Table of Contents for this Episode
Category: Occitanie
Discussed in this Episode
- Canal du Midi
- Le Boat
- Portiragnes
- Port Cassafières
- Castelnaudary
- Toulouse
- Béziers
- Carcassonne
- Colombiers
- Au Lavoir Restaurant
- Malpas Tunnel
- Etang de Montady
- Ecluse de L'Aiguille
- Les Halles de Béziers
553 Renting a Boat on the Canal du Midi with John and Sally Capets (July 6)
[00:00:15] Intro
Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 553, cinq cent cinquante-trois.
Annie: 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.
[00:00:31] Today on the podcast
Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with John and Sally Capets about their journey renting a boat on the Canal du Midi.
Annie: We explore their unique experiences from navigating locks to dining canal side, and discover why a slow-paced boat trip can be an incredible, enriching travel adventure.
Annie: I know many of you are thinking of doing a vacation like this one, because there is something about being on the water that is good for the soul. So let’s talk about it.
[00:01:02] Podcast supporters
Annie: This podcast runs on chocolatine, caffeine, and the support of lovely humans like you. You book itinerary consults, take my VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun with me in my electric car, come to the bootcamp, or slip me a few Euros on Patreon, and I love you for it.
Annie: If you want to keep me going and skip the ads, there’s a link for that in the show notes. Head to joinusinfrance.com/boutique to purchase any of my services and merci.
Annie: If you want all the links and the full episode transcripts, you’ll find that at joinusinfrance.com/episodes, and to subscribe to the newsletter, which contains a handy summary of the conversation with all the useful links, you can go to joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
[00:01:52] Magazine segment
Annie: For the magazine part of the podcast today, let’s talk about the Tour de France, always a wonderful event, and it’s on right now.
[00:02:09] John and Sally
Annie: Bonjour, John and Sally Capets, and welcome to Join Us in France.
John: Bonjour, Annie.
Annie: Wonderful to have you. So, you had a great trip to France, perhaps not the only one, maybe it’s the last one of several?
Sally: We had been to France, we went on a trip with our family to Sardinia and Corsica a couple years ago and finished that portion of the trip with our family and then went off on our own, just the two of us, and traveled, rented a car and traveled in the south part of France, and ended in Barcelona.
Sally: And so that’s pretty much what spurred us on to want to take this trip, this past fall, to back to France, because we realized that, number one, we’d probably try to fit too much into a short period of time. We really wanted to spend more time in France. Another part of that was that we realized we made a mistake in ending in Barcelona, because it just cost us a lot of money to do that, dropping the car, getting the car in France and dropping it in Barcelona.
Annie: Okay, so it’s not that they were difficult to deal with, it’s just that it was the extra cost.
Sally: Yes.
John: Yeah, very easy to deal with on both ends, on the front end and the back end. But yeah, we spent a few, really, literally a few days in the South of France, and we knew immediately that we needed to come back. You know it’s a good trip when you’re already saying, “Hey, let’s plan a trip back,” before you’re even done with this last trip.
John: So, we knew right away, but because we had, as Sally said, we tried to jam a lot into a few days, we knew that we wanted to come back and spend more time.
John: And so, today we’ll focus on the canal segment of the trip, but that was the third leg of a three week. Three week trip that we started in the Alps, and then spent a week there, spent a week in Roussillon, to explore the Luberon, and Provence region. And then this last week was on the canal boat.
[00:04:07] Boat travel on Canal du Midi
Annie: Right. Right. So this was the Canal du Midi?
Sally: Correct.
John: Correct.
Annie: So are you boat people?
Sally: I mean, yes and no. We owned our own boat here in North Carolina for, I guess about 25 years and then decided, okay, we can put that, you know, we’re ready to get rid of the boat now. So we sold it. So we haven’t had a boat in quite some time, but we have always enjoyed boating. Yeah.
John: We have, and we have a group of friends who we traveled with, we’ll talk about that more perhaps, but we had begun bare boating in the Caribbean on sailboats.
John: So, all of us who were on this trip had been on, you know, multiple bare boat trips, either together or separately. And so we had some familiarity with boating lifestyle, if you will, or boating travel, you know, being in close quarters and, you know, being self-sufficient, so to speak, for extended periods. That was kind of the genesis of the idea for a canal boat trip. And, you know, in, in France, I think the Canal du Midi is probably the most famous canal, at least for this type of trip. And so that’s where we started.
Annie: Right. So The Seine River also has quite a bit andthe Rhone also has some. There’s plenty, but the Canal du Midi is one I’m more familiar with because I’ve seen boats on the canal.
John: Right.
Annie:
[00:05:28] Selecting the Boat
Annie: So where did you start your trip? And how many people was it in this boat, and how did you select the boat?
Sally: Well, you probably need to answer the question on how you selected it.
John: Yeah. So, in our bare boat experiences in the past, we had become familiar with Le Boat, which is a, you know, boat hire service. They have an excellent website. They have really good customer service, I would say, and so we just began, I began exploring the trip.
[00:05:55] No experience needed and no license required
John: I am kind of an amateur travel geek, and so I had planned a three-week trip for our group and then just put it out there for anyone who might have an interest in joining us along the way. So we had a differing number of people along, you know, for each trip. On the canal boat, we had nine people.
Annie: Ooh, that’s a lot.
John: It’s a lot.
Annie: That’s a lot.
John: It’s a lot. And the boat, so just exploring the Le Boat website, we came across this particular boat that had five en suite cabins.
John: And so, we put it out there, and naturally we had people to come back and to fill each cabin. And this particular boat is about 15 meters long and about four meters wide. So it’s a fairly large boat.
Annie: For the Canal du Midi, but…
John: For the Canal du Midi, right. So, it’s a large boat for that. And it’s the largest boat that they offer. We were pretty happy with that decision. You know, Le Boat, I think for any of your listeners, Le Boat offers a, they actually have a sticker on the side of the boats that says, “No experience needed and no license required.”
Annie: Hmm.
John: So what they should just say in the middle is… only credit cards are required. So…
Sally: And the boats are all pretty, at least the ones that we saw on the portion of the canal that we did, were all pretty, like, beat-up. They weren’t, like, brand new shiny-looking boats. I don’t know. They’ve all been in many accidents, let’s say.
John: Well, let’s say well-worn.
Annie: Yeah. Clearly, there were people without a lot of experience on those boats.
John: Correct.
Sally: Yeah.
