palace really is the main show in Avignon. You can climb up on the upper walls and look down onto the courtyard, which is a really gorgeous view. And so people are probably getting the idea that Avignon is one of our three walled cities.

[00:09:12] Annie Sargent: Yes,

[00:09:13] Jennifer Gruenke: You can get up on the walls and look down.

Pont d’Avignon

[00:09:17] Jennifer Gruenke: We also saw on Saturday, the Pont d’Avignon which has a little nursery rhyme song that goes with it. And you were good enough to sing the nursery rhyme. I don’t know if you want to do it on here.

[00:09:27] Annie Sargent: Sur le Pont d’Avignon

[00:09:31] Annie Sargent: L’on y danse, l’on y danse

[00:09:35] Annie Sargent: Sur le Pont d’Avignon

[00:09:38] Annie Sargent: L’on y danse tous en rond.

[00:09:43] Annie Sargent: Les beaux messieurs font comme ça.

[00:09:44] Annie Sargent: Les belles dames font comme ça

[00:09:45] Annie Sargent: Et cetera, but nobody was dancing.

[00:09:47] Annie Sargent: Nobody was dancing.

[00:09:49] Annie Sargent: Nobody was dancing, but I did sing it out loud on the bridge, so there you go.

[00:09:53] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes, you did. But this bridge was built a very long time ago. I’m forgetting now how long, but it only goes part way across the river.

[00:10:01] Annie Sargent: Yeah, it’s like two thirds across the river and then they bombed or broke the other, and I forgot already. We read it and I forgot already what happened to this bridge.

Vallon-Pont-d’Arc

[00:10:12] Jennifer Gruenke: So after that we left, we retrieved the car from the nice parking lot and went on a drive. We were going towards the Pont-d’Arc which is a nature area, and we stopped at Château Belle Des Lières, which was a little winery.

[00:10:32] Jennifer Gruenke: And one of the things that you were talking about is how nice it is to stop at these little wineries along the way, somewhere.

[00:10:38] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And you know, you don’t, I mean, we did not make an appointment. We just noticed along the way on our way to

[00:10:45] Annie Sargent: Pont D’arc I kept seeing signs that said, you know dégustation de vin, blah, blah, blah, and I could see that there were cars parked in the parking lot in front of these places.

[00:10:54] Annie Sargent: And so I decided, I told you, do you want to stop? And you yeah, sure. So we did. And there was a very nice lady there, with her two boys. And she had us taste, actually we tasted all the wines that they made.

[00:11:08] Annie Sargent: I mean, they made six wines. Right?

[00:11:10] Annie Sargent: And since I was driving, I just had one swallow and threw out the rest because you can’t, yeah.

[00:11:15] Annie Sargent: But they were fine. And we particularly, both of us enjoyed the white wine. And I got some red as well for my husband, because he’s a red wine kind of guy.

[00:11:24] Annie Sargent: But, and I think we paid what, 6 Euros per bottle, it was very cheap. This is not like an impressive château that you have to make an appointment and blah, blah.

[00:11:35] Annie Sargent: No. They have kind of a sales room, a showroom, and if you see that there’s people there, stop, talk to them and they’ll have you taste some wine. They do expect you to buy some, but if you like it, you should buy some and then you’re good to go.

[00:11:51] Jennifer Gruenke: And because I was not driving, I got to try them all and I thought that they were better than similarly priced wines in the grocery store.

[00:11:59] Annie Sargent: That’s probably true. Yeah. They just, well, these sorts of wines would not be sold in the grocery store unless it’s a very, you know, unless they just take a few boxes of the wine themselves and put them on the shelf at the grocery store. But most of the time these are small producers that just make enough to sell at their own store.

[00:12:18] Annie Sargent: They open their own showroom and their own store, and they have people who just love their wine and come back year after year. There’s some wines around here that I go get again when I’m out, you know, I just go get them and they’re similar year in and year out. So people get used to that brand and go back.

[00:12:35] Annie Sargent: But they’re very small producers.

Hotel for the evening

[00:12:37] Jennifer Gruenke: Okay. So the hotel that evening was Le Clos des Bruyères

[00:12:43] Jennifer Gruenke: And this was sort of a larger country hotel that seemed to be set up for groups.

[00:12:50] Annie Sargent: Right. So this one I did not enjoy quite as much. So this is the sort of hotel where people go, because this is a part of the country where people go to canoe a lot. There were canoe rental places all over the place, right? And so if you have a, some sort of paddling club or a canoeing club or something like that, sometimes these clubs will take a vacation as a group and they go stay at a fairly big hotel.

[00:13:18] Annie Sargent: These, this is the kind of hotels that will have people by the bus loads. And they are so big that they only open in high season. So the night we were there was their last night. They were closing until April. Now this is a hotel that advertises itself as a destination charger for the electric car.

[00:13:39] Annie Sargent: Again, you know, I have an electric car, I have to think about these things. And they had two Tesla chargers and two non-Tesla chargers. The problem is that night, they had invited family and friends over for a celebration for the end of the season and their friends and family couldn’t care less about the chargers, parked their cars in the wrong place. And besides, the hotel turned off the chargers.

[00:14:04] Annie Sargent: So we went and checked in. I told her I wanted to charge, but that we were going to dinner and that I would charge afterwards. Well, I came back, there was a spot I could take, but the charger was turned off and then the next morning when I pointed out to her, she was, no, it was turned on. I know it was on, turned on. I checked myself.

