511 - Join Us in France Travel Podcast

Table of Contents for this Episode

Categories: Day-Trips from Paris, French Châteaux, Loire Valley, Off the Beaten Track in France

Discussed in this Episode

Gare Montparnasse
Château d'Angers
Tapestry of the Apocalypse
Angers Cathedral
L'Hôpital Saint Jean
Loire Valley
Collégiale Saint Martin
La Maison d'Adam
Le Grand Théâtre
Ancien Couvent de la Baumette
Maison Bleue

[00:00:00] Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 511, cinq cent onze.

Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.

Today on the podcast

[00:00:31] Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a trip report about the day trip I took with Jennifer Gruenke and Patricia Perry, between Paris and Angers.

I think that today’s episode is perfect for history buffs, art enthusiasts, and anyone interested in cultural gems.

We highlight must see attractions in Angers, like the stunning tapestries of the apocalypse at the Château d’Angers, and we did all of this on a day trip. We share travel logistics, hidden gems, and our genuine impressions, which, you know, guidebooks can’t do that for you.

Podcast supporters

[00:01:06] Annie Sargent: This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and services, including my Itinerary Consult Service, my GPS self-guided tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app, or take a day trip with me around the southwest of France in my electric car. You can browse all of that at my boutique: Joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

And Patreon supporters get new episodes as soon as they are ready and ads-free. If that sounds good to you, be like them, follow the link in the show notes.

The Magazine segment

[00:01:38] Annie Sargent: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Patricia and Jennifer today, I’ll discuss my recent week in Paris for the Paralympics, and what a week it was.

And I’ll also tell you about the Journées du Patrimoine, and what you need to do if you’re going to be in Paris on Saturday and Sunday, September 21st and 22nd, 2024.

Bonjour, Patricia and Jennifer and welcome to Join Us in France.

[00:02:15] Patricia Perry: Bonjour tout le monde!

[00:02:16] Jennifer Gruenke: Bonjour!

[00:02:17] Annie Sargent: How are you ladies?

[00:02:19] Patricia Perry: Great.

[00:02:19] Jennifer Gruenke: Doing well.

[00:02:20] Annie Sargent: Good. All right, so today we’re going to talk about a day trip we took together. We went to Angers, a day trip from Paris. And it was all organized by the wonderful Patricia Perry, who likes to go on such day trips. So do tell how you organized this and why you picked the things you picked.

[00:02:40] Patricia Perry: Well, I knew, I had never been there before, so it was my first trip there too, but I’d heard a lot of good things about Angers, and knew that the château was a special place to go visit there, and it could easily be done in one day. We left from Gare Montparnasse, and it’s an hour and a half trip on the TGV to get there, so it’s easy trips, you know, back and forth for a one day trip.

[00:03:01] Annie Sargent: We took a Wego and it was, what… 50 Euros, or something, for the return ticket?

[00:03:07] Patricia Perry: Yeah, something, you know, it wasn’t very expensive and we didn’t plan that far in advance. So, you could probably do better if you plan far in advance.

Start with the Tourist Office

[00:03:14] Patricia Perry: It’s an easy day trip, and one of the things I always go to and look at is the tourist office site online, before I visit there, and then I always stop there when I get there. Because you never know what they’re going to tell you.

They told me this time, one of the things I wanted to see was Clothes for Work, you can always get a good walking map there, and then they always have a collection of books on the places that you want to go to.

[00:03:38] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Angers Essentiels is the map they gave us. Always a good thing to do. Just stop at the tourist office. They have stuff for visitors.

[00:03:46] Patricia Perry: And when you go on the train also, you had the benefit, you usually end up in the center of town. We were like a 10 minute walk or so, from the castle, the chateau. So that makes it easy also. And you should look at the hours of the tourist office. Usually they open by 9.

Some of the places close between lunch and 2 PM. Other than that, they’re a good place to stop by. We had good weather. We didn’t plan that part, but it just happened, so that’s always a bonus whenever you’re dealing with a day trip, or you’re going to be outside a lot of the day, especially in a place like a chateau.

The château was the main event, although there were some other things I did want to go see when I was there, and also planned a lunch for us at a… it was another Art Deco restaurant. A lot of the things in Angers, they are tie work and are very pretty, some Art Deco buildings that you can go see.

So this restaurant was an Art Deco restaurant. The food was okay. The building and the interior is quite nice.

Wine Tasting

[00:04:46] Patricia Perry: And the other thing I had, I booked as far in advance was a wine tasting. And I had no idea what it really was, and it turned out to be a very small, almost like in a garage, one woman wine show.

So she picked her grapes from various places around the Loire Valley nearby, and then made three or four… oh, maybe half a dozen different kinds of wine. Mostly natural wines, which are always a bit of a crapshoot because you never know what’s going to happen since they don’t use, you know, the yeast that can happen and they are different and there’s no stabilizers, no preservatives.

[00:05:24] Annie Sargent: So, it was interesting, and it was interesting to see how she started this just a couple of years ago. And the name of it was Chai… No, it was 1006, Vendée Loire, Chai Urbain, and the 1006 is the length of the Loire River. 1006 kilometers. Yeah. I think though, I don’t know what you thought, Jennifer, but I think the wine was… yeah.

[00:05:48] Patricia Perry: Yeah, mediocre.

[00:05:49] Jennifer Gruenke: I mean, she’s just starting out. I think this place is only a couple of years old. She was talking about starting it during the pandemic too, and the difficulties with that. I mean, it’s always interesting to hear somebody talk about a project that they’re passionate about, and who knows where she’ll go.

Right now, the wine isn’t fantastic, but I’m always up for trying wine even if it isn’t the best in the world.