John:
Sally: You know, as you’re traveling along this canal and you’re going under the little, you know, the bridges, and most of them are arched bridges so they’re not… And they’re not very big so there’s not a lot of wiggle room on either side of the boat as you go through, and so I think there’s a lot of bumping that goes on as you pass under.
Annie: Did you bump anything?
John: Oh, yes. I mean, yeah, it’s… Yeah. You have… If you’re going to do this trip, you’re going to bump, you know, most of the boats have fenders down the entire width you know, sides of the boat. And when you’re going through these structures, there’s like 328 structures of some kind, either aqueducts or bridges or canal locks rather, tunnels. There’s a lot of obstacles along the way.
Sally: Yeah.
John: So there, the boats are well protected from that but they do… You know, they get pretty worn from the inexperienced travelers.
Sally: Well, and you’re also going at such a slow speed that it’s not like, you know, anyone ramming into you, like at, you know, full speed ahead, because I think they only go, what, like…
John: Seven or eight knots.
Sally: Yeah. it’s slow. You can ride your bike faster than those canal boats go. Yeah.
[00:08:51] Kitchen on Board of the Boat
Annie: Before we move on from the boat, you also have a kitchen on board?
Sally: Full kitchen. There was a nice, I would call it a full-sized refrigerator-freezer. Yeah, it was very nice. So there’s plenty of room for storing, you know, refrigerated things, and then we had storage underneath the seats for dry goods and…
Sally: So we did eat mostly, I would say the majority of our meal, breakfast and lunch was primarily on the boat, and then… And even some of our dinners. Because that was a whole other thing. Breakfast, that was just easier to do on boat. We would usually ride and get some, you know, croissants or something like that. If there was a town nearby, we would get that sort of thing to have along with our breakfast.
Sally: And then lunches, we ended up eating a lot of those on the boat because a lot of times, with trying to get through the locks, we had a certain distance we kind of needed to cover every day and a lot of times, we were getting to a lock and you’d get there and the lock keepers all take a lunchtime. So they’re not there from, I think it was, 12:00 to 1:00. So, you know, we would just try to get to the lock, pull up, stop, we would like have our lunch while the lock keeper was having his lunch and then we would move on when lunch was over.
Annie: Right. And there’s sometimes a line, right, for the lock?
John: Correct.
Sally: And then dinners, you know, there were a couple of dinners that we had, probably about half and half maybe. We had half the dinners off the boat. We probably would’ve had more dinners off the boat, and more lunches, but there just weren’t a lot of places that were open for us to do that or there weren’t… Like, some of the places we ended up stopping, there weren’t… There just weren’t any restaurants right there.
Annie: Right. And for nine people, that’s a big group for most small restaurants. So you didn’t dock along a city every time necessarily, or a town, or village even?
John: Correct.
Sally: Mm-hmm. That is correct, yeah. We didn’t. There were in fact, the very first night we were at the marina so there was a restaurant there. The next night, I think we were at a small, near a small village.
John: Yeah.
Sally: I think we did eat out off the boat that night, but there was the… Yeah, there were a couple of times where we just weren’t near a village or if there was one there, there wasn’t a restaurant open or we couldn’t find one that could take us, you know. That was a sizeable group of nine people.
John: So we were traveling in September, at the end of September, so, you know, this is a bit of a shoulder season, right, for restaurant tours and holidaymakers and so forth. So I think that was a bit of a challenge for us. The large group of nine made it a little more difficult. And I would say, the only time that we had communication issues in France were when we were on the phone. So face-to-face communications, no problem. I mean, you can use sign language at the very least or Google Translate. But when you’re trying to make a reservation for the next town ahead for a group of nine and there’s… And sometimes you’ll get a voice message, you know, that we couldn’t understand, we couldn’t translate. And so you couldn’t get on. If a person answered you, they might speak English or they might not.
John: And so that was a bit of a challenge for us as Americans, but otherwise people were friendly and very welcoming, so that wasn’t really the issue. It was just more a matter of getting across what our needs were.
Annie: Yeah. It is true that in the Southwest of France, some of these villages are not super touristy.
Annie: Maybe in the middle of the summer, they hire some students who are younger and therefore more familiar with English. But in September, late September, hmm.
John: Yeah, not so much. Not so much. And you know, the Canal du Midi is, right now, is purely tourist, it’s a purely a tourist attraction. There’s no commercialenterprises.
Annie: Correct. Not anymore.
John: Not anymore. And so as a rule, we didn’t have much trouble, but as you mentioned, we were in small towns and villages. We knew a little bit of French and we would use that as we could. And people were still, you know, very friendly, very welcoming. That was never a problem in the face-to-face interaction.
Annie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. But making reservations for nine people, I can tell it…
John: Yeah, that’s going to be a challenge. That’s got to be a challenge anywhere you go. But we were willing to break up into groups too. But still it was a challenge.
Annie:
[00:13:09] Riding the Bikes along the Canal du Midi
Annie: So you mentioned riding into the town sometimes. So you had bicycles on the boat?
Sally: Yeah. So, we didn’t have a bike for everyone, what we decided to do was, I think we had… Was it four or six bikes? Four. We got four bikes.
Sally: And so we just kind of took turns, like we’d say, you know. We had a duty roster, so everyone had sort of like jobs to do and someone was going to be driving the boat that day and someone else was going to cook breakfast, you know, that sort of thing.
Sally: And so if you didn’t have any duties like being on the lines or something like that, then you know, you might go off and ride your bike that day with a couple other people. And so yeah, we did have bikes. They weren’t the best bikes. I had one, one day that didn’t want to turn right and had a hard time keeping air in the tire, but they didn’t have gears, but you know, it was pretty flat along the canal. There was one place, where you were, you and I were riding that day together and we had a couple hills. In fact, that’s when I realized I had a flat tire.
Sally: As we were going up a big hill and it was like, wow, this is, I know I’m going up a hill, but this is really difficult. And then I realized it’s because I didn’t have any air in the front tire, so…
John: But having bikes, I highly recommend because most of the towns are right along the canal. And for example, the second night we were out, we stopped in Colombiers. And the nice thing about the Canal du Midi, the boats will supply you with a stake, and dock lines, and a hammer, so a little sledgehammer. And you literally pull up to the bank, sledgehammer your stake into the bank and then tie up.
John: So, Colombiers for example, I think they had a marina there. But we just stopped, you know, found a really pretty place to stop along the canal, near a bridge. And walked over the bridge and the restaurant was right along the canal, so you could see the boat from the restaurant.