[00:14:21] Annie Sargent: And I’m like, no, it was not. So thankfully, it wasn’t very far away, like we hadn’t driven that far, so it wasn’t, I didn’t need to charge. I will write them a review saying, no, you can’t do that to people. Other than that, the hotel was fine. I mean, they were carrying on, it was their last night they were carrying on and I heard them, you know, the breakfast the next morning was fine. They had very good bread at breakfast, so, you know, but just not my favorite. But the third hotel was pretty good, and we’ll get to that in a second.

[00:14:52] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes. And that was the hotel we just mentioned was in the city Vallon -Pont-d’Arc.

[00:14:59] Annie Sargent: That’s the word I was looking for Vallon-Pont-d’Arc.

[00:15:01] Jennifer Gruenke: So we should talk about Pont-d’Arc out of that name is that natural bridge structure.

Painted caves of Pont-d’Arc

[00:15:07] Annie Sargent: Right. So Pont-d’Arc is, it’s a river and over the river you have a natural stone bridge and there are cliffs in the area. It is just really gorgeous. And they discovered a painted cave around the Pont-d’Arc.

[00:15:26] Annie Sargent: Now I, it’s not like it’s, we visited the replica of this painted cave, which is nearby, but we don’t, I mean, we don’t know where the original entrance was, but a major, the reason why we went was that we wanted to see the cave.

[00:15:44] Annie Sargent: So it’s called Chauvet because the guy who was leading the, there was three people who were spelunking together and the leader was named Chauvet, but he’s not the one who went in first.

[00:15:57] Annie Sargent: A woman who was part of the expedition, I don’t remember her name, I’ll put it in the show notes, but she’s the one who really took a big risk and went through this very narrow thing and she did it because she was the smallest person there and she could fit, the others couldn’t fit. So she found it, she discovered it and they didn’t name it after her because you know, she’s not a man.

[00:16:19] Annie Sargent: So I will insist on calling this cave La Grotte du Pont D’arc and not the Chauvet cave because he was not the first in there. And also, I learned that there’s only two caves like that. There’s hundreds of, I think the woman said there were 200 painted caves that have been found in Europe.

[00:16:37] Annie Sargent: Perhaps it was 300, I can’t remember. Anyway, only two of them are named after the discoverer. That’s Cosquer, the reproduction is inMarseille and Chauvet, the reproduction is in Vallon-Pont-d’Arc. So I think it’s just most places like Lascaux, it’s called after the place and I think it would make more sense to call it after the place.

[00:16:59] Jennifer Gruenke: Some of the signage actually did have the place name as the name of the cave.

[00:17:03] Jennifer Gruenke: It’s probably worth pointing out that even though the tour was in French, they did give me an audio guide to listen to in English, so I don’t think I heard the exact same tour that you did, but I was hearing a tour along the way. And there are different stations and there’s a sensor that can tell what station you’re at, and so it can tell you what you’re looking at.

[00:17:25] Annie Sargent: Yes, I was following a French speaking guide and so she was ad-libbing some stuff that’s not in the recording. But this is a totally accessible cave, meaning you could go with a stroller or wheelchair. It’s very easy to do, so that’s very nice. But it didn’t feel as cavy as Lascaux, for instance.

[00:17:46] Annie Sargent: I’m very glad I saw it and I will recommend people go, especially if you have an interest in painted caves, this is one of the major ones because it’s much older than Lascaux. The paintings are, well, it’s hard to date these things precisely, but they’re thinking 38,000 to 40,000, whereas Lascaux is more like 18,000 to 20,000.

[00:18:09] Jennifer Gruenke: And I do love these painted caves because it’s such a reminder of how deeply the artistic instinct is in sort of the human psyche. For as long as there have been humans, there has been art.

[00:18:24] Annie Sargent: Right, and we were trying to speculate, you know, what were they trying to achieve? And perhaps it’s as simple as I think therefore I paint, you know, because humans, and these were humans just like you and me they can paint, they can create things. Animals around them for as mighty and wonderful as they are, they couldn’t do this. This is what set them apart.

[00:18:50] Annie Sargent: Now, there was clearly a lot of rules attached to this because they usually painted very deep into the cave and they didn’t live where they painted. But they practiced because it’s obvious. I mean, they had to practice this. Some of these drawings were just stunning.

[00:19:04] Annie Sargent: There was, there’s a collection of bears. They’re all facing in the same direction. I swear to God they look like, they look like they were trying to speak. They have really beautiful paintings, I thought. And they have colors. And also they used to think that cave paintings got better with time. And no, they didn’t. Because there is very little difference in the painting ability of the people 40,000 years ago to the ones 20,000 years ago, they could all make these beautiful drawings and we don’t really know why, but they did it.

[00:19:39] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah. They were very clearly using shading techniques and they were using the natural shape of the stone to accentuate the shape of the animal. I liked the one that had the cats, they were like mountain lions and they were all lined up in a row.

[00:19:54] Jennifer Gruenke: It was very dramatic.

[00:19:57] Annie Sargent: Yeah. No,it’s a beautiful place and you can’t take pictures in the cave, unfortunately. Yes, you can buy some in the gift shop and you can also download some that are rights free from the French Ministry of Culture, which is what I’m going to do to illustrate this episode.

