Categories: Normandy & Brittany, Paris
Discussed in this Episode
- Paris
- Rouen Lisieux
- Normandy
- Honfleur
372 Seine River Cruise with Anne Gauthier
[00:00:00] Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France episode 372. Trois cent soixante douze.
Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we talk about France. Everyday life in France. Great places to visit in France, French culture, history, gastronomy, and a news related to travel during the pandemic.
Today, I bring you a conversation with Annie Gauther about her river cruise on the Seine river. This river cruise took her to Paris, Rouen, Lisieux, Honfleur and more. Annie. It was part of a group that was on a Catholic feminist pilgrimage. Now I must admit that Catholic and feminist are not ideas that go together in my head usually, but this may be a sign that the Catholic church is evolving with the times. And that would be great news in my book.
This gave me an opportunity to get into one of the most horrifying stories of France around the revolution. The tragic fate of the Chevalier de la Barre. You’ve probably not heard about him unless you’re a serious history nerd, but it’s an important story to know about because it speaks to the value of “laïcité” or secularism the French way. Which is still hotly debated in France.
After the interview I’ll thank my new patrons, but this time I won’t share a personal update because there’s not much going on in my life other than I am learning a new podcasting procedure that I hope will make the broadcast even better.
Instead, I bring you a conversation with Lisa Leone about something unfortunate that happened to them. You know that everyone who gets on an airplane needs to get tested 24 hours before boarding. Well, Lisa and her family got tested in Paris and to her great surprise one of them was positive. So they were stuck in Paris and she’ll tell us all about it after the interview.
This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and services, including my Paris tours on the VoiceMap app, my cookbook, Join Us at the Table and my popular itinerary planning service. You can browse all of that at Annie’s boutique. https://joinusinfrance.com/boutique
And you can follow the show on social media, just search for, Join Us in France and you’ll find show notes for this episode on https://joinusinfrance.com/372. And you’ll find a full transcript of this episode as well, which is new and which is one of the reasons why I have changed my podcasting procedure. Bonjour Annie Gauthier and welcome to Join Us in France.
Bonjour Annie Sargent, thank you for having me,
You are very welcome. How do you say your name in English?
[00:03:36] Annie Gauthier: Anne Gauthier or Annie Gauthier.
[00:03:38] Annie Sargent: Yeah, so it’s very close to French. Yeah. Gauthier. It works. It’s a very French name by the way. Do you have French ancestors?
[00:03:44] Annie Gauthier: Yes, every on every side I live in Louisiana. So some of my grandparents grew up speaking French and a French last name, French first names and middle names are all very common. my maiden name is a French, fully French name too. Yep. All around.
[00:03:59] Annie Sargent: Excellent. Well, okay. So today we’re going to talk about your river cruise on the Seine. When did you take this trip?
[00:04:07] Annie Gauthier: We took the trip in mid to late October, 2021.
[00:04:12] Annie Sargent: Okay. And how many were in your group? Was it a family group?
[00:04:16] Annie Gauthier: No. So me personally, I traveled with my childhood best friends. Who’s also my second cousin, so I have the same French maiden name. Anyway. We traveled with, it was a a Catholic feminist pilgrimage. So there were like 47 people in our whole pilgrimage group, but just the two of us went over together.
We went up a little bit early. And I didn’t know anybody else personally, in that group until we went to France.
[00:04:39] Annie Sargent: Right. Catholic feminist pilgrimage. That’s an interesting combination. Do talk about that a little bit.
[00:04:46] Annie Gauthier: Sure, I can’t take credit for the name at all. There was a podcaster called Claire Swinarski who hosted a podcast called the Catholic feminist podcast. And it was just all about asking the hard questions in this modern world we live in. I’m trying to remain true to our faith, but also advocate on behalf of those who need advocates. Be they, women or disadvantaged groups or whatever, and just kind of wrestle with stuff. To me, wrestle with the hard stuff of being human.
[00:05:13] Annie Sargent: That sounds really good.
I might have to give that podcast a listen just to see what it’s like.
yeah.
great. Okay. So tell us about how your trip went. Where did you start? Where did you end? Just take it any direction you would like.
