Table of Contents for this Episode
[00:00:00]
Intro
Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 597, cinq cent quatre-vingt-dix-sept.
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: Road Tripping in Northern France
Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a conversation with Craig Anderson, who combined Belgium with a week in northern France, an area most North Americans overlook too often.
We cover Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne-sur-Mer, the Battle of Agincourt, and a day trip to Amien’s Cathedral.
History buffs and first-time visitors to the French North, this one is for you.
Craig wasn’t [00:01:00] doing a budget trip per se, but northern France gives you a lot for your money compared to Paris or the Riviera, and most of what you see there is outdoors or in inexpensive museums, and it’s not as hot either, so there’s a lot to love about this part of France.
Podcast supporters
Annie Sargent: Before we start, this show runs on listener support. If you want to work with me directly, I do itinerary consults, VoiceMap tours of Paris, and day trips around the southwest of France.
Everything is at joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And if you shop on Amazon anyway, starting at joinusinfrance.com/amazon costs you nothing but helps the show.
Magazine segment
Annie Sargent: For the Magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Craig today, I’ll discuss what Paris is doing about empty apartments. Why does this matter?
Because I talk to many of my listeners on day trips or itinerary consults or [00:02:00] whatever, or bootcamp, and quite a few of them have told me they love their pied-à-terre in Paris.
Well, some things are about to change.
Welcome Craig Anderson
Annie: Bonjour, Craig Anderson, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Craig Anderson: Bonjour, Annie. Thank you for having me on.
Annie: Wonderful to have you. We were just joking that you are the intrepid French traveler.
Craig Anderson: My wife would be very happy to hear me called that. That would be right up her alley.
Annie: So you end up coming to France quite a bit?
Craig Anderson: We like going to Europe and staying there for, you know, at least a few weeks, three weeks or so just because of the time change. Once you’re there it’s easier to get adjusted. And so, mainly because my wife loves anything that’s France, so whenever we go somewhere, if I can include as part of that trip going [00:03:00] into France too, she’s always much more interested in doing that. So I think, on a number of trips that we’ve taken, it’s been starting somewhere else then ending up in France. I know we’ve done a couple of podcasts with you that have, have kind of followed that format of we started somewhere else, but then we ended up in France.
Annie: Right. Right, right.
Why Belgium and north France
Annie: And this … On this trip, you went to northern France and Belgium.
Craig Anderson: Correct.
Annie: Why did you choose that part of the country this time?
Craig Anderson: Well, I think, you know, like I was mentioning, we oftentimes start somewhere else, and then if we’re close, we try to find a unique place in France to go to as well. And we had never made it to Belgium, and so that was really the primary purpose of the trip was to hit, you know, all the normal things that you would see in Belgium, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges. And so we had a wonderful trip all through Belgium, but because we were so close, especially when we got to the area, say, where Flanders Fields are, in my normal, I guess, trip planning [00:04:00] mode, I started looking around at like well what is very close to there that with a slight detour you could start exploring something else?
And especially, when you think, at least for us, when are we ever going to make it to this particular spot again? So we better try to hit all the things that are around that area. And so that’s when I kind of got started on looking at this whole area of very far northern France, which we’d never been to anywhere there before.
And so the more I started digging into it, one, it was just very easy to get there, but two, there was just really so much to see that we almost made half the trip just going to this particular corner of France and thought it was very interesting.
Annie: Wonderful.
Getting there and around
Annie: And where did you land? Where’d you land into and depart from? Was it the same?
Craig Anderson: Well, yeah, so we flew into to Brussels and then out of Brussels, so that was a very efficient way to do this trip, in particular if you were trying to see Belgium as part of it.
If you weren’t trying to do that and you were trying [00:05:00] to see this part of France, maybe if you were seeing the Normandy coast or you were trying to tour World War II battlefield sites or maybe you were up in Champagne or maybe you were just, you know, going to Paris and… But any of those places I think would be very convenient and easy to get to this region. And then I guess if you were from the UK, generally you would just take the Channel across. That would be an easy way to get here as well. So, it seemed like there were a lot of very easy, efficient ways to get here from some other place,if you were trying to do this in addition to something else.
Annie: Right. Right, right, right.
First impressions and vibe
Annie: So what was your… what were your first impressions of the area? Is it very different from other parts of France that you’ve visited?
Craig Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I guess what I’m always intrigued by when we try to go to a place is, maybe a region within another country that has its own unique gastronomy and look and feel and things to do. And again, until I started sort of [00:06:00] researching this area, I didn’t really know that much about this particular pocket of France. I mean, I’d heard and we’ve gone to a lot of the other common ones, Burgundy, Champagne region, Loire, things like that. But this region sort of seemed to stand alone for its own subset of, you know, really unique things where it’s, you know, got a lot of coastal vibes and seafood and some interesting food.
And because it’s so close to Belgium, there’s sort of this, you know, interesting mix of Belgian beers, but also some Flemish foods that are sort of on this side of the border as well. And then there’s just history in terms of this region. And then if you cross the border a little bit to the other side of Belgium, I mean, obviously this is an area that’s been fought over, you know, for thousands of years. And so there’s all kinds of battles and movies that people are familiar with where they would be set essentially in this area.