John: For the most part, most of the towns and villages along the way are right there. But then there are some, we might’ve ridden few kilometers, you know, one day to a patisserie, but you know, nothing too bad. As long as you had air in your tires, you were okay.
Annie: Yeah. Well, I mean obviously it’s a canal so it’s flat, but when you have to go over the bridges, it kind of gets a little steep for a minute and then back down, you know.
John: Exactly. Where you encounter the hills is really at the locks more than anything. Because the whole point of the lock is to… and we were going from south to north, like southeast to northwest, so meaning we were going uphill the whole time. So if you think about, you know, the whole idea of the lock system and the whole point of the Canal du Midi in particular is a section of a longer canal that connect the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
John: So you’re starting at sea level at the Atlantic, you’re ending at sea level at the Mediterranean, but you’re going either uphill or downhill as you navigate across France. And the locks would, in our case, were lifting us up the entire time. We were always going uphill, if you will.
[00:16:05] Boat Pickup and Drop Off: How Much Distance Is Too Much?
Annie: So where did you pick up the boat?
John: We picked it up in a little town or a little, I guess the town’s called Portiragnes, the port was called Port Cassafières.
Annie: Okay.
John: And it was, yeah, very southern area, almost on the Mediterranean near Cap d’Agde.
Annie: Uh-huh.
John: The beach there, famous beach. So not far from there. And we finished our trip in Castelnaudary and then went on to Toulouse.
Annie: Aha. And that took seven days? You rented the boat for seven days?
John: Yes. And that’s a recommendation we had. We did about 150 miles section… Not 150 miles, was it? I
Annie: Maybe 150 kilometers?
John: No, 150 kilometers, I think. Yeah. I think that’s right. And we did that in a week. And I think our recommendation to folks who are thinking about this would be to maybe cut that down a bit, because we found we were pushing, we were pushing constantly throughout the trip.
John: There were a couple of times when we stopped and said, okay, now we need to spend a little more time here. And Béziers was one place we spent a little extra time and then Carcassonne, one of our favorite parts along the canal.
Sally: That was nice.
John: Yeah, absolutely amazing stop.
Sally: But we did feel a little rushed. When John was setting us up, he had talked to somebody and they said, “Oh, yeah. That’s totally doable trip for that length of time.” But I really think it was too much, because we would have liked to have had a little more time to just sort of enjoy the towns along the way. So that would be one recommendation is not try to fit so much into it.
Annie: Yeah. Well, yeah, because, I mean, those boats go very, very slowly.
Sally: They go slowly.
[00:17:44] Going through the locks
Sally: And really the thing is… I mean, it’s that, but it’s also going through the locks, because how many locks did we go through?
John: 63 locks.
Sally: So 63 locks, and the locks, going through the locks, it’s not that time-consuming, but what’s time-consuming is waiting your turn or having to wait an hour till the lock keeper comes back or, you know, that sort of thing. So it really does slow you down and there were days where we had, I think, you know, 15 or so locks that we went through in one day. You’re not going very far because you’re doing a lock and then you’re waiting, and you’re going through another lock and you’re waiting, and so there’s a lot of waiting time.
[00:18:22] Visiting La Cité de Carcassonne.
Annie: Right. So you mentioned, because I asked you to rank your favorite things that you did on this trip, so visiting La Cité de Carcassonne. So yes, that’s very nice. And how far did you dock from the Cité ?
Sally: Oh, we were right there, I mean, we were right there. We were on the canal but, like, to walk up to the… the walled…
John: Yeah, the citadel.
Sally: … the citadel, it was probably, like, what, a mile or…
John: Yeah, maybe a mile or so. A 20-minute walk.
Annie: Okay. Okay.
John: In fact, we ended up walking that three times out and back, because when we arrived, we arrived about four o’clock in the afternoon. And we saw the city in the distance, and Sally and I immediately jumped off the boat, you know, got the boat secured, jumped off the boat and walked into the citadel. We absolutely fell in love with it and then came back, had dinner, and then went back at night because we wanted to see it at night and experience it at nighttime.
Sally: With all our friends because they hadn’t…
John: Yeah.
Sally: … they hadn’t been up there yet.
John: Yeah, so that was the second time, and then the next morning, we walked back again. So, we wanted to do one of the tours through the ramparts, and the what are they called, the turrets or whatever.
Annie: Château Comtal.
John: Yeah. It was…
Sally: That was. I wish we would have had more time to spend doing that. Like, I could have spent an extra day in Carcassonne.
Annie: Really? That’s interesting because typically I tell people, you know, it takes most of a day but by the time you get there and… Perhaps you need six hours for Carcassonne, but you would have spent longer.
Sally: I would have, yeah, we really enjoyed it. You know, I think we did that tour the next morning when we woke up.
Annie: Was it a person-guided tour or was it the self-guided tour?
Sally: We did the self-guided.
Annie: Yeah.
Sally: Yeah, and I felt like we were kind of, you know, rushing through that a little bit. I could have spent more time doing more reading and listening to, you know, reading the placards, and going into the… I forget what the name of the place was where they had the artifacts then.
John: Yeah.
Sally: But yeah, I just thought it was really interesting. Plus there were so many cute little cafés and shops and things, and we really didn’t take advantage of any of that, so.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
John: And Annie, we had not experienced anything like that before. For folks in France, it’s old hat, but this was the first time we had really experienced any kind of a medieval city of this magnitude.
Annie: Yeah.
John: We had seen, I’m a bit of a professional cycling fan, so I had seen, you know, Carcassonne in the Tour de France and…
Annie: Oh, sure.
John: But that was, that was quite nice.
[00:20:50] THe Fonseraneses Locks
Annie: Yeah. And then the second thing you mentioned is the Fonseranes, the locksnear Béziers, and those are kind of cool.
John: It was so cool. It was… As you’re passing through the Fonseranes Locks, you’re only going one direction at a time. What I mean by that is, boats that are traveling up the canal are traveling together, and boats that are going to the south are going together. So you have a kind of a staggered time when you can do that.
John: So, we went through. It was probably one o’clock or so in the afternoon as we were going up the locks. And for people who don’t know, these Fonseranes Locks are just a absolute incredible engineering feat. They were built back in the 1600s, by Pierre-Paul Riquet. At that time, there were a total of eight chambers, rising up about 75 feet and 21 or so meters.
John: And it’s absolutely an amazing thing to see, and somewhat more amazing to experience as you’re going through the locks. Sally and I, we mentioned having a duty roster. And on the duty roster, we would assign people to be on the boat or on the lock as you’re passing through the lock.