[00:06:12] Patricia Perry: I mean, in a lot of vineyards they inherited the land, you know, from their family. Their parents, or grandparents, or somebody were winemakers, and she really had none of those advantages. So, you know, bravo to her for just starting something.

[00:06:26] Annie Sargent: Definitely. Because we have a lot of wineries in France that are: Oh, look at me, I inherited this and I make wine. It’s great. I make lots of money, and it’s great. We also have a lot of smaller wineries, older wineries, they were struggling, maybe they got sold, and somebody is taking over. And it’s really hard making good money in wine in France, because we’re right in the middle of French people drinking less and less wine.

It still exports pretty well, but French people, from the time I was growing up in France to now, it’s maybe a tenth of the wine people used to drink. Because people just don’t drink at lunch ever, hardly ever. And you go to a social function at dinnertime, unless they tell you it’s an apéro, nobody’s going to be drinking a lot.

And for work meetings, nobody drinks. So it’s very different than it used to be, because when I was doing my first internships as someone, I mean, I was young, I didn’t even like wine, I used to look at all these adults drinking, you know, a bottle at lunch.

And my dad didn’t drink much. My mom didn’t drink any. My dad drank very rarely, so to me, it was shocking how many people outside of the home drank, and how much they drank, even in the middle of the workday. That’s done. We don’t do that anymore. So selling wine is difficult.

The tapestries at the L’Hôpital Saint Jean

[00:07:55] Patricia Perry: And then one other place we scrambled off to, it was a smaller place, it actually was an old hospital, L’Hôpital Saint Jean, the St. John’s Hospital, where they had some, very modern tapestries. They fall into my category of weird art, but Jennifer will probably have a different point of view on that one. It was our kind of our last, small visit for the day. But I’ll let somebody else talk about the chateau and the wonderful, wonderful tapestries they have there.

[00:08:22] Annie Sargent: Jennifer, take it away.

The Tapestries of the Apocalypse in the Château d’Angers

[00:08:24] Jennifer Gruenke: I really enjoyed these tapestries. And I went into this just because Patricia was planning it. And she said, you want to come? And I was sure. And so I kind of went into it not really understanding the historical significance of these tapestries. But I think that they’re actually the largest surviving collection of medieval tapestries anywhere.

And they’re in surprisingly good shape, given how old they are. And there’s a lot of them. There are 14th century tapestries, depicting the story in the Book of Revelation. And the 14th century, they have a little video at the beginning explaining that the 14th century was pretty much one of the worst centuries to live through in Europe, ever.

They had a really bad famine early on, and then the Hundred Years War started, where the King of England was claiming the throne of France, and so the English were invading, and it was not going well for France. Their king got captured. And so, especially in France, things were bad, and then the black plague hit and killed close to half the population of France, and other places in Europe.

So if you survived that plague, you had a good chance of dying in this famine. There also at the same time, was a lot of turmoil in the Catholic Church, which was really important in France, where there were disputes over who the Pope was going to be, and where the seat of the Church was going to be.

Out of all of this difficulty towards the end of the 1300s, I think 1370 something is when they started making this tapestry. There’s this story in the Bible of all of these horrible things happening, many of them not too different than the horrible things that had actually been happening, but the story has a happy ending.

And so it’s sort of, the tapestries are almost like a little cartoon telling you a story of, there was this horrible thing, and wars, and death, and famine, and disease, but then it was all happy at the end. And so that was sort of the historical background of these tapestries. They’re super detailed.

I almost wish I had brought like binoculars or something.

[00:10:48] Annie Sargent: You can get close, but not right up close, up close.

[00:10:52] Jennifer Gruenke: Right, and some of them are up pretty high, because there’s so many of them, to get them all in one room, they’ve got like a row at the top and then a row at the bottom. But they’re just so impressive that they were able to make these at a time when society was having a lot of problems.

[00:11:08] Annie Sargent: Right. Right. So in French, it’s called La Teinture de l’Apocalypse. Because in French, the book of Revelations in the Bible is called l’Apocalypse.

So in English, it has this connotation of the apocalypse, but in French, l’Apocalypse means both. It means the end of the world, but it also means the end of the Bible, the last book of the Bible. It’s kind of an interesting distinction, but it is the stories that you can read in Revelations. Now I have read the Bible cover to cover, but I must admit, I did not linger on the last bit, The Revelation because it is so weird.

[00:11:50] Jennifer Gruenke: It is weird.

[00:11:51] Patricia Perry: Yeah,

[00:11:52] Annie Sargent: Yeah, and it didn’t make much sense to me, and I was getting eager to get on with it. I think people who studied the Bible a lot more than I did would probably get more out of the visit. But even if you just basically like the story, know the stories of the four horses of the apocalypse and things like that, you’ll get some of you’re looking at.

The Tapestries of the Apocalypse Alone Make a Day Trip to Angers Fantastic

[00:12:16] Patricia Perry: The tapestries justify the trip to Angers by itself. If you do nothing else, it’s absolutely worth it just to go see the tapestries. So imagine something, something longer than a football field, and two stories high, and full of tapestries. You can spend all day and not get through having a close look at all the tapestries.

[00:12:37] Annie Sargent: And they do have some explanation at the bottom. If you take the time to read all the panels, they have them organized in chronological order from the beginning to the end of the story, and I think it’s really well done. I mean, the chateau itself is impressive, but the tapestries are totally worth the visit.

[00:12:58] Patricia Perry: Yeah, and I knew there were tapestries there, but I had no idea of the scale and the level of curation that they have done for these things. So I really would have liked to either watch some kind of documentary on it before or afterwards to get a better understanding and maybe appreciate it more.