The Dunkirk movie that was, you know, very well done and fairly recent that probably lots of people have seen. But you know, even other [00:07:00] movies like, not that everything has to be set on a movie, but people just have a lot more familiarity with it, it seems sometimes, like the Timothée Chalamet movie that he did a few years ago called The King, which is the battle of, you know, that’s here, in this same region back in the Shakespeare, Henry V days.
So it was very interesting just because it seemed to have a lot of its own unique food and culture and stories and battlefields that made it, you know, different than other parts, I guess. That’s kind of why we picked it.
Annie: Yeah. And it’s not, I mean, it’s not one of the regions that most visitors from North America will visit, but I think it’s well worth a couple of weeks. You spent… You ended up spending a week in Belgium and a week in France?
Craig Anderson: Yeah, it was probably just a slight bit more than that in Belgium and then a week in this region in France. So maybe call it 10 days Belgium and then a week here in this region in France.
I think that’s a very good mix and as I said, if somebody wasn’t going to Belgium, but they [00:08:00] were, you know, happened to be maybe further south, like they went to the beaches of Normandy, or they just went to Paris, or they were in Champagne and they thought, "Oh, I want to just kind of pop over and see this region," a week I thought was perfect, but, you know, depending on what you wanted to see, you could certainly modify the plan a little bit, accordingly and see.
But as you said, there’s just a lot of different things to see, and at least speaking from my own perspective, yes, as a pretty seasoned North American traveler, at least that’s kind of how we feel, this is still an area that is relatively obscure for anybody coming from North America to even think about this even being on your radar screen until somebody said, "Well, you know, this is kind of where, you know, the Battle of Agincourt took place, or World War I battlefields, Somme, Flanders Fields.
Oh, you know, this is where Dunkirk, Calais, other World War II battle sites were." I mean, and, you know, once you started mentioning some of those things, people would say, "Oh, okay, that’s where this took place, I guess."
Annie: Yeah. Yeah, a lot. I mean, like [00:09:00] you said, the area has been fought over for a very long time. There’s also been a lot of mining in that area that we don’t do anymore, but you also have the mining history aspect, which I enjoyed that in that area.
You drove, right?
Craig Anderson: Yeah, I think you have to have a car to get around this area. At least that’s what we had, and it was incredibly easy to get around because this is, you know, not some big city driving. I mean, you could essentially… every place we went to and described, you could just drive right up to whatever the site was and just, you know, look around a little bit and find a parking space.
So it wasn’t, you know, anything like driving in the big cities that that would be a challenge. I think to get around, you’d have to get a rental car, which was very easy, very easy driving, and it’s just really pretty because you can drive out to the coast, or drive along the coast, or you can drive to some of these battlefields and just kind of go and come at your leisure, and that made it, you know, very low-key and nice and easy to get around.
Annie: Yeah, and it’s very [00:10:00] much like driving other parts of France. You have freeways, and then you have non-toll roads that are a little narrower, but I didn’t find it cha… I mean, I was… we were there in my car, maybe a couple years ago. I can’t remember exactly when we went. Maybe it was last summer.
Anyway, but it was not challenging. You can drive this area very easily.
Craig Anderson: It was very easy to get around, without a car, I don’t really know how you’d really get around very efficiently. I’m sure there’s theoretically some way that you’d do it, but you would just miss on a lot of the stuff that are sort of obscure, out of the way places to get to.
Boulogne-sur-Mer was the only thing that was, I mean, I wouldn’t even call it challenging, but we on purpose stayed right in the central core of Boulogne-sur-Mer, I mean, in the middle of all the little warrens and streets on purpose because I just… I really like doing that, and trying to get an Airbnb and, you know, sort of live as a temporary local for a little bit of time. Every time you’d come back in for the day, you’d have to go through the search of where is a parking space that I [00:11:00] could try to find and wedge my car into for the night? If you’re used to European driving, it wasn’t bad. It’s nothing that you would be not used to.
Annie: Yeah. Yeah, I would say don’t ever do that in Provence or especially not on the Riviera. Provence you could, but Riviera, do not do that. The northern part of France, parking was not particularly challenging.
So you picked up your car in Brussels, and you dropped it off in Brussels, so it wasn’t a problem going across the border with a car?
Craig Anderson: Yeah. Yeah, that was easy. And that’s what we always try to do when we’re trying to figure out those logistics is, not that you can’t take it across the border, and drop it off on the other side, but that there’s always a, you know, an exorbitant one-way fee to do that.
So if you can ever figure out your logistics, not necessarily all about where the rental car is, but if you can find a way to sort of pick it up in one spot and drop it off at that same spot, especially if it happens to be, you know, the airport, that’s really, really efficient. We actually didn’t pick it up [00:12:00] at the Brussels Airport because within Belgium, we got around very easily just on trains because we were essentially going big city to big city, so Brussels, Antwerp, Brent, Ghent, and Bruges.
But when we got to the very last stop, in the Brussels trip, and then we needed to go from there to Flanders Fields and then on to France, we just found a rental car place in one part of Belgium and then just returned it to the Belgian airport, and that was very easy and relatively inexpensive.
And that way we had free use of the car the whole time when we were in France.
Annie: All right.
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Dunkirk and Calais
Annie: So tell us the names of the places you visited on the French side. I’d love to have some details.
Craig Anderson: Okay. After kind of seeing the battlefields and the Flanders field sites, the first place that we ended up seeing as we crossed the border, was Dunkirk.