John: And of course, you had a helmsman, you know, driving the boat. So a boat this size really took five people to get into and through a lock. Some of the smaller boats, we saw people going through with just two people on them, and that was fine for two, you know, smaller boats.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
John: It’s still tricky.
Sally: Yeah.
John: We would often help, you know, fellow travelers, you know, to grab the line for them or do whatever we could to help them…. but as you’re traveling through the lock, at the top of the lock is a visitor center.
John: And I think it’s one of the most visited attractions, outside of probably Paris and other larger cities, but in the area certainly, there are hundreds of people just kind of gathered and kind of chained off of the lock so they weren’t interfering with people coming up the locks. You feel kind of a bit of like a rock star coming through these locks.
Annie: Yeah, everybody’s looking at you. Yeah.
Sally: A tourist attraction anyways. We were part of the tourist attraction.
John: Yes. Yeah. We were the clowns I think. But anyway, we tried not to mess up. And the lock keepers are very strict, you know, so they have a chain behind which people are, you know, tourists and spectators are supposed to watch.
John: And this little fella, little boy came inside the chain and he was there with his mom and couple of siblings and I asked, I went over to him, I said, “Do you want to help me with this lock?” And he said yeah, so I handed him the line, and basically just wrapping the line around a bollard, you know, to kind of steady the boat as you’re going through, and I think he really enjoyed that.
Annie: Of course.
John: He got in a little trouble afterwards, but that’s okay. He had a good experience I think.
Annie: Elyse and I went to Béziers and we saw the locks. We didn’t go to the visitors center, but when you do watch the people going up and they are, “Oh, cool. There’s people on the boats. Hello.”
John: Yeah.
Annie: Everybody waves, you know?
John: Yeah. And it was a beautiful day, it’s a very beautiful, sunny day and I think that we maybe had, you know, more people out that day as a result.
Annie: Yeah, you have a lot of people walking their dogs or…
John: Yes.
Annie: … kids with, you know, families with kids in strollers and it’s a very popular place to go for a walk for locals.
Sally: That was the largest number of people we saw along the canal.
Sally: Except for maybe Carcassonne. There were a lot of people in Carcassonne.
John: And of course at the bottom of the locks or near, between the locks in Béziers you have the Aqueduct Bridge, you know, which is a bit of a tourist attraction too, so we did see a lot of people just walking along. It’s just a beautiful section of the canal.
John: And at the top of the locks, there at the visitor center, we didn’t have a lot of time and Sally mentioned we were rushing a little bit through there, but we caught a little petit train tour took us into Béziers.
Annie: Yes, it takes you all the way to the locks, that’s right.
John: It does. Takes you from the locks into town and we really enjoyed that. Béziers being a bit of a bigger town it was, you know, there were some, obviously some very interesting parts to it, but not something we probably would have wanted to walk through too much, you know?
John: So we enjoyed that petit train, but that made us maybe eight euros a person, pretty inexpensive.
Annie: Yeah. And Les Halles in Béziers is very fun. Les Halles, where you eat, it’s a very fun experience.
(mid-roll ad spot)
[00:24:58] Dining Canal side in Colombier.
Annie: Wonderful. Number three was dining canal side in Colombier.
John: Colombier. I mentioned that earlier when we had just staked up the boat. It’s a gorgeous night and the sun setting. We had a, just a lovely dinner at Au Lavoir.
Annie: Au Lavoir. Okay.
John: Au Lavoir. Beautiful beautiful location there. Stopped, had some drinks. They were very accommodative for our large group and stuff.
Annie: Very nice.
Sally: Yeah, we had a very, very nice waitress. She was very friendly and she was Canadian actually. I think she’d married a French guy and moved to France.
Annie: Yeah, so there was no language barrier there?
Sally: No. No. That was kind of nice. Yeah.
Annie:
[00:25:38] Malpas Tunnel
Annie: Number four you mentioned marveling at the ingenuity of the canal system with its many types of locks and the Malpas Tunnel. Tell me about the tunnel because I haven’t seen that.
Sally: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s kind of interesting. Again, it’s a very narrow tunnel, and long. So that when you go in there, you’re not… I guess you can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it’s kind of long so it’s dark in there. And so it was a little… You know, if I had been driving the boat, it would be intimidating for me because I’d be worried about bumping things the whole way through but, yeah, that’s an engineering feat also.
Sally: And that’s a day, I think that was the day that you and I were riding our bikes. We had ridden ahead and gone to, there was a little museum that talked about the building of that.
Sally: And what’s interesting is I think, if I remember correctly, there were like four different levels of tunnels. All for different purposes. So we had the tunnel that we were going through on the canal but there’s also… What were the other ones, John?
John: Yeah, so, I mean, across the top of this called The Malpas was the Roman road which was built in the BC times. And then you have the canal tunnel which Sally mentioned was built in the 1600s. And then there was a railway tunnel built in the 1800s. And then there was a drainage tunnel and this was kind of an interesting one built by monks, I think back in the 1200s.
John: And the drainage tunnel was designed to drain a,they call it the Etang de Montady? M-O-N-T-A-D-Y.
Annie: Okay.
John: And very interesting area because this had been a lake or a pond, very large pond I guess, but it was maybe a small lake, that was infested with mosquitoes and carried disease and so forth. And the monks who had a church nearby had petitioned to build this drainage tunnel back in the 1200s. So all four of these levels across this col, which is, I guess, is a small mountain.
Annie: Yeah, col means the, it’s the highest point of a hill or mountain.
John: Hill, yeah. So it was, you know, relatively small but as Sally mentioned, the visitor center was 20 miles away.
Sally: So many things packed. I mean, you have the drainage, you have the railway tunnel, you have the, you know, the… I don’t remember which order they were in, the canal tunnel and then you have the road above. So it was like, all these different pathways through this mountain but not, you know, all one on top of the other.
Sally: It was kind of fascinating. They had a diorama, I feel that’s what I would call it, like a model of it in this little museum. So we spent some time in there and learned a little bit about that. That was cool. I thought that was fun.
Annie: Yeah.
John: At the top of that, by the visitor center, they had a structure, a stone structure that was very similar to a borie, you know, the bories over by…
Annie: In the Luberon?
John: Yeah, in Luberon.
Annie: Yeah.
John: So there’s that bories village.
Annie: Yeah.
John: And we went back after seeing that. We went back and talked to those two ladies in the visitor center, spoke very little English, but we conveyed to them that this was like a borie and they didn’t know anything about bories so it kind of showed them. They were delighted to see, you know…
Annie: We had some pictures, yeah.