Les Plus Beaux Villages de France

[00:20:13] Jennifer Gruenke: Okay, so we’re onto Sunday was the cave, and after the cave we decided we wanted to find one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. And there are lots of them that have this certification in the area. So we ended up in Balazuc, which was really kind of a bust.

[00:20:32] Annie Sargent: Definitely a bust. It’s okay. So it was empty. Much like all of these little villages, unless you go on a special day, when they have a special, I don’t know, an art fair or something special going on that attracts people, they are mightily empty. And this one was not even pretty really, I mean, it had some things that were nice, but I don’t know, it didn’t do anything for me that one, so that one’s a skip, I think.

[00:21:00] Jennifer Gruenke: But we did end up going to a château that was sort of a passion project for this one guy and I’m a sucker for these kinds of passion projects where there’s, you know, some crumbling artifact that somebody has decided to love and fix up again.

[00:21:17] Jennifer Gruenke: So it’s the Château de Montreal. And it’s set up, I mean, it’s sort of for kids and you know, educational type thing, but it’s also just fun to walk around in an old château.

[00:21:31] Annie Sargent: Right. So this one, he had a faded copy of a news article that said that a stone mason buys and restores a château. And it showed a much younger guy than the one who greeted us. But there he is still at the entrance and he doesn’t speak English, but he was just a, you know a really friendly person, fun to talk to. It’s not very expensive. I think we paid 7 Euros or something to walk through. Andthere was another, there were two other people there. He explained that he’s opened year round, but sometimes he closes because he has things to do, which makes sense, you know. But he is open year round.

[00:22:09] Annie Sargent: And let me tell you, in that area, in that part of France, lots of things close, like restaurants close for months on end. They pick a date in late September and then they close and they don’t reopen until April. So do check that if you’re going to visit. But he is open year round. I thought his château look really nice. And it is a château where in the summer, so I think he does this at the end of the first week of July, through the last week of August, he hires people to come do special events. So they’re going to do calligraphy, they’re going to do pottery, they’re going to have, you know, workshop, oh, the kids get to shoot bows and arrows. He has workshops for the kids and I think he said he hires eight people most years.

[00:23:00] Annie Sargent: So it’s got to be a fun thing to do, especially with children. But even if you don’t have children, I think he did a really nice job keeping this place interesting. He bought a lot of, because when he bought it, it was full of trash like, people had trashed it. And when he got it he said he had to ask the Boy Scouts to come help himempty just the junk that was in there. And that went on for several months. And then he started buying pieces here and there, you know, nice piece of furniture, a nice big table, to illustrate what life must have been like in the château.

[00:23:37] Annie Sargent: And I thought it was adorable. And I would, that one I would gladly recommend.

[00:23:41] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah, me too. I could definitely see a destination wedding happening in that big kitchen that he had.

[00:23:47] Annie Sargent: That’s right. Yes, it would be a very fun destination wedding or some sort of private event, and I don’t know if he does that. Perhaps he does. I don’t know, it would be worth asking.

[00:23:58] Jennifer Gruenke: Although he did not speak English, he did give me a printed English guide. So I was able to read about the history of the things that I was seeing as I was going along.

[00:24:08] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And his wife, we didn’t see his wife. We knew she was there because she threw a bag of trash down the stairs for him to take out.

[00:24:18] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes, he and his wife live there.

[00:24:22] Annie Sargent: Right. Right. So they have restored a part of the château and I’m sure it’s tip top shape where they live, because the few glimpses I got, it looked pretty plush. Okay. But yeah, it was garbage time.

[00:24:35] Jennifer Gruenke: Even people who live in castles have to take out the garbage.

[00:24:38] Annie Sargent: Yep.

Hotel Le Manoir du Raveyron

[00:24:39] Jennifer Gruenke: Okay. So the hotel that evening was Le Manoir du Raveyron and I think this was our favorite.

[00:24:46] Annie Sargent: Yes, this was definitely a very good place to stay. And they are open year round. They don’t close for six months out of the year. The owner seemed to me like he had a tiny Italian accent or something like that. Anyway, wherever he’s from, he was very welcoming.

[00:25:03] Annie Sargent: Very nice. We had gotten a room,triple room because you don’t share a bed with me, I toss and turn. And so we had to have separate beds. So we had to go all the way upstairs and there wasn’t an elevator. But that’s the only downside to this place is that there wasn’t an elevator.

[00:25:21] Annie Sargent: But I could do it. Like, you know, you carry a suitcase, even my bum knee and all I could do it, so it’s not a big deal. And also I was carrying my big extra pillows because I have a pillow problem.

[00:25:34] Jennifer Gruenke: Well, the upside of being on the top floor is we got a really nice view from those top floor windows and this was like a, I think a 16th century building and it was fixed up to be very quaint and had antique furniture and stone walls.

[00:25:47] Annie Sargent: And the beds were very comfortable. The bath it had a separate bathroom and toilet. So that was, to me, that’s a plus. I thought it was a lovely place and you could see that he was serving apero,I think he probably closes, well, he goes home around 7 or 7:30 or something.

[00:26:07] Annie Sargent: And, but he was, he has this nice patio and he was serving white wine to some of the guests and so forth. So, and then I saw that he just turned everything off in downstairs and he gave us the key and he said, you know, this is how you do it. And then the next morning we had breakfast there, it was included and it was lovely.