So that was, you know, very interesting. Obviously people have heard of the World War II evacuation site. There’s a few, again, a few very good [00:13:00] movies, that have been done in the last few years that talk about the evacuation or just the decision-making that Churchill made about what to do about all of that. So, it’s just interesting, a little bit like, you know, kind of like walking out on the D-Day beaches. I mean, you’re just sort of seeing these long, sandy beaches. And imagining as best you could, just like you would try to imagine if you were on the D-Day beaches, what that would’ve possibly been like back then.
And of course, you got to use your imagination a lot to do that. But there’s also an extremely good museum right there in Dunkirk that I think is relatively new, and everything’s in English, as well as obviously French. It was very well done. It’s a really nice museum because it’s not too big, you know, where they’ve got 50 tanks and 10 artillery pieces and, you know, you just get lost in all of the minutiae of the stuff. They really did a good job of just telling the story and having a lot of panels about just the things that happened as opposed to, you know, the buried guns and mines and [00:14:00] grenades, and all the other stuff that you’ve seen before. So I really enjoyed that museum. It really told the story well. It’s right there on the coast, sort of where you would imagine, those things coming in. So I thought Dunkirk was very interesting to see, and then we just kept driving to our ultimate stop that day, and you can’t help but go through Calais as well, and so that was, again, interesting drive along, look at the beaches there, sort of imagine all the places that, or all the people that have tried to invade from that area. Almost everybody that’s tried to do something, Napoleon, Caesar, you know, World War I, World War II, I mean, almost all of them thought about doing something in Calais and, you know, maybe did or didn’t do it, but they’ve all sort of sat there and thought about this is where it’s going to be from. So it was just interesting just to, to be there and think about that.
And then, almost a random non-French thing almost even to run across, but just out of pure happenstance, we were walking along that area of the beach and noticed that that’s where the Via Francigena route. I’m sort of a fan of these [00:15:00] long-distance pilgrimage hiking routes, and I’d kind of forgotten that the Via Francigena, which goes all the way from Canterbury to Rome, I mean, extremely long pilgrimage, ancient hiking path, but I forgot that that’s where if you cross the Channel, that’s where you start the European walk at Calais.
And so they kind of had a marker and the pilgrim sign and all the stuff that goes along with the Via Francigena that I recognized right off, and I thought, "Oh, well, that… If I would’ve thought about that, I probably would’ve tried to go there on purpose," but it was just one of those fun fortuitous things that you just happen to be, "Okay, well, here’s the starting point of that 2,000-mile trek to go all the way to Rome." So I kind of thought that was fun too.
Annie: I published an episode recently about this, that’s a fun thing to note as well.
Base in Boulogne
Annie: So did you stay in Dunkirk or Calais, or where?
Craig Anderson: No, that first day, we went, we made it all the way to… what we kind of kept as our home base was Boulogne-sur-Mer is where we kind of home-based the whole time.
But we left early enough where that [00:16:00] day we could see both Dunkirk and Calais, and then after that we made the drive and got there by the night to where we stayed at.
But, you know, you could stay at a number of places in this area. I mean, you know, Dunkirk, Calais would probably be fun places to stay. I’ve noticed a lot of people probably were coming across from the UK across the Channel, probably that is where they would stay, you know, maybe as their first stop.
But we just picked Boulogne-sur-Mer just because it seemed very good proximity to exploring this region. And then it had sort of the things that I like when we try to pick a place which is extremely historical, but a little, at least for us Americans, a little obscure.
Like you’ve never heard this place before as an average American, but once you sort of dug into it, you think, "Oh, that’s where this took place," and, "Oh, this person was there at some point."
And it really wouldn’t matter what area of history that you might be interested in, there would be something that was happening that impacted this [00:17:00] relatively small place.
And it was extremely pretty. The old historical core was extremely easy to navigate and figure out where everything was in a day. And then you can always just, in the evenings, wander around this really pretty old historical core.
So, but that’s kinda why we picked that as the place to stay, but there’s a lot of places, I think you could pick, especially if you were doing it as a, you know, more of a summertime beachy vacation. I think, you know, maybe there’d be a different place that you would pick if you were really trying to hang out on the beach.
But we went late October, knowing that it would be fine weather, but not anything that you want to go, you know, sit on the beach on.
Annie: Right. Right. Boulogne-sur-Mer is an interesting town because it’s fortified. They’ve kept parts of the fortifications, and so you, you see them around in the hyper city center.
But it’s also a pretty big town. There’s a big port area that seems, you know, if you drive to the port, ports are usually like that. It’s like three, four [00:18:00] miles of just all sorts of portuary services and things. I thought it was a… it was a nice town. It’s a little bit hilly, but not, nothing terrible. Because it’s hilly it’s kind of scenic. It is a blue collar sort of town. This is not a resort. This is not a fancy city with casinos and things like that, which you also find on the coast. But that one is just a blue collar town with a lovely historical center, I thought.
Craig Anderson: Yeah, we kind of picked it again just because, also, as you mentioned, there’s sort of the old part of the town and there’s the new part of the town, and so that is a dimension that not all of these places necessarily fall in this region.
And so we stayed in the old part of the town, which had, you know, a ton of history and scenic medieval walls and a chateau and a castle and a bunch of other things that just were very pretty to walk around.