John: We had pictures of the bories near, what’s the name of that town? Gordes, Gordes.
Annie: Yeah. Gordes, yeah.
John: So, but that was, yeah, just incredible engineering and we had fun with it.
Annie: Wonderful. Yeah.
[00:28:51] Folk Art at the Ecluse de L’Aiguille?
Annie: And you also saw some folk art at the Ecluse de L’Aiguille?
Sally: Oh, oh yeah. That was a really interesting place. So I think,the lock keeper was responsible for all this. It’s basically like metal pieces of art. He just put together scrap metal into different, like, into people or machines or bikes. And some of them were mechanical.
Sally: So I was surprised. We had come into this place for the night, and at the top of this lock where this art is, and we had seen it as we’d come up to the top of the lock but we were busy getting the boat situated.
Sally: And then, at some point, everyone went off doing something. For some reason, I was left there kind of by myself so I walked over to this artwork and I was by myself, and as I stepped in front of this one piece of art, it all de sudden started moving and it was like a guy on a bicycle or something and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” It just took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting anything to move … or make noise or anything. Some of it’s a little graphic, like you know…
John: R-rated.
Sally: Yeah, maybe R-rated, yeah.
Annie: Oh?
John: Yeah.
Annie: Yeah. R-rated metal art?
Sally: Yes!
John: Yes. Yes.
Sally: You’ll have to look it up. You can probably find some pictures but yeah.
John: Yeah.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll look.
John: Yeah. Got your attention now.
Sally: Yeah.
John: They had a motion sensor there, and a lot of the art was kind of stationary, you know, folk art I would call it, but you know, made with junk basically.
Annie: Yeah.
John: Scrap metals and junk, but very ingenious.
Sally: Yeah, yeah.
John: Some for sale. Some for sale. We didn’t buy any, but…
Annie: You didn’t buy any art?
John: No, not this time. No. Yeah, and that was the time we just pulled up next… we went through a lock because we wanted to get through that lock so we’d be, have an early start in the morning, so we pulled up on the other side, drove a stake in the bank and spent the night there. Absolutely gorgeous setting.
Sally: Yeah, that was so pretty.
John: Absolutely stunning, and a beautiful sunset.
[00:30:46] Sleeping on a small boat
Annie: What is it like sleeping on a small boat like that?
Sally: Well, you know, first I should probably describe… I mean, I think we slept well, but I will say the cabins were some of the smallest, like, even though we’ve been on boats before, sailboats and so on, and usually the cabins are rather small but this was very small.
Sally: Like, when you walked in the room at the cabin of this boat, there was not room for two people to stand in that cabin. So like, you could go in and if one person was in bed, the other person could go into the bathroom. But there was really only one room for one person to stand. So you know, putting away your luggage and that sort of thing was a little challenging with more than one person. But sleeping was not a problem. I mean, the beds were big enough.
Annie: Were they like queen size sort of beds?
Sally: It’s probably more like a double. They weren’t all the same either. There’s some of them, the one room had like a little bit of a bigger bed in it, but…
John: Yeah, they were… I would describe them as small twins pushed together.
Sally: Mm-hmm.
John: Small twins, you know, in the US we think of two twins being pushed together to make a king but that wasn’t the case here. It was to make a, maybe a full size, right?
Sally: Okay. A couple of the cabins, it was kind of interesting the way they were, the way it was set up because you wanted to sleep with your head facing towards the door because on the other end of the bed was sort of like a, something that kind of hung down from the ceiling, like an overhang. You kind of had to like slip your feet underneath this thing. I mean, there were several feet of space. It wasn’t coffin like to me or anything, but we did have one…
Annie: Right, but you don’t want your head there.
Sally: Don’t want your head there. But we did have one guy who we found out, well, he found out also, he didn’t realize he was claustrophobic. But he happened to be in one of those cabins with that overhang. Ours did not have that but his cabin had that overhang and he got up in the middle of the night like sort of in a panic, he was feeling claustrophobic. So he ended up switching cabins with another couple and it was all okay, but yeah.
Annie: Yeah.
Sally: Yeah, and I would say too, you know, these cabins, as I mentioned, they were en suite, so you had a bathroom, that would have what they would call a wet head, meaning that you would shower, the toilet, just slip the toilet seat down and you would shower in around the toilet area, and the sink area. So it was very, very small. All in one.
John: It was an all in one, all in one experience.
Annie: Kind of rustic.
John: It was very rustic.
John: Yeah, I would say more like glamping.
Annie: Yeah.
John: You know, glamour camping, glamping.
Sally: Yeah.
[00:33:20] Travel Light!
John: But if you’ve been on a boat before, you kind of expect that. Sally said two people couldn’t stand in the cabin together at the same time.
Annie: Wow.
Sally: Pretty small.
John: In fact, that was a, just a kind of a thought reflection we had that if we were to do this again, we would have one more spare cabin than the number of crew that we needed. So if we, if there were four couples, we would take, maybe use the five-cabin boat. And that way, we could store luggage in that last cabin.
Sally: Mm-hmm.
John: So, yeah, if you were two, two couples, I would get a three-cabin boat.
Sally: I mean, we both had collapsible, rolling duffles is what we had packed in, but I will say, and also, we had small rolling carryon. But for the most part, our luggage was pretty collapsible. But even though it was, we could only fit one of our collapsible bags, I think, underneath the bed. There was a little bit of space that you could put your suitcase, and so that was kind of a, you know, like what are you going to do with your suitcases that… It’s not like you have a dresser in there, like you have sort of like a shelf beside your bed and you can stow some of your stuff up there and…
Annie: Yeah, so yeah, it’s very, very, very small, like it sounds like.
Sally: It is.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Sally: It is. And actually, we were sleeping with… I had my, I think we had the small carryon suitcase at the foot of my side of the bed.
Annie: Nowhere to put it.
John: Nowhere else to put it.
Sally: Nowhere else to put it, yeah, yeah. So you got to be careful with what you pack in and how much you have and…
Annie: Yeah.
John: And I think some travelers will go, you know, they’ll do an out and back kind of trip. We did a point to point, so if you were to go out and back, you could probably store luggage wherever you’re starting and ending. In our case, we were starting at point A and finishing at point B, so we couldn’t, we didn’t have that luxury.
Annie: Yeah, you had to have your stuff with you.
John: Exactly.
Annie: Interesting.