[00:26:24] Annie Sargent: You know, just a very nice simple B&B I recommend.

Monday heading back to Toulouse

[00:26:29] Jennifer Gruenke: Okay. So that brings us to Monday and heading back towards Toulouse. We stopped along the way at Pont du Gard. This is definitely a must see. It’s this 2000 year old Roman Aqueduct and it’s famous enough that probably most people have seen a picture of it, at least.

[00:26:45] Annie Sargent: And it was very nice. We didn’t, we wanted to also do some other things that day, so we did not look at the museum. But I have looked at that museum in the past and it’s very nice. Now, I remembered that I had paid 20 Euros for the parking and that was wrong. I only paid, I think, seven and a half or eight or nine perhaps.

[00:27:07] Annie Sargent: It was much less than I remembered. They also had two stalls for chargers. The car next to me was charging. It was a Peugeot 3008 and it was charging, and I set up my car to charge and it looked like it was working, but then, you know, maybe 15 minutes later when I check, cause I have an app I can check if my car is charging, it wasn’t. And so it stopped for some reason. And again, I didn’t need to charge, but there were only two chargers in that big parking lot, so they probably will add some more because in September, 2022 they sold more new electric cars in France than diesel cars. So the electric cars are overtaking the sales of diesel already, and so we’re going to need a lot more chargers.

1000 year old tree

[00:27:52] Jennifer Gruenke: I also enjoyed looking at this old tree and you actually spotted this and said, that’s a really old tree. I don’t think I would’ve seen it. I just would’ve kept walking because it isn’t really that big. But we walked over to it and it has a sign and the sign says, I was born in the year 900 and something, so it’s over a thousand years old. In the 1980s it was moved from Spain to its current location. So somebody moved a thousand year old tree.

[00:28:19] Annie Sargent: Right. So it explained that the tree was in a very arid and cold part of Spain, so probably it was a high altitude and it wasn’t thriving. So they probably dug up a huge hole in both areas, and removed the tree. Because when you have a tree that old, you don’t let it die. If it looks like it’s suffering and not doing well, you try and move it somewhere more appropriate and it looked very happy and healthy.

[00:28:48] Annie Sargent: And there were three of them, as a matter of fact, not far from one another. And they are, so if you’re facing the Pont du Gard, you have the museum to your back and they are going to be on your right a little ways. And they are not that huge because even a thousand year old olive tree does not get that huge, especially if it suffered, you know, where it was for most of its life, if it wasn’t an appropriate, but it looked beautiful, you know, beautiful leaves and it had olives on and it was just a very happy tree there.

[00:29:21] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And I recognized it because we have old trees like that all over France, and you just get used to seeing them here and there. They pop up here and there, and I do like trees, so I’m always on the lookout for them.

Aigues-Mortes

[00:29:32] Jennifer Gruenke: So next we headed down to Aigues-Mortes and is.

[00:29:37] Annie Sargent: Almost. Okay. Okay. Okay. Aigues-Mortes.

[00:29:41] Annie Sargent: There you go. You can say it, but you don’t think of the spelling, think of the Aigues-Mortes.

[00:29:49] Jennifer Gruenke: I’m, yeah.

[00:29:50] Jennifer Gruenke: I’m working on it. You are. This is our second walled city.

[00:29:53] Jennifer Gruenke: And it’s way down near the Mediterranean. And you can pay to go up on the ramparts. So these are the old medieval walls that were there to protect the city from invaders. You can walk all the way around on the top. It takes probably an hour or so, even a little longer.

[00:30:13] Annie Sargent: Yeah, probably a bit more than an hour because you always stop and take photos and look around, and it is a big walled city. It’s, yeah, it’s a big size.

Production of sea salt

[00:30:21] Jennifer Gruenke: That area is known for production of sea salt. So you can actually look down from the top of the ramparts and see these giant sea flats where they’re evaporating the salt and it kind of turns pink.

[00:30:34] Annie Sargent: Yeah, it’s very like visually, you know, because they sell Le Sel de Camargue, which is very good. You had some when we stopped for lunch and you said you like the salt. It’s salt, you know, but it’s a flaky kind of salt. It’s not as big as rock salt, but it’s a nice texture and I mean, flavor, it tastes like salt. I mean, you know.

[00:30:57] Jennifer Gruenke: The thing that’s nice about it is, it’s in chunks that are kind of crunchy, but not so hard that you’re going to break your teeth so you can get a nice little crunchy, flaky bit of salt on your salad, was good.

[00:31:14] Annie Sargent: Yeah, and it’s like, you know, this kind of salt that they put on pretzels in America, it’s much smaller than that. It’s like flakes. It’s more like flakes than little beads.

[00:31:26] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes, like fluffy salt.

[00:31:28] Annie Sargent: Exactly.

[00:31:29] Jennifer Gruenke: So Aigues-Mortes is, I mean it’s not a super fancy touristy area.

[00:31:33] Jennifer Gruenke: Exactly. People actually still do live there in the city. But it’s nice to play the tourists and walk around as well. There are places where you can hire a boat, but we didn’t do that cause we wanted to see some other things that day and get going. But we got back in the car and started to drive along this area.