But as you said, there’s also the new part of town, which, you know, has a huge port. You know, lots of seafood. [00:19:00] One evening went down to the port, walked along the ocean front. I mean, it’s just kind of pretty just to walk along it. There were some really, really good seafood restaurants there, obviously, because they’re bringing in so much good seafood. So we kind of made a point one evening to go to the new town part and explore that and intentionally have seafood at what was a excellent restaurant. It was sort of the… seemed like the go-to Michelin star restaurant right there on the port side.
But it was, again, by American standards, nothing expensive at all, and the food was really interesting and creative, and so we were really glad we did that. I would recommend it as a place to go and stay if you’re basing in this area, because there really is a lot of history.
I mean, we walk the ramparts and just kind of wander around the little streets and find the quintessential, you know, little hole-in-the-wall restaurants that are there. And this was not their prime tourist season, so you didn’t feel like, you know, there were a ton of people that were there, but the restaurants that were open all had very nice, interesting seafood dishes and other [00:20:00] dishes. I thought it was a very nice place to stay.
Annie: Very good.
Craig Anderson: And then there’s some obscure places around, like the Napoleon’s Column that is essentially in Boulogne-sur-Mer, but it’s, you know, you’d have to have a car to kind of pop out to where that is. It’s like, oh, okay, this is where that is. There’s a immense column, and that’s where Napoleon rallied his troops and started the Legion of Honor, and then you’re like, "Well, who would’ve thought that’s where that was?" But that’s where it is, and you’re like, "Well, we got to go see that," you know?
So there’s a lot of things that you could see in the, you know, immediate vicinity of that town that I thought were very interesting and certainly very historical.
Annie: Right. You sent me a very detailed outline. You know, you gave the places and the names and the restaurants and all of that. Anybody who’s interested in that, if you go to this episode page, from there you’ll have a button at the bottom that says guest notes, and you’ll see Craig’s very, very detailed, very nice outline of what they did on day one, day two, three, four, [00:21:00] five, six, which I thought was, you know, it’s a very good reference for people who just want to do the same trip you did.
Craig Anderson: Well, I tried to put some, you know, facts there about where it’s located and some things like what time it opens. But there’s a lot of things that, you know, that you can get to, you know, again, the town itself is… there’s a lot to see. I mean, we essentially spent maybe two days in this town itself, although some days we would go out and see something else and just kind of come back for the evening.
There’s definitely enough to see in this particular town for a couple of days, and then the things that you can get to around are not, you know, really that far away. And really it kind of just depends on what you like to see.
Cliffs food and history
Craig Anderson: If you like to see very, very scenic, beautiful things, the kind of nature, well, you can drive to the White Cliffs of Dover, the opposite side or on the French side. And so it looks very much like the White Cliffs of Dover, if you’ve ever been there. It just is on… not in Dover, but they’re very sheer [00:22:00] cliffs.
Annie: And on a clear day, you can see the White Cliffs of Dover in the distance, on a clear day. It’s usually windy up there.
Craig Anderson: It was very windy.
Annie: Yeah.
Craig Anderson: It was very windy and cold, but parking lot is five, 10 minutes from where you go, and you go up there and stand on this high promontory. And yes, it was very, very windy.
Annie: Yeah.
They have sheep.
Craig Anderson: Yeah, sheep. yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can stand and see so far up and down the coast either way. And again, you know, you’re trying to imagine, you know, what would it have been like if you were invading the UK or invading France, whichever way you were going, and you were, you know, looking at it and checking out the weather and imagining, okay, this is where we’re all going to take off from.
Whether it were, you know, William the Conqueror or Caesar or Napoleon or, you know, World War I or World War II, it’s like, well, pretty much the same thing. Let’s look at that. That’s where we got to get across. What’s the weather look like? All right. Well, let’s go. It’s a very short crossing today. Let’s go.
So if you like scenic things like that, there’s those kinds of things to see.
And then, if you [00:23:00] just like gastronomy and cute towns and things to drink, a lot of really good Belgian beers. I mean, we had just gotten, you know, our good education about Belgian beers by being in the Belgian side. But it was easy to just keep knowing what to order on this side as well, because there’s… You know, you’re so close to where the border is. They’ve got a lot of really good Belgian-type beers that are there.
So food, gastronomy, I mean, there’s lots to do in this area to try some, you know, kind of unique things that you might not run across everywhere else.
And then obviously if you’re into history, I mean, you could just pick what you’re trying to look for, whether it’s Battle of Agincourt or, you know, other French, UK, British battles from way back to World War I battles, to World War II battles to, you know, the locations where Hitler was sending the V1 and V2 bombs. You know, there’s a place there that’s still got the site that you can go see that, you know, is probably what’s left of one of those big [00:24:00] rocket launch sites.
There’s a lot of very interesting things that you could go see, you know, historical-wise in all the little towns.
Annie: Yeah. And if you would like a primer on the Battle of Agincourt, episode 89, long, long ago in the podcast, was all about that.
I had studied about it, and this is one of the few episodes where it’s just me, I think. I had just been fascinated by this whole historical, you know, middle of the 100 Year War sort of battles and how the French got their behinds handed to them.
Craig Anderson: And they’ve got a very good museum too, there too as well.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really for people who like history, this area is endless, and you’ve listed a lot of these things in the guest notes which is great.