[00:35:08] Pont Canal sur l’Orb
Annie: You mentioned that Pont Canal sur l’Orb. So tell me about that. I don’t know anything about that.
John: Well, that’s just, I think that’s the French name for that canal aqueduct right outside of Béziers.
Annie: Ah.
John: And that’s a, you know, prior to this trip, we had seen videos of people transiting France on canal boats, or in some cases, a sailboat.This just kind of really intrigued us, that you could have a canal on a bridge passing over a river. That was really special, and it was incredible that it was built in, again, built in late, I think mid-1800s and, you know, and it wasn’t leaking as far as I could tell, you know? It’s holding water just fine and it was just pretty incredible.
Annie: Yeah. Well, they were probably maintaining.
Sally: We don’t have anything like that here in the United States.
John: Nothing, no.
Annie: No. Well, no. You wouldn’t do it that way nowadays, you know? Yeah.
[00:36:00] Sightseeing in Toulouse
Annie: And you also mentioned that you liked sightseeing in Toulouse but by then, you were off of the boat, right?
Sally: Correct. Yes.
Annie: When you got off, you must have felt like in your hotel room was like, “Oh! This is a palace!”
Sally: It was luxurious, yeah. It was very nice.
John: Particularly the showers, you know?
Sally: Oh, yeah. I took the longest shower that night. Like, I don’t know. I thought I was never going to come out because…
Annie: Well, you know, I mean, showering over the toilet? Ah, no. No.
John: No.
Annie: This is not happening.
John: So Toulouse wasn’t really on our radar, because we were focused on the canal boat part of the trip. We finished in Castelnaudary which it’s a nice town. Wasn’t particularly special, but it was a very nice town.
Annie: It’s all right.
John: And so we took the train from Castelnaudary to Toulouse. And when we arrived in Toulouse, actually, a little bit before we arrived there, we had done a little bit of research, and I think you actually sent me a Voice Map, maybe Elyse’s or yours. I’m not sure whose.
Annie: Elyse, yeah.
John: Yeah. But when we arrived in Toulouse, it was a beautiful day and we loved Toulouse.
Sally: Oh yeah, it was great. I liked every bit.
Sally: Yeah. I had no idea, didn’t know what to expect, and learned later it was like the fourth-largest city in France and it was just, it was fabulous. We had a really great time exploring Toulouse. We did a little bus tour there, too.
John: We did a petit train tour.
Sally: I’m a sucker for a petit train tour. I just think it’s a good way just to get an overview of the town.
Annie: It is.
John: You see a lot in a short period of time.
John: For cheap, you know, for a few euros. So then we could come back and revisit wherever we wanted to see.
Annie: So how much, how much time did you spend in Toulouse? Was it one night, two nights?
Sally: Ooh, just one night. We got in maybe like around noontime or late morning, I think, and so we were there to have lunch. We had lunch and spent the afternoon, and then we were leaving the next morning on a plane, so we had, I guess we Ubered to the hotel. It was near the airport.
Sally: Just had dinner there at the hotel, which was probably a mistake. We should’ve had…… we should have had dinner in Toulouse and then gone to the hotel because it was…
Annie: There’s not much there.
Sally: Well, there was a restaurant, but I don’t, they had something that, I think they had an event going on and so they had a large party coming in and so we kind of had to talk our way into getting a place there to eat. Only some of us did. The rest of them were kind of, I don’t know what they did for dinner that night, but…
John: Two things I would say about the end of our trip is we, when we got off the train, we just stored our luggage at a nearby hotel. And just spent a couple euros. They held our luggage for us, it was secure, and off we went.
Sally: We got that recommendation from Annie.
John: Yes, so we stored the luggage. others in our group, you know, they taxied immediately to the hotel and dropped the luggage and came back, but didn’t think that was really necessary.
John: But the other thing is, for us, I like to push the easy button on travel and so for the last, you know, for the last night of a trip, I really like staying at a airport hotel. And by airport I mean a hotel in the airport. So in Toulouse, you may know there’s a really nice hotel that you literally walk out of reception into the airport concourse.
Annie: Which one is that?
John: I think, was it called the N Hotel? Or I’m trying to think what it was called.
Annie: I have never done that. I mean, not in Toulouse. I’ve done that in other cities.
John: Yeah, you probably don’t need to in Toulouse. You’re home by then.
Annie: No, no. I don’t.
John: But that was a, I think a really good thing because we had an early morning flight, and we literally got up, had a croissant or some breakfast and then walked into the concourse.
Sally: Yeah, I think we had like a, I think we were leaving the hotel at like 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. It was very early, so it was nice not to have to travel.
John: Yeah.
Annie: Yeah, the flights out of Toulouse to get to Paris and then to the US are brutally early. You have to get up really early and so what we do anymore is we leave from Barcelona because the flights leave from there at 3:00 or something and I have an apartment not far, so just go down to Barcelona and then take the bus into the airport and take off by 3:00, which is quite easy to do.
John: Easy.
Annie: Or, we fly to, if we’re flying to, through Amsterdam, we fly the night before and spend the night in Amsterdam and then take the flight to the US, because it is, I mean, those super early departure times…
John: Pretty brutal.
John: It’s already difficult traveling and flying, you know, across the pond, but so our flight was from Toulouse to Munich, from Munich and then Munich to Charlotte, went to Charlotte, North Carolina area. So that worked out pretty well.
Annie: So, okay, so overall with the boat trip, I mean, I’ve heard people say it’s awfully slow, so it’s like hurry up and wait kind of deal because you need to be there all the time to mind the boat, don’t you?
Sally: Well, I mean, there were a couple of times we all got off the boat and went to a restaurant, but yeah, there were a couple of people in our group that were a little nervous about that, but…
Annie: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Like, do you lock your stuff? Do you have a lot? Well, you didn’t have, you didn’t bring very much, but…
Sally: Yeah, we didn’t really have valuables, but we did, there was a way to lock the door on the boat. The bikes were out on the deck but they were kind of locked to the railing. And I don’t think anyone would want to steal them anyways because they weren’t that great of bikes.
Sally: But I think they do sometimes get stolen, but yeah, I mean, I don’t know. John and I felt pretty comfortable with it and we didn’t have any issues, luckily, with anything getting stolen but I guess that is a thing that can happen.
Annie: Well, did you ever think like, what if somebody hops on the boat in the middle of the night?
Sally: No, I didn’t think about that.
Annie: Didn’t worry about that?