[00:31:52] Jennifer Gruenke: The Camargue? Yes. And saw pink flamingos. Since I’m a bird person, I was very excited about the flamingos because I don’t think I’ve ever seen them in the wild. I mean, obviously I’ve seen them in zoos, but…

[00:32:05] Annie Sargent: Yeah, there were quite a few along the road.

[00:32:07] Annie Sargent: They’re not afraid of cars, because it’s a marshy area. And so from the top of the ramparts you can see that the actual open sea is quite a distance, and there are canals to take boats between the Aigues-Mortes and the open sea.

[00:32:23] Annie Sargent: There’s canals to take you to the Sète to enter the canal.

[00:32:29] Annie Sargent: It’s just a very beautiful area and I like what you said that it’s not entirely a touristy town. Now, it has high season, okay. It has times when you feel like you are overwhelmed by visitors. This was not one of these days, but this, today when as we are recording, they’re doing this votive festival and I bet it’s going to be very crowded.

[00:32:55] Annie Sargent: So it just, you know, it’s some of both. And I asked the restaurant, because we couldn’t find a restaurant that would serve us because it was, we were arriving, we were looking for food at like, it was what, 1:40 or something? And the cooks had all gone home.

[00:33:11] Jennifer Gruenke: Kind of a rookie mistake, but we made it.

[00:33:12] Jennifer Gruenke:

[00:33:12] Annie Sargent: Well typically it’s a little later than that they send the cook home. So I was a little surprised. Anyway, we found a place that would serve us. I think we had a salade de riz or something like that. A rice salad. It was fine.

[00:33:27] Annie Sargent: And the lady, I asked her when the busy times are, and especially when the dead times are, because I don’t like dead towns, as you can, as you probably heard me say already in this episode. And they, she said not to come between the first week of January and the last, in the end of January, because that’s when almost everything closes.

[00:33:50] Annie Sargent: But otherwise, if you come during any French kids school vacation, even February vacation or you know… things pick up again and people come out to Aigues-Mortes to look.

[00:34:04] Annie Sargent: And it was very interesting because the history of Aigues-Mortes is, I mean, the town was built from whole cloth by the will of Saint Louis who wanted a protected port from which he could go to the Crusades. And he went to the Crusades twice there, and in the town you see, we did another episode about Aigues-Mortes, I’ll reference it in the show notes.

[00:34:29] Annie Sargent: But in the town you can see thestatues to Saint Louis. They do a Fête de Saint Louis at some point in the year, I can’t remember when it is, but it’s a big deal.

[00:34:39] Annie Sargent: So, and also because it’s such a flat area, the walls that they built are ginormous. I live in France, so I’ve seen a lot of, you know, ramparts and things like that. These are twice as thick as you think they would be, so that it’s because they were really afraid of being invaded and they really wanted to keep this strong place for the king to be able to come and gather his people for the crusades.

Carcassonne

[00:35:09] Jennifer Gruenke: So it’s probably a good time to bring in our third walled city then Carcassonne, am I saying that right? And it’s cheating a little bit cause we didn’t do it on our weekend, but it is right here and you’ve been many times.

[00:35:20] Jennifer Gruenke: And I went yesterday. And so I was able to compare the medieval walled city of Carcassonne, Aigues-Mortes and Avignon, the three walled, medieval walled cities. My impression of Carcassonne was that it doesn’t really feel like a real city. Almost nobody lives there. It’s very much a tourist attraction. Feels a little bit like Disneyland.

[00:35:41] Jennifer Gruenke: It’s gorgeous. I got amazing photos and walked along the ramparts as I did in Aigues-Mortes. But I think that I prefer the more authentic feeling of Aigues-Mortes, that it’s a real functioning town that has kept its medieval architecture.

[00:36:02] Annie Sargent: Right. So yes. The La Cité in Carcassonne is almost devoid of full-time inhabitants. It’s very much like the Mont Saint-Michel in that way. Very few people live on the Mont Saint-Michel, very few people live in the Cité de Carcassonne because renovating, I mean, these are all protected buildings, you can’t do renovations and they’re not very comfortable.

[00:36:27] Annie Sargent: If you’re a hotel or a B&B or an Airbnb even, which then it’s worth putting in the money to do the renovations. But for individuals, it’s just too expensive to renovate in a place like this. And it’s just easier to buy a new place somewhere else. So it’s true that Carcassonne can feel like it’s not real. Because, yeah, people don’t live there. The city empties late in the afternoon. How late did you stay there?

[00:36:55] Jennifer Gruenke: I left about 6:45.

[00:36:59] Annie Sargent: Right, so I assume most people had already left.

[00:37:01] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah. I mean there were some, I was able to find a wine shop that was open without too much trouble, but yeah, it was definitely low season, you could tell.

[00:37:09] Annie Sargent: And when you go at high season, then it’s a completely different matter. And it’s just crammed. Because those, so the medieval streets of Carcassonne are much narrower than the ones in Aigues-Mortes. So Aigues-Mortes was big, it was wide enough and it’s kind of a, on a grid, you know, and so it was easier to adapt the city to cars. I mean, local people who live in Aigues-Mortes they have their own cars. Visitors like me, I didn’t drive in, but you can if you live there. And so it’s, it’s wider, it’s more amenable to renovations and modern life than Carcassonne. Carcassonne is so, so packed in, all the houses are really close together. You can barely, you know, some places a horse, a person on a horse would barely fit. It’s so narrow. So it’s a different feel.