When to visit and locals
Annie: We mentioned that it was very windy but we should mention that if you’re going to go, it’s probably best to go between May and October. The rest of the year might be too cold, and too windy, and too wet, for touring [00:25:00] really. This is definitely not the warmest part of France, although when we were there in Lille, it was almost 40 degrees. It was in the middle of the summer, and we had some very hot weather. So just because it’s up north in France, don’t think that you can’t have some very, very hot days as, as well.
Oh, as a matter of fact, now I remember when we went. It was during the Olympics because in Lille we saw some basketball games.
Craig Anderson: Hmm, okay.
Annie: They were doing all the basketball up there, so yeah, that’s when we went.
Craig Anderson: Yeah, I think, you know, you can’t ever these days it seems like assure yourself what the weather’s going to be like. So you have to just sort of dive in and say, "Well, that’s when we had to go, so let’s not make it totally weather-dependent."
So we went, you know, end of October basically knowing that that time in northern France and Belgium, I mean, certainly, you know, it would be better times to go there if all you were thinking about is weather.
I mean, if you kind of go in, if you think, "Well, it’s going to be maybe rainy, [00:26:00] maybe a little bit chilly some days," and just dress accordingly and yeah, it was fine. I think as you said, probably November, January, February, I mean, you know, that would be a pretty tough time to go to any of these places unless you just had to be there for some time.
But I think, you know, probably getting into late October is good. You just know you’re not going to be doing it as a beach vacation, but all the museums and everything else is open.
Annie: Yeah. There are people who go to the northern part of France for the Christmas markets in Amiens, Lille, and places like that, which are fine too.
But I wanted to ask you about the people. Were they friendly? Did you find people very happy to have visitors?
Craig Anderson: Yeah. I think I would say that in general honestly in France, I mean, and we’ve been there many different places, many parts of the country, many times of the year, and my wife speaks a little French and I speak basically none. But that has never been a problem to get around, even maybe an area like this which, you know, I guess you would not see probably very many [00:27:00] North Americans there.
But probably what would be nice for us is that there’s a lot of Brits that go there because again, it’s so close to where the Channel comes across. My guess is that we benefited greatly from museums and menus and many other things that were in English not for North American tourists, but for British tourists there. But everybody was very nice, as I said, to get around easy on car, easy museums. So many of them had things in English even though you would think, you know, maybe you think Dunkirk, maybe that might should be in English because there was a lot of overlay on that.
Agincourt, I mean, obviously had a, you know, the England fighting France but it’s in the middle of France, you could very easily see a museum like that maybe not having everything in English and just being in French, but it was everything was in English. People at bars, restaurants, I guess like most of the time we find when we’re traveling they always speak way better English than we speak any French, and they’re always nice and easy to, you know, tell you which way to go or what to do. [00:28:00] We did not have any issues whatsoever.
Annie: Mm-hmm. Usually when you’re in the proximity of another country, like in the proximity of Spain, people speak Spanish or Catalan, even on the French side. And there they speak English even on the French side because of the proximity.
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Costs and budgeting
Annie: How did you find the budget for this trip? Was it cheaper than other places you’ve been? Was it about the same?
Craig Anderson: I would say I mean, maybe just in comparison to where we had just been in, you know, big cities in Belgium that were, you know, things like Brussels and Antwerp and Bruges, very much more tourist-focused places for people all around the world. I mean, everybody would know where Bruges is or something like that. I’m not saying that those were terribly expensive places. You just kind of go with the expectation you’re going to a big popular city, and same thing would be true of North American cities, really. But when you get to some of these placesin France, I did not feel like they were expensive [00:29:00] by any stretch of the imagination.
And I guess the thing that you would compare the most would just be restaurants and food, but so often we were going to, you know, a nice restaurant and you’re having some seafood and your expectation there would be, you know, if you were in the US, well, that’s not an inexpensive meal.
You’re going to a nice restaurant that they’re serving you some nice seafood and other things, I guess I would say it would not be any more expensive than going to most US cities, if you were just going out to dinner for no reason other than just to go out to dinner.
Annie: Yeah.
Craig Anderson: And then so many of the things that you would walk around and see are basically free. I mean, you’re walking to the ramparts, you’re going to see the coast, you’re going to walk around and see the museum. Okay. But it wasn’t that very expensive to go into those museums.
Annie: Yeah, a lot of museums in France are under 20 euros.
Craig Anderson: Yeah. It was very, very affordable to go. What I tell people really all the time, about traveling in Europe in general and France in [00:30:00] particular, and this region would be like other regions we’ve traveled in France, your expectation as a North American traveler in terms of a place to stay, hotel or Airbnb, a rental car per day, so much cheaper than any place that you would go to in the United States. I mean, if you just rented a car and said, "I’m going to go," in the Orlando airport and drive around Florida and then stay in a, you know, regular old hotel, it’s at least two or three times as much, just the cost of the hotel and the cost of the rental car. Right? And it’s just a car, it’s just a hotel room, but there’s just this price differential of what things cost in Europe and what things cost in the US, and they tend to really cost more in the US most of the time.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The US has gotten very expensive. Every time I go back, I’m like, "What?" You know?
Craig Anderson: I mean, it’s just like having a rental car, you know, like we talked about before. I mean, one, you need one because that’s just logistically the only way practically to get around. But when you go look it up online and [00:31:00] you see that it’s 30 bucks a day for some very nice car that’s plenty big and nice for anything that you’d need, I mean, you just kick yourself because you think this is a no-brainer.