But even if you’ve done none of those things, you’ll still be impressed.

[00:13:19] Annie Sargent: Yeah. If I compare it to the Bayeux Tapestry, which is a different subject altogether, it’s about William the Conqueror, it’s that sort of tapestry, just much bigger.

[00:13:31] Patricia Perry: Yeah, the Bayeux Tapestry is about, I don’t know, maybe a third of meter high. Not even, no, it’s really skinny. It’s very, very long, but it’s not very wide, and it’s all embroidered, so a different technique. And these tapestries were made in Flanders, where basically all the tapestry industry was at that time.

If I recall, they made a second set of them that were not recovered, because there were two brothers, two Dukes of Ajoux, and I believe they made a second set, but I think the second set got lost.

It was amazing they even found these, because a lot of them were stored, and they had not been preserved for hundreds of years. So they were just lucky to find them, and that they were in reasonable shape, and could be restored.

An Artist’s Point of View on the Tapestries of the Apocalypse

[00:14:15] Annie Sargent: I think they’re in great shape.

So an artist yourself, Jennifer, what did you think? Did it inspire you? Did it surprise you? I don’t know, as someone who studies art and makes art?

[00:14:25] Jennifer Gruenke: That’s a good question. I think pretty much any art I look at inspires me to want to make something that inspires other people as much as that inspires me, if that makes sense.

Mhmm.

I really like sitting and looking at all the little details. While we were sitting there I pulled up the Wikipedia article on the Book of Revelation. And they do give, as you’re saying, enough detail on the little plaques to figure out which picture goes with which event of… here’s the seven headed dragon…

[00:15:02] Annie Sargent: Yeah. There’s some gruesome stuff in the tapestry.

[00:15:04] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes, I think people think of the Middle Ages as being a little more buttoned up, but this is all pretty violent. The depictions are, you know, there’s a lot of gore even in the tapestries. I don’t know, fiber arts is actually really trendy right now in contemporary art.

Lots of people making, not tapestries exactly, but, you know, needlework and such. I saw an exposition in Paris of somebody who’s doing just amazing things that look like paintings, but it’s thread. I don’t know that that’s my calling to make fiber art, but it’s interesting to compare this older fiber art to some of the contemporary fiber art that I’ve seen more recently.

[00:15:53] Annie Sargent: Yeah, I’m looking at some of the photos. So you have the seven headed dragon. You have a dragon throwing flames. So there’s two of them. There’s one on the ground that’s been pused by angels that just poke it from above. I mean, it’s very vivid, not stuff that… You can totally tell that it’s a battle. This is a struggle, and then you have the guys on horses, but their horses have lion heads for some reason.

[00:16:22] Patricia Perry: It kind of reminded me of Hieronymus Bosch, who painted very, very strange things, but very interesting, a little bit earlier. All these very strange creatures that appear and obviously with religious implications.

[00:16:36] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And a lot of very beautiful details. There’s one area where you see a rabbit going into a hole, so on one end of the tapestry you see the behind of the rabbit, and a little bit further you see his head poking out. So I was looking for dogs. I did not see any dogs. I was very disappointed. If there are dogs I didn’t see any. I saw birds, lots of dragons…

[00:17:02] Jennifer Gruenke: There’s also an interesting political component that I think they pointed out in some of the literature that, because this was during the Hundred Years War, the English were the enemies and they portrayed some of the bad guys in this biblical story, as the English. And some of the good guys as the French.

So there also is a little bit of political grandstanding going on there.

[00:17:29] Annie Sargent: Beautiful, beautiful colors, I’m looking at one right now. I don’t know what it means, but you see a skeleton riding a horse, carrying a sword. And then in a building, right behind the skeleton riding the horse, you have people being burned, and above them, you have a kind of a monkey looking thing.

That’s throwing flames at them. Just crazy stuff.

[00:17:56] Jennifer Gruenke: That probably is the fourth horseman. So there’s the four horsemen the apocalypse, and the fourth one is named Death.

So portrayed as a skeleton, and he is bringing death and destruction upon the world, probably.

I think, two of the horsemen have been lost, but they still have the other two?

Maybe they three, I’m not remembering off the top of my head.

[00:18:20] Annie Sargent: A lot of the tapestries of the time, the background is this bright red, like the Lady and Unicorn…

[00:18:27] Patricia Perry: Lady and the Unicorn at the Cluny here in Paris.

[00:18:30] Annie Sargent: The background is very red and so it makes for just stunning colors. Yeah, definitely, even if you’ve never looked at any tapestry of any sort, I think going to see the tapestry at the Château d’Angers it’s stunning. And again, you can do it as a day trip from Paris, and if that’s all you see, you will be impressed.

I agree.

The rest of the Château is nice as well, I mean, it’s one of the chateaus of the Loire, you know, it’s very nice.

[00:18:59] Patricia Perry: And the other thing, I had looked for but didn’t find were guided tours, especially through that tapestry area, which would have been nice to have some expert talking about it and to be able to ask questions. So that would be one other thing I would look for if I go back, to have somebody to kind of help point things out. Be well curated in terms of knowledge of these tapestries and their history.

[00:19:21] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Oh, I’m certain there’s been a lot of PhD work done on this because it is so stunning. I mean, there’s got to be local guides who have read all of this and can give a lot of detail about these tapestries. I knew there were tapestries at the Château d’Angers, but I didn’t realize how stunning they were.

Angers, a University Town

[00:19:40] Patricia Perry: And Angers in general is very much a university town. So it’s a very young population, you’ll find lots of inexpensive restaurants, bars, and that kind of thing in Angers also, so it’s easy to find places to have a bite to eat.