Centre des Monuments Nationaux Card

[00:38:06] Jennifer Gruenke: I also want to tell people about this card that I got from the Centre des Monuments Nationaux.

[00:38:13] Annie Sargent: Yes. Yes. That’s a good one.

[00:38:15] Jennifer Gruenke: So I purchased this in Paris. It cost me 45 Euros and it lasts me for a year and it gets me into the national monuments free for that year.

[00:38:28] Jennifer Gruenke: I did the math. Before I left I bought it because I wanted to go to the Pantheon, which is right next to where I live, and it’s 12 Euros to get in once and 45 Euros to get in for a whole year. So I was like, that’s a good deal. It also got me into La Conciergerie, which is right there in Central Paris and Sainte-Chapelle.

[00:38:48] Jennifer Gruenke: So I bought this card two weeks ago. And in Paris I saw those three and I had it with me when we went to Aigues-Mortes and Carcassonne and it got me into the ramparts there, and I didn’t really know that when I bought the card, but I saw the sign.

[00:39:07] Jennifer Gruenke: So in these two weeks, I would have spent more than 50 Euros on tickets getting in if I had bought tickets for each one separately.

[00:39:15] Jennifer Gruenke: And the card was only 45 Euros for a year. Now the bad thing if you’re a tourist is you have to order this card in advance. And you can get it mailed to an address in France, so you could have it shipped to your hotel, order it a week in advance. I just filled out the form online and then got a notice that I could go pick it up at the Hotel Sully.

[00:39:37] Jennifer Gruenke:

[00:39:37] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Hotel de Sully.

[00:39:38] Jennifer Gruenke: It’s in Paris near the…

[00:39:42] Annie Sargent: It’s in the Marais.

[00:39:42] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah, it’s in the Marais.

[00:39:44] Jennifer Gruenke: It’s actually the home of the Monuments Nationaux de France. So that’s where all the top people who do the conservation, monument conservation, they all have an office in that gorgeous building.

[00:39:56] Jennifer Gruenke: I think that it’s on one of your VoiceMap tours.

[00:40:00] Annie Sargent: Yes, it is.

[00:40:01] Jennifer Gruenke: So you will just go into that place and pick up your card. So that’s my money-saving tip of the day.

[00:40:09] Annie Sargent: No, that is true and I should buy it because I’m always going into these places, you know, and I should just get it. Like, why?

[00:40:16] Jennifer Gruenke: It gets you into 80 different monuments for a year.

[00:40:20] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And I’m sure because national monuments, so I’m sure like the Abbaye at Mont Saint-Michel would also be included.

[00:40:26] Annie Sargent: There’s a ton of these national monuments.

[00:40:29] Jennifer Gruenke: Arc de Triomphe.

[00:40:31] Annie Sargent: A bunch of different châteaux.

[00:40:33] Annie Sargent: So like probably the château de Blois, because that one’s a national monument.

[00:40:37] Jennifer Gruenke: I think so.

[00:40:38] Annie Sargent: Anyway, a bunch of the Châteaux de Loire would be included as well, you know, I mean, look at the list. And I’ll put a link to where you can purchase this in the show notes. But I’m surprised that they won’t mail it somewhere outside of France, that’s weird.

[00:40:51] Annie Sargent: Maybe they would. I didn’t really look because I live in Paris.

[00:40:55] Annie Sargent: Oh, rub it in.

[00:40:57] Annie Sargent: All right, Jennifer. Well, so overall, was it a good weekend for you? It was fantastic.

[00:41:02] Jennifer Gruenke: Thank you so much for suggesting the little long weekend vacation.

[00:41:06] Annie Sargent: I love going to see places but sometimes going by myself isn’t that much fun. Elyse likes to come, but she doesn’t like to be away from her cat very long, so… and my husband works too much, my daughter works too much, so it’s nice to have you to join me on this adventure. It’s been lovely. And you’re very easy guest. Oh my God. You’re like so easy. I didn’t hear you. You do your own thing.

[00:41:30] Jennifer Gruenke: Well, I’m quite glad to be your travel companion.

[00:41:33] Annie Sargent: Merci beaucoup, Jennifer.

[00:41:35] Jennifer Gruenke: Merci.

[00:41:35] Jennifer Gruenke:

Outro

[00:41:42] Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for supporting the show and giving back. Patrons, get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them all, and there are many, at PATREON.COM/JOINUS. Thank you all for supporting the show. Some of you have been doing it for a long time, you are wonderful.

Patrons rewards

[00:42:00] Annie Sargent: And a shout out this week to new patrons: TeelM, Cate Bradley, Patricia Leonard, Megan DiGregorio, Lin Sakai. Thank you so much for becoming patrons and making this podcast possible. And patrons, I would like to really encourage you to install the Patreon app on your phone. It’ll help you enjoy your rewards while on the go, including all audio and video rewards.

[00:42:30] Annie Sargent: This week I published two Patreon rewards. One was a short essay on the political shenanigans happening early in the week and advice on whether or not it’s a reason to cancel your trip to France. The second was a French history brief about the Bourgeois de Calais or Burghers of Calais.

[00:42:50] Annie Sargent: I’m all about enhancing your experience in France, and knowing the history makes this marvelous sculpture by Rodin even better.

[00:42:59] Annie Sargent: My thanks also to Tracy Anderson for sending in a one-time donation using the green button on any page on Join Us in France that says “Tip your guide”.