Of course you’re going to get in a rental car for 35 bucks a day. It’s nothing. Versus the US it would be, you know, 100 and something a day for that exact car to do the exact same thing, and you might think, "Well, I don’t know. Do I really need it? Is it really going to help me?" But, you know, when it’s a fraction of the cost, you just do it because it’s doesn’t really cost very much.
Annie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Top highlights and connections
Annie: Now I’d like to hear about the things that stick out in your head that you, the experiences you enjoyed the most there on the French side.
Craig Anderson: I think probably just, you know, going to some of the very unique things that you had always heard of, but, you know, had never stepped foot there, like the beaches of Dunkirk or the beaches of Calais or going to the scene of the Battle of Agincourt. Those were some of the most interesting things because that’s the only place on the [00:32:00] planet that thing is. It’s not like, oh, you’re going to see, you know, a baroque church. Well, there’s a lot of baroque churches, but, you know, there’s a lot of places like this is the place that this thing took place, and there’s so… again, from an American perspective, if you ask somebody, most people would be able to tell you, or they would at least recognize some of the facts.
Like the Battle of Agincourt, if you said, you know that line, Band of Brothers? Everybody knows that line, Band of Brothers. Everybody kind of even knows how you use it because they’ve seen it in military shows, or there was the doc- you know, the series that had that.
But it’s just kind of going that additional step of saying, "Well, you know that this is the place where that came from because there was a Shakespeare play about this place," and that’s, like this really happened in this real place, and now it’s become diffused into just, you know, common knowledge that people use that phrase and maybe don’t even kind of think about where it came from. But you’re like, "But it did come from a place. This is the place where this actually like [00:33:00] originated from."
So it was kind of interesting to kind of see some of those things or make some of those connections. There’s a lot of Les Mis connections in this area because Victor Hugo…
Again, most people, if you said Les Mis, "Oh, yeah. Okay, I’ve seen this musical," most people probably would say, "Yes, and I realize that Victor Hugo wrote it, and I realize that it was a story about, you know, this slice of French history at this certain time."
It’s kind of fun to go around and say, "Yeah, but this particular place," you know, like Montreuil-sur-Mer or some of the other towns that we went to, like, "But this is the actual place that some of his characters were based in that book because he actually went here and saw some of these places and based some of his characters on, you know, something that was really here."
So I, I think that was probably the fun thing is just connecting things that most people would have at least a passing knowledge on, and going all the way back and saying, "Yeah, but this is where that like actually took place."
Annie: Right. Boulogne-sur-Mer is where Jean Valjean goes to… he buys an old [00:34:00] factory and makes the town richer. And a bunch of things happen. But yes, Boulogne-sur-Mer is big in Les Misérables.
Craig Anderson: But it was just kind of fun, you know, to just kind of connect things that you think you have some passing knowledge on. Okay, I know that William the Conqueror did go and conquered, you know, England at a certain time. Most people would know that basic piece of the story. Or that, okay, Napoleon was going to invade the Britain at some point but never did it. And but if you said, "Okay, just keep digging a little bit deeper," and think, yeah, but where were they going to do that from and… or where did they actually do it from, and where did they, you know, get in their boats and go across and do this thing?
Well, it’s right here, right in this area. That’s where that all took place. Like, you know, oh, okay, like, this is where that took place. Right here is where that happened. So I don’t know, it’s kind of interesting to sort of make those, you know, sort of visceral connections like…
But, you know, those stories that you have percolating in the back of your mind, this is a connection point [00:35:00] of a lot of them.
Amiens cathedral day trip
Craig Anderson: And, you know, obviously there’s places like Boulogne-sur-Mer or Amiens or Abbeville, I mean, some of these places that we kind of stopped in because we wanted to see the UNESCO cathedral in Amiens, and we then said, "Well, we’re going to be driving literally right by Abbeville," and you start looking at all the things that happened in those places. Going back to Clovis, you know, all the way back to, like, where is John the Baptist’s head as a relic? Okay, that’s where it is in Amiens. And so, you know, it’s interesting that there’s just so much history in some of these places.
Annie: So the cathedral of Amiens is amazing. It is just stunning how big it is. But also Amiens is Jules Verne…
He was a local. He lived there for a long time. And I just love his books, so… As a kid especially, but even now, I’ve reread some of them, and I find them very interesting. Anyway, so there’s, yeah, there’s a lot.
Craig Anderson: And the [00:36:00] cathedral’s amazing there. I mean, there was nobody there really when we were there. It’s huge. Again, whatever you think about relics and churches, as an aside, but everybody seems to believe this is actually where John the Baptist’s head is and they have a whole treasury reliquary area just for that. And you think, "Okay, well, that’s interesting. I can see that that’s why people were coming here, and that’s why they built this incredible cathedral."
Once you’re there, you want to walk around it and you think, "Oh, my gosh. I mean, it’s got flying buttresses," and I mean, all the elements that you would think that you might go to something in Paris to see, and the flying buttresses and all the famous architectural elements that, you know, go into cathedrals like that.
But here, I mean, you can see it all. It’s just another example of all of that stuff in, you know, a huge scale. So we really enjoy kind of going and finding those kinds of things and then doing some research to try to figure out, you know, okay, well, now who’s all the kings and [00:37:00] queens that got anointed or fought or made a peace treaty? And there’s just so much of that that took place in this area.