[00:19:54] Annie Sargent: And amazing camellias. When were there in the winter, the camellias…

[00:19:58] Patricia Perry: March, mid March. Yeah.

[00:20:03] Annie Sargent: Everywhere, I’m so jealous, I have this pitiful looking camellia in my yard in Toulouse, I can’t get it to do anything, I water it, and it’s in the shade, and I give it the right soil, and… no, it is not happy in Toulouse.

So if you like camellias, go to Angers as well in March. They are stunning.

The Angers Cathedral

[00:20:24] Jennifer Gruenke: And didn’t we also see the cathedral?

I could be confusing this with a different trip. There was a cathedral with the two big round windows, stained glass windows.

[00:20:34] Annie Sargent: Yes. We went to the cathedral, and it was very nice as well. That’s the first thing we did. The inside is kind of quite gray looking, but beautiful stained glass, but the stained glass are high up. Like they start high up instead of starting further down. Yeah. The cathedral was really nice as well, I thought. Not the biggest, not the widest, not the tallest, but very nice.

[00:21:02] Patricia Perry: And sometimes they have a, like a market with artisans that do each other crafts and stuff. I don’t think they were there when we were there, but it’s something that if, once again, you kind of have to look on the schedule locally, and look for things like that.

[00:21:15] Annie Sargent: And they probably light up the cathedral as well, in the summer. They probably do like, you know, light and sound show on the walls of the cathedral. And that’s something that’s worth looking at, I think.

Yeah, that’s the first thing we did when we got off the train. Because we took an early train.

We took a 7:15 train, 7:37 train, sorry. And we got there by 9:20. So the chateau was not going to open until 10:00. So to just fill the time we went to the cathedral, because that’s usually open by eight or nine like that. That was the first thing we did.

Maison Bleue, The Blue House

[00:21:53] Patricia Perry: And I didn’t get to see this. This is the one on the Maison Bleue that was closed, anyway. And they had these brothers, their names were, Odrico, which is also the name of the restaurant we went to. So they were famous for their tile work that is in the Maison Bleue, The Blue House that was closed, but a number of buildings in the area, you can see their work, their handicraft is there.

[00:22:16] Annie Sargent: Right, and it was closed for renovations, right?

[00:22:19] Patricia Perry: Yes.

[00:22:20] Annie Sargent: So, it’s probably going to be glorious when they reopen, because it was colorful kind of tile. Beautiful.

[00:22:26] Patricia Perry: I need to go back. Yeah, very, mean, much like the restaurant was awesome.

[00:22:30] Annie Sargent: The restaurant was very nice, but like you said, the food was okay, I guess.

That one, you go for the view.

[00:22:38] Patricia Perry: Yeah, it was a hike from the chateau, so you know, you always want to, the further you have to walk, the better it should be. Uh Ha ha ha

[00:22:51] Annie Sargent: Yes. That a good way to put it. Especially following Patricia, she will hoof it, like those Parisians, they walk fast. I’m a country girl. I’m used to just like, take my own sweet time. Take your time, stroll around, it’s fine.

Yes, I mean, it’s dog walking, like dog sniffing, fine, I’ll stop. But you don’t stop for nobody, man. You’re like…

[00:23:15] Patricia Perry: Places to go, things to do, you know.

[00:23:17] Annie Sargent: That’s right, That’s right.

(Mid roll ad spot)

Modern Tapestry Museum at St. John Hospital

[00:23:18] Annie Sargent: All right. We also went to the modern tapestry stuff. I didn’t go in, but you two went in. What did you think of that?

[00:23:29] Patricia Perry: Yeah. That was at the St. John’s Hospital, so I thought it was just crazy stuff. There were a couple that were kind of interesting there, but you know, weird, very strange things. I’ll let Jennifer have a different appreciation of it than I do.

[00:23:41] Jennifer Gruenke: Well, I mean, I guess it was weird, but so were the older tapestries.

[00:23:46] Patricia Perry: In a different way.

[00:23:48] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah, these were, I wouldn’t call them like, contemporary, but from the 1820s to 1860s, or sorry, 1920s to 1960s, somewhere in there, that they had, had modern artists make tapestries to put in the same town as these medieval tapestries. And so a lot of them dealt with themes of war, the same as the older tapestries. I think in terms of, like, just the artistry, the older ones are better, but these are certainly worth, I think, stopping in and looking at.

Probably you’re not going to want to look at them for quite as long as you look at the medieval ones, but they’re interesting enough.

[00:24:30] Annie Sargent: The ones I’m looking at just online there’s a fair bit of, kind of, like stars and universe type images.

[00:24:41] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah, I think have that one, that the one with the like sort of rainbow colors on it that is sort of more space age type thing.

[00:24:49] Annie Sargent: The building that it’s in, is also interesting to look at, Has the gothic arches inside, on the ceiling. So, if you like architecture, then just the building alone is worth looking at, I think.

And that’s kind of along by the banks of the river.

[00:25:06] Patricia Perry: We ended up taking a Uber there. It would have been another long hike on the other side of the river, so…

[00:25:13] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could tell you wanted us to death march again. And like, yeah I’m calling a Uber.

[00:25:23] Patricia Perry: Yeah, go with Annie if you want a practical trip.

[00:25:26] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah. I’m like, oh, oh dear, like, no, I’m not hoofing all the way back up. At this speed you’re going… that’ll be exercise. No way.

[00:25:37] Patricia Perry: We headed back around, we caught a 5:30 or so, train back, and like I say, we were a little bit pressed for time, so we happened to take an Uber and stuff.

And there are a couple of other sites that are outside of Angers that might have been nice to go see too, so if you did have either time to take public transportation, or a car, or just hire an Uber for an hour or something like that, there are more sites to see that are a little bit further outside of Angers.