[00:43:09] Annie Sargent: Tracy wrote: Thanks Annie. My wife and I will be in Provence, Toulouse, Dordogne, Bordeaux for three weeks starting mid-April. I found your podcasts of great value. I hope the strikes do not impact us.

[00:43:25] Annie Sargent: Merci, Tracy. Well, I doubt the strike will impact you because you’re coming in several weeks. You’re probably renting a car, and strikers are trying to organize gas shortages. We might have one this week. That never lasts more than a few days because that’s one type of strike that even French people resent. So I think you’ll be fine.

[00:43:50] Annie Sargent: If you’re preparing a trip to France and listening to as many episodes as you can to get ready, keep listening to the podcast because that’s a great way to do it.

Itinerary consultant service

[00:43:58] Annie Sargent: You can also hire me to be your itinerary consultant. Here’s how it works. You purchase the service on JoinUsinFrance.com/boutique. Then you fill out a document to tell me what you have in mind. We make a phone appointment and chat for about an hour. And then I send you a document with the plan we discussed.

[00:44:18] Annie Sargent: Now, my time is always booked up several weeks in advance. And now that has jumped even more because most of May is blocked off because of the bootcamp. But you can see the date for my next availability on the only page where you can buy this service at the Join Us in France Boutique.

Self-guided tours in Paris

[00:44:37] Annie Sargent: And if you cannot talk to me because I’m all booked up you can still take me in your pocket by getting my GPS self-guided tours on the VoiceMap app. I have produced seven tours and they are designed to show you around different iconic neighborhoods in Paris: Eiffel Tower, and you can get that one either in French or in English, Ile de la Cité, le Marais, Montmartre, Saint Germain des Prés and the Latin quarter.

This week in French News – Retirement age protests

[00:45:02] Annie Sargent: Let’s talk briefly about what’s happening with the retirement age protests.

[00:45:07] Annie Sargent: As far as the legislation is concerned, it’s over. The Parliament refused to vote on it, then demanded that they must vote on it. And the Prime Minister called their bluff and said, okay, do you want me to lose my job over this, and then will disband parliament and you might also lose your job.

[00:45:26] Annie Sargent: And so that’s the game of chicken that is totally legal in France. Of course, it’s in the French Constitution and it’s Article 49 subparagraph 3 of the French constitution.

[00:45:37] Annie Sargent: The Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne won this and that means that the law that she proposed is now in place. She has also asked for the law to be reviewed by the Conseil Constitutionnel which is the Constitutional Review Board, if you wish.

[00:45:55] Annie Sargent: And that’s going to happen within the month. So they have a month to give their advice. They might ask for some changes to be made but perhaps it’ll pass just as is.

[00:46:07] Annie Sargent: Now, people have been speculating that she was a goner, blah, blah, blah, that she was going to no, no, no, no, she is not a goner. She is going to hang in it. She’s going to hang in because she, I mean, I know people criticize her and Macron, whatever, and they are very loud, but you know what? They’ve done everything by the rule and they got the votes and all the people yelling and screaming did not get the votes, so voila.

[00:46:37] Annie Sargent: What does that mean as far as strikes are concerned? I think we are going to have some official announced strikes that are going to be very well managed and peaceful and all of that. And those are probably going to go on for two, three more weeks. I record this on a Wednesday, tomorrow Thursday is going to be pretty bad. As far as the trains, always the same, the train, the buses, the metros, always the same.

[00:47:08] Annie Sargent: You can expect things like that to happen on and off in the next few weeks. But you know what, this is France, things like that happen anyway. It would be, whether it’s this or something else, they will find ways to strike. It’s just the way it is.

[00:47:20] Annie Sargent: As far as the garbage problems and garbage getting burned and the cops getting antagonized by hooligans at night usually, it is happening and it will probably continue to happen for several more days. Eventually, they’ll arrest all these clowns and life will go on.

[00:47:41] Annie Sargent: But there’s going to be some unrest, but it’s mostly going to be at night.

[00:47:45] Annie Sargent: Okay? So if you’re out during the day, I don’t think you’ll experience any of this.

Service NOT included at restaurants?

[00:47:49] Annie Sargent: Let’s move on to an interesting topic that was brought up on the Facebook group by Jennifer. She said I’m in Paris now and had this happened to me for the first time in about 10 trips.

[00:48:00] Annie Sargent: So this is somebody who’s come to France a lot. They finished dining. The server brought the bill to her along with a payment machine and he made sure to tell me, Le service n’est pas compris.

[00:48:12] Annie Sargent: So I’m used to it being part of the bill in France. So it was a, I was at a bit of a loss to, as to what to tip. In my case, what are the French waiters expecting? Are they making a pittance and relying on tips nearly alone, like some states in the US?

[00:48:30] Annie Sargent: No. Servers do not make a pittance in France.

[00:48:34] Annie Sargent: I’m not saying they get paid wonderful wages, but they have a living wage, okay? And as a matter of fact, the wages for a waiter are a little higher than minimum wage.

[00:48:45] Annie Sargent: This guy was trying to get you to give him an extra tip because he could hear you were American and he wanted to take advantage of this. There are no establishments where service is not included. That does not happen in France. It cannot happen in France. So, if you want to leave a few Euros, you can do that, but several more people chimed in and it does seem like it’s happening.