Annie: Yes, yes. And the cathedral of Amiens is very stately. It looks like a palace almost. It’s so big and full of marble and, oh, it’s just really interesting to see.
Is there anything that you did that you wouldn’t recommend, that you thought, "Well, that was disappointing"?
Craig Anderson: No. I mean, I think we… You know, usually, as you mentioned on our itineraries, I usually make them pretty jam-packed, at least that’s what my wife would say.
And, you know, we don’t always get to all of the places that are on them because, you know, sometimes you just can’t get to them all or you’re enjoying doing something that you’re doing and you just say, "Well, I’m not going to get to that." But this one was probably a good example of we did not originally know if we were going to make it that one day to Amiens and Abbeville. That was… But I’d kind of done the research because I kind of enjoy doing it because if nothing else, even if you don’t go [00:38:00] there, you’ve learned something about a place that, you know, probably was good to just learn a little more history.
But I usually, on most of the plans, have sort of a, you know, if we decide we have a day that we’re not otherwise doing something, and we have the car, and it’s like, "All right. Well, today we’re going to drive all the way to Amiens and see that cathedral," because it’s UNESCO and… but yeah, there’s not anything I can think of that I would say, you know, not do.
Annie: Yeah. Boulogne-sur-Mer to Amiens is probably an hour and a half drive more or less.
Craig Anderson: Yeah. It wasn’t, it wasn’t bad. One morning, essentially, we got up and we thought, "Well, we’ve kind of done our wander around, see things," and, you know, there’s nothing against doing that another day, but, you know, maybe in a late October, that’s not the most optimal time to just hang around and watch the people pass by because, you know, people are not quite as out and about that time.
So we thought, "Well, yeah, let’s just drive and in an hour and a half we can be at this incredible UNESCO cathedral. Let’s just go see what’s there," and I was glad that we did it.
Annie: [00:39:00] Yeah.
Shorter itinerary options
Craig Anderson: My only, I guess advice or recommendation would be, you wouldn’t have to spend a week in this region. I mean, a week I think you can really see a lot, which is what we wanted to do. But if somebody said, you know, could you spend less time than this and feel like you had seen a lot, yeah, I think you could. I mean, if you only had three or four days to hit this area, as part of a Belgium trip or another trip, you could probably do it.
Annie: Where would you go though? Where would you go if you only had three days?
Craig Anderson: I think probably, if you had less days, I mean, I probably would’ve just cut out like maybe seeing another pretty town in this area. So we, like I said, went to Montreuil-sur-Mer one day. We could have dropped that really, I mean, and just seen Boulogne-sur-Mer because you kind of got the feel of all of that. You know, do you really need to go out into the countryside and see the Battle of Agincourt? I mean, because that took half day basically to get out to that area, and you could probably, you know, not do [00:40:00] that. But the core things I think you’d want to see, no matter what kind of trip you were taking, if you were going from Belgium, and going down or if you were in other parts of France and you were going north, you almost can’t help but pass along the coast and Calais and Dunkirk. I mean, those are just such historical areas that, you know, whichever way you’re going, you would probably always pass through those areas pretty naturally and see them.
Annie: I think Lille is also worth it.
Craig Anderson: Yeah, we actually had thought a lot about staying there and making that our base. It was just a little further away to get to some of these places, and we had just stayed in, let’s say, bigger towns. And so we actually intentionally left Lille, Tournai, and all those areas unseen because we thought, "Well, maybe there’s a chance at some point that you kind of go in and out of that area," and that seemed more of a, you know, worth at least a few days to see that. And so we thought, "Well, let’s [00:41:00] save that to do on another trip and do the very, very small, you know, French historical city," because we had not done that so far. We… Because we had been in Brussels, Antwerp, you know, Ghent, Bruges, bigger places. And so we kind of on purpose did the little small French countryside.
But yes, that had made my list to try to get to, and it just didn’t quite work out.
Annie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, there’s always lots to see anywhere you go in France. And that’s one of the nice things about France is that, even places that are not world-famous will be of some interest.
Craig Anderson: And I think if you were in this region and you had not ever gone to Belgium at all, but for some reason you were starting with this region, maybe because you were in Champagne already, or maybe you’re in the beaches of Normandy and you’re just trying to follow World War II sites, I mean, whatever somebody’s travel plan might be, if you had not been to Belgium and wanted to see that, then [00:42:00] my vote would probably be, well, cut the number of days on this trip down to two or three days, because it’s so incredibly close to hit Flanders Fields. And then once you’re there, I mean, you’re just right next to Ghent and Bruges, and I would strongly, you know, recommend tagging those on because those are world-class places to go see.
Annie: Yeah. Yeah. I want to recommend another episode, episode 521 was about Amiens, Gothic Cathedrals and Jules Verne. So it was just all on the city of Amiens, which made a big impression on me. I really enjoyed it.
So for me, I would go to Amiens, I would go to Boulogne, I would go to Dunkirk and Calais, and Lille as well.
We were just there for a week, and I felt we needed a few more days. We could have used a few more days. I also included some kind of industrial history with the mining of the area and things like that. So depending on how many interests you [00:43:00] have, you will need more days, but you can easily visit those places. It’s well worth it. And like you said, Belgium also has a lot of wonderful things to see.
Summer return and outdoors
Craig Anderson: And I think if we went back to this region, we would probably try to intentionally do it in the summer just to have a different… You know, because I’m sure there’s a completely different flavor of all the towns up and down the coast if it’s summertime because you just get the whole beach scene and, you know, people hanging out and doing stuff on the beach.