[00:26:05] Annie Sargent: Just outside. Yeah, there some. And also because we had the reservation for the wine tasting, that kind of forced us into, yeah, to stay into the city, and to be there at the right time because that was a group thing.

[00:26:20] Patricia Perry: And it in a very hidden area, you know, it looked like it was just a workshop. Sometimes you have to hunt for these things sometimes.

Yeah, so you listed the Collégiale Saint Martin, La Maison d’Adam, Le Grand Théâtre, Ancien Couvent de la Beaumette. Oh, okay, so there’s a garden and cloister we could have seen as well. And that would have been beyond, you know, where we went to taste the wine. It was on past that, so.

Once again, a little bit further away, so if you rent a bike or something…

[00:26:50] Annie Sargent: Yeah. If you have a bike, I think that’s doable.

[00:26:52] Patricia Perry: It would be reasonable, let’s say.

[00:26:54] Annie Sargent: If you’re staying overnight, or something, and have lots of time to walk, then you can do it.

[00:26:57] Patricia Perry:

Comparing Day Trips Out of Paris

[00:26:57] Annie Sargent: But you’ve done, both of you, you’ve done plenty of day trips out of Paris.

And so, but compare that one to other day trips out of Paris that you’ve done. Was this easier? About the same?

[00:27:09] Patricia Perry: For me, it was a, this was a really easy day trip. Sometimes I have very intense day trip, so…

[00:27:14] Annie Sargent: Like when you went to Dijon for the day, was that one of the more intense, or Nancy?

[00:27:20] Patricia Perry: Dijon, Nancy, when I go to the Loire and do three chateaus, those you really are hard pressed to, you’re packing it in from the first train out of Paris till everything closes there and you’re heading back.

[00:27:33] Annie Sargent: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:27:34] Patricia Perry: Not everybody’s cup of tea.

[00:27:36] Jennifer Gruenke: I think for me, the limit is about two hours each way for a day trip. And that’s kind of pushing it. You’re going to be tired if you do that. And I’ve done that for a trip to Lyon, and it’s two hours also to Provins, which is another medieval town. Both of those are worth doing. The difference between them for the day trips is when you’re taking the TGV, you have to buy the tickets much further in advance. And so you have to be on a schedule. For going to Provence, it’s on, like, the Ile de France region, so you can basically just walk up and buy a ticket, and it’s a flat price. So you don’t have to plan quite so much. And so that’s another level of making it easier, even though it’s a pretty good distance.

Once you get tired, you can just leave.

In terms of how interesting it is, it’s one of the more interesting day trips I’ve done.

[00:28:34] Annie Sargent: You mean Angers.

[00:28:36] Jennifer Gruenke: Angers, yeah. Just because I really like the tapestries. If that’s something you’re interested in, it’s definitely worth this slightly longer day trip.

It’s longer than going to like, Versailles, or something like that.

Or Chartres.

[00:28:48] Patricia Perry: We did a day trip to Cheverny.

[00:28:50] Jennifer Gruenke: Yeah, I think it’s worth the effort put into it, at least it was for me.

[00:28:55] Annie Sargent: Yeah, there’s a bunch of those you can do around Paris.

[00:28:58] Patricia Perry: Yeah, you can probably do two dozen that are within Zone 5, which you can go to on the RER, basically, or a Metro, like I’ve got a card, kind of all you could eat.

[00:29:10] Jennifer Gruenke:

Paying for Your Ticket and the Extention of Line 14 of the Metro

[00:29:10] Jennifer Gruenke: And if you don’t have the subscription card, there is a limit of 5 euros each way is the most expensive it will be, which is really cheap for a day trip, is 10 euros round trip, where you don’t have to plan anything in advance. That’s very nice.

[00:29:26] Annie Sargent: Right, but it’s more if you’re going to the airport.

[00:29:28] Jennifer Gruenke: Oh, that’s true. Yeah, the airports are an exception.

For everything except for the airports, any of those day trips, if you’re going to Provins, if you’re going to Rambouillet, Fontainebleau, am I right? Fontainebleau, those are all within the Île-de-France region. Yes. And so it’s going to be 5 Euros max each way.

[00:29:53] Annie Sargent: Right, right. Yes, and this is something that you might not have done yet, but they just inaugurated the new extended line 14 of the metro. You haven’t tried it yet, have you?

[00:30:07] Jennifer Gruenke: No, I’ve heard about it. Everybody’s talking about it online. There are lots of pictures of this shiny new station.

[00:30:14] Annie Sargent: There’s six new stations, including one at Saint Denis Pleyel, which is one of the big ones for people going to the Olympics, and at the other end, it ends at Orly Airport. Which means center of Paris to Orly is now 25 minutes, which is quite good because it used to be twice that on the RER.

Metro Ticket Confusion

[00:30:37] Annie Sargent: So this is something that’s going to happen, is people are going to, I don’t know, fall asleep on the metro or whatever, and go the end of the line, and then wonder why they can’t get out, and that’s because to go to the airport, it’s a special fare, that’s 11 and a half euros. If you have a monthly or yearly Navigo, then it’s included in the price. But most people, most visitors are not going to stay a month, and they’re not going to get a monthly Navigo, they’re going to get maybe the weekly Navigo. And in that case, it is not included in the price. And people get fined all the time because those barriers will open for you, let you on, but they won’t let you out.

And if they check your ticket, you’re like, ah…

[00:31:23] Jennifer Gruenke: They are working apparently on a system to improve that. They sent me an email about a pilot program that will just let you sign up and you scan in, and you scan out and it’ll figure out how much you owe and you don’t have to worry about getting fined.