Sally: No, the only place that I might have wondered about something like that happened was in, near Carcassonne because there were some homeless people, it looked like maybe they were homeless people nearby. Like, it seemed like where we were tied up or, you know, stayed for the night, there were like park benches, kind of like a little bit of a park area right there next to the canal, and maybe some people looked a little, you know, iffy.
Annie: But there were nine of you so you didn’t ever feel…
Sally: And we actually asked the, there was a boat right behind us I think. Someone had struck up a conversation with the guy in the boat and we asked them were they going to be around that evening and they said they were and we asked if they could just kind of keep an eye out on our boat while we were out to dinner, so yeah, it all worked out. That worked out fine.
John: I think boaters tend to be kind of look after, you know, look after one another. Everyone’s kind of in the same situation, so they know, what the needs are and where to help if they can.
Annie: Were there mostly English speakers on the…
John: On other boats?
Annie: Yeah.
John: Mostly I would say they were not English speakers, they English-speaking but not, maybe not, we saw, you know, maybe some Germans, Dutch, a few French I’m sure.
Sally: Well, I mean, I can say a lot of them couldn’t communicate with us. I mean, it was, you weren’t always sure you were getting the full meaning but, you know. We got by. Back to your original question about a, you know, overall impression, I thought it was a really fun thing to do.
Sally: I don’t like to do a lot of things twice because there’s so many places to go in the world. I don’t like to, you know, do the same thing over and over again. But I would recommend someone doing it with maybe some recommendations to try and maybe travel less distance on the trip so you’re not rushing through it as much. I wish we could have done that. And then also, you know, have more space by having that extra cabin, so you have a place to put your things.
Annie: Yeah, perhaps not nine people. That’s a lot of people.
Sally: It was a lot of people. There were, yeah, we did run across several people who would say, “Oh, who are you traveling with?” And when we would tell people that there were nine people on our boat, they just about wanted to fall over.
Sally: But no, I mean, we’re all still friends, so that, you know that’s good. We just got together with eight of the other people, the other day, so yeah, we’re all still friends. It was a little challenging at times just because you’re in close quarters, even walking through the galley area where the kitchen is, it’s like, oh, someone has to step over so you can walk through. And then, you know, it’s kind of like a Tetris game walking through the galley. But it all worked out okay. I think everyone enjoyed it. I think the thing that made it challenging was the space being kind of confined at times, you know, with that number of people.
[00:44:17] Late September Weather on the Canal du Midi
John: Yeah, and I think what added to that was the weather, so it was pretty cool, late September, it was pretty cool to be out at night. And probably more than the temperature was the wind.
Sally: The wind. It was very windy, which I guess is pretty typical for that area of the country.
John: We had, when we were in Provence, we had incredible winds traveling through there.
Sally: Yeah.
John: And it kept us, really kept us indoors more than we would’ve liked to.
Sally: Very windy there too, yeah. It was very windy in Provence. That kind of just tires you out after a while, the wind, when you’re in it.
John: But, you know, what made it enjoyable though, Annie, you talked about, it is a slow boat, and that’s kind of the point of it is taking a little bit of a breather and relaxing and reading a book. Sally likes to journal. You know, just different things, enjoying a nice glass of wine as the sun’s going down. I think it’s what is part of that experience.
Sally: Yeah.
John: Slowing down.
Sally: I mean, I think, you would say the same thing, I was never bored at all the entire time. Never bored. I thought it was a really fun trip, and it was just, like I said, I wish we could have had more time in some of the places, which, you know, it would be taking it a little bit slower even. Not so much in terms of the speed of the travel, but just…
Annie: How far you wanted to get.
Sally: Yeah.
Annie: So instead of getting all the way to Castelnaudary, maybe you would have stopped in Carcassonne?
John: You know, and you’re somewhat limited by the bases of the operations too, so you have to keep that in mind when you’re planning. But I would say if you were traveling in the summer, in more of a high season, could be difficult to make that seven-day journey that we made just because of queuing up ahead of the locks and you know, maybe waiting to pass through bridges and tunnel or whatever it may be.
[00:46:02] Who Is It For?
Annie: One last question. Who would you say this type of activity is best for? I mean, probably not people in their teens or 20s, but maybe mature adults? Maybe for little kids? I don’t know. Could it be dangerous? Like…
Sally: It would be a really fun trip for like mom, dad, and you know, a couple kids, few kids. That would be, I think, a really fun trip.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Sally: Although if they’re real little, like you’re not going to get in that water in a canal, and if it’s the summertime, yeah. I mean, that’s…
Annie: That’s a terrible idea. Don’t.
Sally: No. No. It’s not healthy, I don’t think. But I think that could be a fun family trip.
John: I think fun family trip or, you know, group, like our group, you know, we are 60-somethings, but I would say a group of 30-somethings, 40-somethings, any type of group activity like that, a smaller group.
Annie: Was there, like, a big table where you could all sit and eat?
Sally: Yes.
Annie: Okay.
Sally: Yeah. So there was a table with, like, sort of a bench seat along three sides, I guess. Yeah.
Annie: Yeah. Okay. Okay.
John: Both indoor and outdoors. So top side there was a very large table, and we had a canopy there that we could put up or down.
Sally: And we would eat up there sometimes, but it was so windy. I noted in my journal that, like, one day, one of my friends had her olives blow off the plate, you know?
Annie: Olive blowing day. Oh, wow.
John: Yeah.
Annie: That’s amazing.
John: But yeah, I think for us, we’ve seen YouTubers or what have you that have done multiple trips in multiple locations. So for us, I think the Canal du Midi is a one-and-done, you know? But maybe other canals we might consider doing that. Our preference is to be more active kind of individual travel as opposed to, like, large group, riverboat or, you know, cruise ship type of travel, so we like exploring on our own. And so this really affords people who want to do that a great opportunity, I think.
Annie: Wonderful. Well, we’re going to have to stop here because we’ve been talking a long time. But it’s wonderful because I don’t think we have had very many conversations about canal… especially the Canal du Midi. I mean, we talked about people who bike on it and things like that, but not so much spending a week on it.
Annie: So thank you so much for talking to me about this.
Sally: Oh, you’re welcome.
John: You’re welcome. Our pleasure. And thank you too, I can’t tell you how many podcasts I listened to prepare.
Sally: Oh, yeah. Lots.
John: So, but we really appreciate you, what you’re doing as well. And not just what you’re doing, but the way that you do it. And your, well, love your sense of humor, but also the kind of commercial aspect and, you know, how you approach the podcast, so thank you for doing that too.
Annie: Thank you very much. And I wish you many happy trips to France.