We didn’t get that at all on this trip. So if I were to go back to this region, or if I were planning it and you happen to be doing it during that time, we probably would’ve spent a lot more time trying to find the little coast things and, hey, where’s a cute place to eat on the beach itself, and they have drinks and they have food, and you can go, you know, jump in the water. I’m sure there’s a lot of really fun
interesting things there to do. It’s just we, I didn’t bother trying to do that research because I knew it wasn’t going to be the right time of the year to do that.
But yeah, I think trying to do it as a [00:44:00] summertime destination would be a whole different aspect to see this whole area.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Birds also, bird watching is big. You have hiking that you can do along the coast there. Lots, lots and lots of things to do.
Wrap up and next trip
Annie: All right, Craig, we’ve been talking a long time. We need to say goodbye, but thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. That was awesome.
Craig Anderson: As always, yeah, enjoyed it. Thank you.
Annie: Yes, yes. Wonderful. And I’m going to wish you many more wonderful trips to France. Do you have another one planned already?
Craig Anderson: Well, I think our next one that maybe is a little longer distance out, but I think I’m going to try to find a way to get to the area of France and do some of the Le Puy route, hiking route through that area.
So I think my wife and I probably will find ourselves wanting to go back to the Burgundy, Lyon area, which we’ve been to one time before, but I think we could see it again easily and do a lot of fun stuff there.
But I’ve kind of been doing a little research about the Le Puy route that looks like that would be at least on my side, a very [00:45:00] fun Camino de Santiago, you know, path to go down. So that’s kind of next on the list to research.
Annie: Gorgeous. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much, Craig.
Craig Anderson: Thank you.
Annie: Au revoir.
Craig Anderson: Au revoir.
Thank you, patrons!
Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting this show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. The easiest one is ad-free episodes. And you can see all of that at patreon.com/joinus. And a special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champions, Mary Jane and Wendy Gebb.
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 more so you can have access to more of the rewards. And to support Elyse, go to [00:46:00] patreon.com/elysart.
Travel Itinerary Services
Annie Sargent: If you’re planning a trip to France and want expert help, I do itinerary consults.
I also lead custom day trips around the southwest of France in my electric car. I’m doing two this week. And I have eight self-guided VoiceMap tours of Paris. You can read more about all my services at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
Paris Vacant Homes
Annie Sargent: Did you know that a huge number of apartment buildings in Paris are sitting empty?
According to the city, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of units, and even conservative estimates from the INSEE, that’s the statistical office in France, put it at about 9% of all housing sitting vacant in Paris. That’s a big deal in a city where it’s already incredibly hard to find a place to live.
New Vacancy Tax Plan
Annie Sargent: So the Paris city government has decided to act. Their [00:47:00] approach is simple, make it expensive to leave a property empty.
Starting in 2027, the tax on vacant properties will double. It will go up to 34% of the property’s rental value for the first year, and then 68% the following years.
That’s a strong financial incentive to either rent the property or sell it.
City officials say the goal is not to collect money. In fact, they say they’d be happy if the tax brings zero revenue because that would mean owners have put those apartments back on the market.
Owners Push Back
Annie Sargent: Not surprisingly, property owners are pushing back.
They argue that apartments are often empty for good reasons. Think inheritance issues, which are really, really common in France, major renovations, or the complexities of co-ownership buildings where one owner can’t just decide to [00:48:00] do big work on their own. These are all very real.
Airbnb Enforcement
Annie Sargent: The city is aiming to bring about 500,000 apartments back onto the market with this policy, along with cracking down on illegal short-term rentals like Airbnb.
Not that Airbnb is illegal in Paris, but you have to declare the income, and a lot of people don’t want to do that. I’m sure it’s mostly French people who don’t want to do that, but it’s a fact that a lot of people want to do Airbnb and not pay taxes like they should.
The city is even considering creating a special enforcement team to investigate vacant units and tourist rentals.
They’re not kidding around, okay?
Second Homes Warning
Annie Sargent: And this may not be the end of it. City leaders are also looking at increasing taxes on second homes, especially those used only a few weeks a year. So the message from the city is pretty clear. If you own property in Paris and [00:49:00] it’s sitting empty, it’s time to do something with it.
Sell it or rent it out.
Host Personal Example
Annie Sargent: And I understand this quandary. I have an apartment in Spain. I go a lot personally, but some years, like this year, I haven’t been able to go very much because my dogs can’t take the trip, so I put it out on Home Exchange, and so far it’s gone swimmingly for me. All the people who’ve stayed at my place have been fantastic.
So perhaps that’s something you can look into, I’ve had several episodes about Home Exchange. Perhaps you can look into that yourself.
Newsletter and Credits
Annie Sargent: If you want a short recap of what came out this week in France travel, news, new episodes, what I’m paying attention to, my trip coming up next Sunday when the next episode comes out, I’ll be on my way.
Sign up for my free weekly newsletter at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
And my thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan, who produced the transcripts.
Next Week on the Podcast
Annie Sargent: Next week on the podcast, an episode [00:50:00] with Elyse about Joan of Arc.
This one’s a must-listen because the maiden had a huge impact on French history. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.
Copyright
Annie Sargent: The join us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2026 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Comments, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.[00:51:00] [00:52:00]