[00:31:37] Annie Sargent: You know, that would be really good.

[00:31:39] Jennifer Gruenke: But hasn’t happened yet.

[00:31:41] Annie Sargent: Yeah.

[00:31:42] Patricia Perry: The Navigo Easy is very confusing because people don’t realize, it doesn’t, you know, like if you were to take it from, maybe you go to, just outside of Paris, or maybe you think you can take it to Versailles, no, it’ll get you in, but then you can’t get out. And you can be fined.

[00:31:57] Annie Sargent: And people’s reaction if they can’t get out is to follow somebody else. And of course, if they do that they’ve cheated, and if they get caught, and the people who do the ticket enforcement are not friendly.

[00:32:12] Jennifer Gruenke: I haven’t had that problem myself, but I’ve heard an awful lot of tourists who make an honest mistake. They don’t understand how it works, because it is pretty complicated if you’re totally new to the city, and haven’t read up on it.

[00:32:26] Annie Sargent: The other thing that people do is they see different fares. And so they see that they can pay less, but they’re selecting children’s fare, or retiree fare, or handicapped fare. And even if you are handicapped, you don’t have the documentation to show that you are handicapped, as far as the French security person is concerned. And so people get like into situations like that, they will make you pay your fine on the spot.

[00:32:52] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes. But if you want to know how much it’s going to cost, how much a ticket should cost, you can go to the IDF Mobilities or the, I think also the Bonjour RATP apps, and you can put in your origin and destination, and it’ll tell you this ticket costs this much. And you can make sure that when you buy your ticket, you pay that much, so that you’re not accidentally underpaying.

[00:33:15] Annie Sargent: Yeah.

[00:33:16] Patricia Perry: And you can do that on the new Paris 2024 quotes, you know. Yeah, there’s three apps and people may be confused in terms of which one to buy, but the back ends are all the same, so it really doesn’t matter.

[00:33:29] Annie Sargent: Yeah, the Paris 2024 is the one developed especially for the Olympics. Will probably go away after the Olympics.

[00:33:37] Patricia Perry: But now they have added on like you can, used to not be able to pay like for a ticket to Charles de Gaulle, but now you can. So they’re adding more things on the back end of things you can pay for. What you can’t pay for these point to point things, you know, that would be beyond where your Navigo EasyPass would normally take you.

They’re working on that, I talked to somebody yesterday about that. She didn’t know when they would have it, but for right now, you’ve got to do it on a machine in the metro station.

Final Thoughts and Good bye

[00:34:03] Annie Sargent: All right. Any last words of wisdom for a trip to Angers? I highly recommend it, I think if you have the time and you’re in Paris for a while. I wouldn’t say do this if it’s your first time in Paris, unless you have a really strong interest in tapestries, then in that case, definitely. But if you just have a normal, average interest in tapestry, but you’ve been to Paris a few times, going on a day trip to Angers from Paris is totally doable. It’s not expensive. It’s not super tiring. Don’t pack in too much.

[00:34:37] Patricia Perry: Not crowded.

[00:34:38] Annie Sargent: No, not crowded. If you just go to the city center, go to the château, spend your time with the tapestry, perhaps educate yourself about it more, as much as you would like, and enjoy the area. The city center area, the historical center is very nice, just like any other French city center, it has cafes, it has nice places to stop and have some food, have a drink.

We didn’t, well, we had a sit down meal, but we went to a specific place for the decor. And perhaps I wouldn’t do that again. I don’t know. Any meal would have done for me.

[00:35:18] Patricia Perry: We didn’t have to walk a half an hour.

[00:35:20] Annie Sargent: No, although I did see a lot of very nice camellias along the way.

[00:35:25] Patricia Perry: Yeah.

[00:35:25] Jennifer Gruenke: Yes. Merci.

[00:35:26] Annie Sargent: All right. It’s not so bad. Merci beaucoup.

[00:35:31] Patricia Perry: Okay. Merci.

[00:35:33] Jennifer Gruenke: Merci, au revoir!

Thank you Patrons

[00:35:41] Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patreon supporters get new episodes as soon as they are ready and ad-free. If that sounds good to you, just follow the link in the show notes. Patreons get more exclusive rewards than just the ad-free episodes, which, you know, that’s pretty good already.

You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.

And a special shout out this week to my Join Us in France champions, Adrienne and Katherine Roeder,who updated their membership to Groupie du Podcast. Susan Blough , who renewed her membership, Kitty Long, who joined as a patron for the first time, Manjari Chowdhury and Rachel Henry, who also joined for the first time as Groupie du podcasts. And to all of my current patrons, it’s wonderful to have you onboard with a community of travel enthusiasts and francophiles who keep this podcast going.

Support Elyse

[00:36:47] Annie Sargent: And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.

Reviews of the Tours

[00:36:55] Annie Sargent: This week, I shared some photos of my week in Paris with my patrons. They were excited to hear more about the Paralympics. And so they’ll hear it right, well, in a minute, in a minute… I got several reviews of my tours this week. This one is about the Eiffel Tower tour. This person wrote: ‘A basic tour that delivers what it promises, a short course around the most famous items of the city. Nice touch with loads of recommendations at the end’.

Yeah, this is my shortest tour. It’s the easiest one to take. Obviously it’s around the Eiffel Tower. It does not go up the Eiffel Tower, but it does have a lot of good recommendations at the end as to how to handle a visit to the Eiffel Tower, where to eat around there, and all of that.

About my Montmartre tour, this person wrote: ‘AMAZING more enjoyable than I even imagined, and so simple to follow directions, I wish all tours were like this’. Thank you so much, that’s really kind of you to say.