[00:49:13] Annie Sargent: Waiters are catching on that perhaps they can ask for a tip when they have American customers, they would never do that to a French customer because they would know that it would not go well. But if it happens to you, just let them talk and leave a few euros like you always have. Like I always have.

[00:49:33] Annie Sargent: That’s what I do. I think, you know, waiting on tables is a hard job and I’m very happy to leave a few extra Euros, but not 20%, okay? This is ridiculous. There’s no need for it, they have a reasonable salary anyway.

[00:49:48] Annie Sargent: A different person, said that the waiter justified this by saying that the law had changed.

[00:49:54] Annie Sargent: The only thing that has changed, and this is real, is that in the last perhaps year or two, the credit card companies have made it possible for you, the diner, to add a little extra to your credit card bill. It used to be that the only way to pay a tip was to have cash. And people often felt stupid because they didn’t have cash and they couldn’t leave a tip.

[00:50:18] Annie Sargent: Now, you could leave a tip with your credit card, but it’s not like in America where you have an extra line, where you write, I want to give an extra 12 bucks or whatever. There is nothing like that in France, but you can say to the waiter, okay, I’ll give you five bucks extra for a tip. And they can add it to your credit card.

[00:50:37] Annie Sargent: You don’t have to, but it can be done. That has changed. But no restaurant in France gets away with not paying their waiters, okay? So they get a normal wage. If you feel like giving a tip, thank you very much, but I think it’s awful that they are taking advantage of visitors who they hope are going to feel bad and will give them 20% because they’d love that, of course.

[00:51:08] Annie Sargent: One person says, I’m curious as to what all the ramification may be in France since pension age was recently raised from 62 to 64. Okay. No, it hasn’t been raised yet. It’s going to be raised gradually.

[00:51:21] Annie Sargent: So can anyone explain what may or is happening as this trickles down to all people of all ages?

[00:51:27] Annie Sargent: Okay, this is not really about tipping, but I guess what this person is saying is perhaps these people are not paid very much and we should be helping them. If you feel like you need to give them a tip, please do give them a tip. It’s not, there’s nothing wrong with giving a tip in France. Some people say, oh, don’t tip, because that’s an insult.

[00:51:47] Annie Sargent: No, that’s BS as well. But saying that you must give a tip, you know, it’s not correct.

[00:51:54] Annie Sargent: And one person said, I work as a waitress, so I honestly tip everywhere, whether you think so or not, it’s a terribly difficult job. When I was in Paris, I personally witnessed an American being rude to their server and then didn’t tip, it was awful. I always carry cash to tip with.

[00:52:11] Annie Sargent: So yes, I agree with you. Waiting is a very hard job and I always tip as well, and it’s good if you just do it in cash. It’s great if you do it in cash. But now you can also add a little bit to your credit card if you wish.

[00:52:25] Annie Sargent: And another person says, this is because he knows that you’re from a tipping culture and, you know, wanted to pressure tourists for tips. Apparently it’s becoming more common in big cities in Europe, but tipping in Europe has not changed, okay? It’s the same.

[00:52:40] Annie Sargent: So truly, if you give 10% you will be worshiped. They will want you back. Definitely no need to give 10%, you know. That’s the difficult thing with tipping, isn’t it? In France there’s no need. But it is getting more and more normal for people to leave a few euros, two, three euros at the end of a meal or a good experience is appreciated. Let’s put it that way.

[00:53:09] Annie Sargent: So for this week I had also written out a whole thing about helping you understand the French political landscape, but the episode’s going to be way too long if I put it in this episode. So I’ll use this for another episode. Things are moving, but it’s not near as bad as you might think if you just watch CNN, obviously, you know?

[00:53:29] Annie Sargent: Yeah. It’s not as bad as all that.

[00:53:31] Annie Sargent: If you enjoy the podcast and would like your friends to listen too, go to JoinUsinFrance.com/trailer and share the trailer for the podcast with them. It’s short and sweet and I think it’ll help them decide if they would like to listen as well.

[00:53:46] Annie Sargent: Show notes and a full transcript for this episode are on JoinUsInFrance.com/434. JoinUsinFrance.com/434. Wow, it’s getting big numbers. And a big thank you to podcast editor Cristian Cotovan who produces the transcripts so you can find in which episode we talked about that thing that you’re interested in.

[00:54:06] Annie Sargent: I would love to play more voice feedback on the show. If you have a question or comment, record a voice memo on your phone and email it to me annie@JoinUsinFrance.Com. And if you let me, I’ll play it on the show.

[00:54:19] Annie Sargent: And by the way, do not fill out the contact form on the website, if you have something to say to me, email me directly annie@JoinUsinFrance.Com. I need to remember to ask my husband to turn off that contact form because people use it mostly with spam, but once in a while, it’s someone who really needs to talk to me and they think I’m going to see it, and I do not because I don’t want to be reading all these messages about viagra or whatever they are selling.

Next week on the podcast

[00:54:47] Annie Sargent: Next week on the podcast, an episode with Elyse Rivin about things that are free to do in Paris. It turns out there’s a lot of stuff you can do for free in Paris. It’s wonderful. I think you’ll enjoy it.

[00:54:59] Annie Sargent: Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.

Copyright

[00:55:07] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and Copyright 2023 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.

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Transcript for Episode 434: Weekend road trip in Southern France: A Tale of Three Walled Cities