Sally: All right.
John: Merci beaucoup.
Annie: Thank you. Merci, au revoir. Au revoir.
[00:48:57] Thank You Patrons
Annie: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them at patreon.com/joinus. And a special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champions: Dee, Joanne Tenzer, and Katie Hall.
Annie: And thank you, Cathy, for editing your pledge up. Would you join them too? You can do it for as little as $3 a month, but if you can afford it, I would love to have you pledge a little more so you can have access to more of the rewards, such as the Zoom meetings, the monthly Zoom meetings. Go to patreon.com/joinus, and to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
[00:49:47] Zoom meetings with Patrons
Annie: So two Sundays ago, I had my Zoom meetings with patrons, which is, I think, my favorite Patreon rewards. We got to hang out and chat about your plans. You get to ask me pretty much anything. And very often these patrons will also meet me in person, either at the bootcamp or on a day trip with me, et cetera.
Annie: So, you know, it feels like they’re real friends. It’s fantastic. The next dates are going to be July 26th and 27th, and there’s a Saturday 6:00 PM meeting, a 9:00 AM Sunday meeting. That one usually works out great for the folks in the Pacific, or my favorite night owl, Kristy, from the Central Time Zone in the US, and also Sunday nights, 7:00 PM, France time.
Annie: You need to decide which one works best for you. And our small Aussie/New Zealand group is growing as well, so that’s wonderful.
Annie:
[00:50:39] Tour Reviews
Annie: Let me read a few reviews of my VoiceMap tours this week, and also tell you about one that, oh, I didn’t like so much.
Annie: Anyway, here’s the good ones about the Latin Quarter. “The tour was structured well and had precise instructions. The experience seemed very close to having a real guide.” I’m a real person, I swear. “I liked that it was self-paced, which allowed us to stop at interesting locations for pictures, art, coffee, et cetera.” Another person wrote, “A wonderful introduction to the Marais. We would not have seen a majority of the places Annie brought us to. I’m thankful we had Annie in our pocket.” Thank you very much.
Annie: So another one again, “This is the third tour of Annie’s, which we’ve enjoyed from home.” So this is Montmartre.
Annie: “It brought back fond memories of Montmartre and answered questions I didn’t remember that I had. It also made me eager to climb the hill again. She’s a gifted storyteller who doesn’t overwhelm you with info. She sets a good pace. I enjoyed it very much.” All right. Yeah, he enjoys it from home, and why not? You can enjoy those tours anywhere you want.
Annie: About my Saint-Germain-des-Pres tour, “We enjoyed Annie’s tour. It was great being able to take the tour at our convenience. We appreciated her tips on places to stop along the way.”
Annie: Now, the one that made me unhappy, and there’s one of those every now and then, it’s a reality. One person kind of trashed my food tour, around Les Halles a few days ago because many stores were closed and they got hangry. I had to look it up. I didn’t know what it was. I don’t like it when people have a bad experience with one of my VoiceMap tours.
Annie: However, it says right in the tour description that it’s best not to take this tour on a Sunday afternoon or Monday all day, because many stores are closed. And these people showed up hungry and then hangry on a Sunday afternoon, and they took it out on me in the comment section. I know most of you don’t need this reminder, but perhaps a few do, so here I go.
Annie: French stores do close, especially mom and pop food stores. I know many of you are used to very long hours from all sorts of stores, but it’s not that way in France, not even in Paris. When in France, you should not expect people to work nonstop, and you can’t expect them to hire a slew of poorly paid workers who get no health insurance and no benefits of any sort,because we don’t do that in France either.
Annie: Also, please read the tour description before you take it. There’s a lot of important information in there.
[00:53:29] Podcast Listeners Discount Codes
Annie: Podcast listeners get a big discount for buying these tours from my website. It’s best for me as well because I get more of what you pay instead of giving it to Apple or Google, but if you buy from my boutique, it’s not instant like it would be if you bought from VoiceMap directly. Give it a day or two, please.
Annie: To use your code, open VoiceMap, tap on Tour Codes at the bottom right, enter the code, and download the tour. You don’t have to use your tour credit immediately. It just sits in your account until you’re ready.
Annie: And if you’re planning a trip to France and you want some expert help, you can hire me as your itinerary consultant.
Annie: It’s busy season, so book early at joinusinfrance.com/boutique. Usually, you have openings within a month. Right now it’s more like two or three months. It just depends. Sometimes you luck out, but don’t wait too much is what I’m trying to say.
[00:54:23] The Tour de France 2025
Annie: The Tour de France 2025 started yesterday, on July 5th, 2025.
Annie: That’s if you listen to this episode as soon as it comes out, of course. The tour set off yesterday from Lille. Some of us cheer the racers on roadside and some of us follow it on TV with a coffee in hand, especially if you’re from the US because that’s, it would be shown in the morning where you are.
Annie: This event is so much fun. This year the route will start in Lille, then Normandy and Brittany, the Loire Valley, Mont d’Or in the center of France. Toulouse, my hometown on July 15th, lots of days in the Pyrenees, including Luchon-Super-Bannieres which just got their train service back last week, by the way.
Annie: That was a big deal for this small town. Carcassonne on July 20th, Montpellier and Mont Ventoux, and this one is a doozy.
Annie: But then they go on to the Alps and Courchevel, Albertville, Pontarlier, on the border with Switzerland before heading to Paris on July 27th.
Annie: We’ll get to see aerial views of chateaus, sunflower fields, coastal roads, medieval villages as the riders push through long days in the saddle. Even if you’re not a cyclist, the Tour de France is a wonderful way to see the beauty of France. And it might just inspire your next trip. And let’s be honest, it’s a lot easier to watch from your sofa than to pedal up the Mont Ventoux.
Annie: And those drones that they use give the most amazing footage. So I turn on my TV in the afternoon in France, that’s when it usually takes place, and enjoy as much of it as I can, and I hope you do too.
Annie: My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan who produced the transcripts.
[00:56:21] Next Week on the Podcast
Annie: Next week on the podcast, an episode that I really enjoyed recording and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it just as much as I did.
Annie: We called it “In Search of the Southwest of France” with Katherine MacMillan. She was so much fun and shares so many wonderful tips. So join me next Sunday for that. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.
[00:56:49] Copyright
Annie: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent, and Copyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
Subscribe to the Podcast
Apple Google Spotify RSSSupport the Show
Tip Your Guides Extras Patreon Audio ToursRead more about this transcript
Episode PageCategory: Occitanie