About my Marais tour: ‘Fabulous tour of the Marais. We loved her narration and stories. The GPS map worked flawlessly. We will continue to use this app for future trips’. And yes, you know, VoiceMap has… there are tours in many countries, and many cities in the world. It’s not just mine. Elyse has one for Toulouse as well. Lots and lots of wonderful VoiceMap tours.

Thank you very much for those reviews. And I must say also that podcast listeners get a big discount for buying these tours from my website: joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

Itinerary Consultations on Zoom with Annie

[00:38:37] Annie Sargent: If the podcast is leaving you wanting more, I offer two levels of itinerary consultations on Zoom to help you plan for your next trip. It’s all explained again at the boutique: joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And today I did two of them. Both of them were very relieved that I helped them put it all into perspective, because people who typically listen to this podcast are hyper planners. And when you are a hyper planner, well, you can get yourself into a pickle, because you know so much, and you’ve read so much, and you’ve taken in so much information about Paris in particular, that you have no idea how to get it all done on the ground and how to organize all of this. And so that’s what I’m really good at. I go to Paris often. I understand the logistics of a good trip to Paris. What you should do on what day, you know, just slow down, keep it simple is really the name of the game for a wonderful Paris trip.

Paralympics 2024

[00:39:37] Annie Sargent: All right. Let’s talk about the Paralympics. Wow. What an event that was! Now, I also went to the regular Olympics, the ‘valid Olympics’, in Lille. The Paralympics were not that different to tell you the truth. As a matter of fact, the announcer, that worked the basketball arena in Lille was the same one who worked the Paralympics in Paris at the Bercy Arena.

Roland Garros

[00:40:04] Annie Sargent: All right. So here’s what we did. We went to Roland Garros and it was my first time at Roland Garros. I really enjoyed it. There were some very, very good players on the court. We watched three games, two of them were not, it wasn’t close, it was clear from the beginning who was going to win.

The third one was much closer and was fantastic. The ambiance at Roland Garros was wonderful, but this is something to do with tennis, there were a lot of people in the crowd shushing everyone, shh, shh, shh. I don’t love that. I mean, if the referee says that, that’s one thing. But I don’t think the people behind you should do that. Not that we were particularly loud, I don’t think, but anyway.

Stade de France

[00:40:49] Annie Sargent: The next day we went to the Stade de France for track and field. And it was also my first time at the Stade de France. Wow, what a venue that was. It’s huge. It’s beautiful. The ambiance was fantastic. And of course, track and field, you know, you have all these things happening all at once.

And we had announcers who were very, very good at getting the crowd riled up and clapping, and singing. They used the same techniques at pretty much all of the venues, so they would have, of course, the phryges, which were the mascot, would come on and pose, and just tease people, and all that.

They also had on the jumbotrons, they had a singing, they did the dance cam, they did the lyrics to classic French songs, that we could sing along to, some chants that French people know from sports, like one person would say: ‘vous etes fatigue’ and the answer to that, so ‘you are tired’ and the answer to that is ‘on n’est pas fatigue’ we are not tired’.

And so people were yelling that. They did the classic (chant) and then everybody goes: Olle! (laugh). They did the chicka, chicka chick, uh, y yi. So the announcer goes: chicka, chicka, chick, and everybody shouts: ay ay ay. It comes from a very old song by Louis Mariano, who was kind of operetta singer, but this was from a… like a light, fun family show that he did years ago. I mean, this is like from the 30s or something, it’s very old. But they used these things everywhere, you know, with different announcers and it was, the ambiance was wild.

And of course the athletes got into it too, asking us to clap and to encourage them, and bowing, and clapping with us, and all of that, you know, encouraging the other athletes as well.

It was fantastic.

Arena Paris Porte de Versailles

[00:42:49] Annie Sargent: On the third day we went to the ‘Arena Paris Porte de Versailles’. So if those of you who have run the Paris Marathon, that’s where you went and got your jersey for the marathon. And this was a Passe Découverte, so we could go anywhere. There were three events there. There was Boccia. Boccia is the sport that even the most handicapped people can do because you can play it with your mouth. It’s kind of a boule pétanque kind of game. It is impressive how precise those players are despite all of their heavy disabilities. And I got to say hello to one of the players in Paris.

She was coming back, Aurélie is her name, she got the gold medal in the single. And we saw her, we ran into her, she was coming back, I think, from a sponsored event. I got to say: Bravo! Bravo! You know, up close. So at the arena, the Porte de Versailles arena, we could also watch table tennis, which I must admit we didn’t go to because it goes too fast, the ball’s too small, I can’t follow that thing, even when it’s, you know, for valid people. On TV, it’s okay, but in the arena, it’s hard. And we only had so many hours.That day we also went to goalball, which is a wonderful game that I had seen in Toulouse as well. Three players, blind players, try to stop a big ball with a sound inside, being thrown at them. It’s a beautiful sport and it’s very easy to follow, it’s wonderful to watch.

Very, very athletic. And they always knew at all times where they were exactly on the field. Just wonderful, wonderful, blind players.

La Vasque

[00:44:28] Annie Sargent: Wednesday, we also went to La Vasque. So that was The Cauldron, right?

We got to see it up close. We didn’t see it go up, we didn’t stay long enough to see it go up, but it is very, very beautiful. I know you’re going to ask me if it’s going to stay up and how long it’s going to stay up. I haven’t heard. I know they are discussing it. I know that the people who made it did not intend for it to be a permanent fixture in the Tuileries Garden. Are they going to make another one? Are they going to improve the one that we have? Are they going to just take it away? I don’t know. But, it’s a beautiful, wonderful, technologically advanced creation from actually sponsored by EDF, so the French power company. They use LED lights and vapor to make it look like a flame and it is beautiful.

And the Olympic rings will fly to Los Angeles in 2028. That’s the ones that are on the Eiffel Tower. They’re not going to be permanent there.

Paris Bercy Arena for Basketball

[00:45:34] Annie Sargent: The following day, we went to the Paris Bercy arena for basketball. Loved basketball. These people are crazy. Wheelchair basketball is something else. The rules are very similar to regular basketball, except for the way they block, the blocks are quite different.

They’re different rules. They can’t hit each other front, you know, front to front, so they have to do sideways and they are very, very nimble with those wheelchairs. They are amazing. I really enjoyed that. I think that was my favorite as a matter of fact, because I know the sport and I can appreciate how hard it is.

La Defense Arena for Swimming

[00:46:10] Annie Sargent: And the last day we went to La Défense arena for swimming. La Défense arena, I had been there for a Paul McCartney concert years ago. It’s a massive arena. And what they did is they split it in half they had an Italian company put together swimming pools, temporary swimming pools.

One is for warmup, and the other one was for the competition. Great, great ambiance there as well. Beautiful, I mean, there are people in the Olympics who have very little left in the way of arms and legs who swim way faster than I ever could. So I don’t understand how that’s possible. They are amazing athletes and definitely very, very inspiring.

And… you know, it, I need to get off the couch is what I needed to do. It was just beautiful.

So, I hope that with all of these events, people were delighted with the whole thing. I think it all went without a hitch. It was absolutely wonderful, it was a great ambiance all over Paris, Paris was clean, they had cleaning people all the time, they had police officers, pretty much every hundred meters you had a group of police, which means there were no pickpockets. The normal scammers that I see all the time in Paris, I didn’t see a one of them. They were gone.

The Olympic Dahlia

[00:47:32] Annie Sargent: They had also made a huge effort with flowers in the public space, especially around the Grand Palais. They have some beautiful gardens there. They have the Élysée Garden, oh, the flowers are just amazing. They did a special dahlia for the Olympics. It’s a dark leaf dahlia with a bright kind of sustained red flower, absolutely stunning.

They produced it just for the Olympics. So it’s the Olympic dahlia. And they planted, I think, I can’t remember if it was 4,000 or 40,000. At any rate, there were a lot of them and they were all gorgeous.

So Paris was splendid. Paris was in a good mood. Just everybody was so friendly. And of course the volunteers all made it happen because they were so cheerful, so helpful, you couldn’t go anywhere without 10 people saying hello to you, you know, the bonjours were like everywhere, with a big smile on their face.

I think Paris really hit it out of the park. And what I really hope is going to happen is that French people realize that we can pull off a very, very positive beautiful event like this. We don’t have to worry about whether or not the other shoe might drop, you know, because we tend, I mean, I’m like that as well, I’m like, Oh, it can’t possibly go as well as all that.

And I was totally wrong about that, honestly, they really did a splendid, splendid job.

And what I hope as well is that a lot of French people saw these athletes do amazing things, even given the disabilities that they have that are sometimes really, really severe. And I hope that it’s going to inspire a lot of young French people who have disabilities, and their parents, to sign them up for sports for different clubs.

And I hope that it’s going to incentivize, because sports clubs in France are heavily subsidized by cities, and by departments, and by regions. And there’s never enough money to go around,and there’s definitely never enough money for clubs that want to welcome handicapped people. Because they do need to have specially trained people and they need to have the equipment and all of that.

It costs money, but we really need to make an effort to be inclusive in all our sports. And I think you could tell, because France for the valid Olympics, I think the number of medals we got was like number five, or number six, and for the Paralympics, it was more like number eight or nine. So we don’t spend quite enough money for disabled people, and we should really do that. And I hope that has motivated cities, and clubs to go forward with that.

Journée du Patrimoine

[00:50:19] Annie Sargent: Now, I want to tell you briefly about the Journée du Patrimoine. This is something that happens the third weekend of September every year. It’s a huge event, especially if you’re in Paris.

This is when places that are never open to the public will be open to the public for two days, a Saturday and a Sunday. And it’s really hard to get into some of these venues. The one that’s really hard to get into every year pretty much is the Elysee Palace, where the French president lives. And so what you need to do if you want to go is, you keep going to their websites every day, several times a day, and you see when they open the tickets. They don’t tell you when the tickets are going to be available for people and they will go very fast. So you have to be lucky. You cannot look for these tickets like months in advance, it’s more like days in advance.

But keep looking if you’re in Paris, keep looking for the venues that are you’re interested in. And hopefully you can get a ticket. All of these events are free, but you need a ticket. Okay? And this is more and more the case. And as a matter of fact, when Notre Dame de Paris reopens, on December 8th, is the plan so far, you will also need a ticket to get in. It will be free, but you’ll need a ticket. And those tickets have not been released yet, but will be very soon. Well, who knows? I don’t know when they’re going to be released. They’re probably going to keep us guessing, which is what they do with most of these kinds of tickets and events.

My thanks to podcast editors, Anne and Cristian Cotovan, who produced the transcripts. Next week on the podcast, an episode about a mother daughter trip with Sandy and Melissa Fabry, they shared delightful details about their trip to Lyon and Provence, from unique food tours to breathtaking street art and cozy Michelin starred dinners, historic sites. Lots of things that they did that will inspire your next adventure.

And remember patrons get an ad-free version of this episode. Click on the link in the show notes to do just that yourself.

Thank you so much for listening. And I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together.

Au revoir.

Copyright

[00:52:37] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and Copyright 2024 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.

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Transcript for Episode 511: Discovering Angers on a Day Trip from Paris