[00:05:31] Annie Gauthier: My friends, Katie and I flew out of our local airport, flew into Paris. She had never been to Europe before. And for me it was a return trip to France. But the first time I went was in 2000 and the second time I went for a day in 2005 and I hadn’t been back since, so it had been awhile and obviously we had, neither of us never traveled during the pandemic conditions.
But we landed at Charles de Gaulle and other than a few minutes of trying to figure out how to actually exit the airport without connecting to another country first everything went really smoothly. And we took the cab into into Paris at your recommendations. So thank you for that. I was glad to so much as I love public transit, I was really glad to not have to think about it after a red eye flight.
[00:06:15] Annie Sargent: Yeah. That’s time to worry about transportation for most people, unless done this a million times and, then it’s fine. But if you haven’t, no.
[00:06:23] Annie Gauthier: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Last time I flew into London, I’ve been to London several times, the last or two in there, even with three kids and my husband, we took tube into the city. Cause it just made sense, but this was different. So
[00:06:34] Annie Sargent: Yeah, very different than London. I do need to talk about that because I’ve done this in London. A bunch of times, it’s very different because in London, the airports are farther away and it’s an actual train that’s dedicated to taking people back and forth. Whereas in Paris, the RER is not a dedicated train. It’s a commuter train and you are with a bunch of other people.
[00:06:58] Annie Gauthier: For us in London, there were no transfers. It made sense. But in Paris it was going to be different. We were going to need transfers to get where we were going, because again, at your recommendation off of your website, we stayed at a hotel in the Saint Germain neighborhood.
So that was really lovely. There with no issue and they were wonderful and our room was already ready they actually upgraded us to a family room. So we we could have slept two other people as it happens. But we dropped our bags and set off after kind of freshening up.
We walked over to the Pont des Arts and started your GPS audio tour.
[00:07:33] Annie Sargent: The VoiceMap tour, yes.
[00:07:34] Annie Gauthier: We meandered over toward the River to get started and stopped at a cafe to have our first but not our last pain au chocolat and café crême. But he stopped by a few bouquinistes and poked around for postcards to send our children, which finally came like three weeks after we got We had a beautiful day. The weather was, I think, in the sixties, blue skies, we really couldn’t have asked for a better introduction Bataclan to Paris.
So we spent. Several hours kind of meandering through the tour. We had to detour because the big trial was going at the Palais de Justice. And so we detoured and kind of poked around in Samaritaine, but that’s a locally out our budget range. fun to see it really pretty store.
[00:08:16] Annie Sargent: it
is see, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like I couldn’t stop laughing in there, all these products. Cause I was there with my sister and she loves fashion. And so I kept teasing her about stuff. Like why would anybody wear this? You know, anyway, it was fun.
[00:08:32] Annie Gauthier: Yeah there were some interesting things. There were some pretty things. There was, I enjoyed the juxtaposition. There was like a section for Prada and all this kind of to trendy and fancy clothes, I guess. And glass windows. It was very like modern. Mannequins and displays. And then through the window, you could see an old topic church right behind it.
That was kind of a fun juxtaposition, anyway, we headed back out and kind of walked back over and we got to cross more bridges than I think normally we would because of the detour off island. And but it really enjoyed that tour. It was a great introduction and a great way, especially for us, for our first day to just keep moving.
We had arrived midday and so it got us through the afternoon, very enjoyably. And then we found dinner recommendations from your podcast and you’re on your Facebook group at the Saint Régis . And after we kind of wandered into the the Marais a little bit, there a secondhand clothing shop.
She wanted to check out.
[00:09:33] Annie Sargent: Oh, sure. You’re right by there. Yeah.
[00:09:36] Annie Gauthier: Yeah. So we meandered over there and then had dinner and then we’re going to walk back and realized we were 20 minutes to nine. So I was like, oh, we can catch the Eiffel tower sparkling on the hour.
[00:09:47] Annie Sargent: Oh yeah.
[00:09:47] Annie Gauthier: And so I was like, let’s go ahead and just, we’ll walk back along the river and then we’ll cut over, back over to the hotel.
And I thought it sparkled for 10 minutes. Note to listeners it’s five.
[00:09:58] Annie Sargent: It’s 5 minutes. we got.
Not five minutes actually. Cause I timed it this time. It’s like four minutes seconds or something and it is on the hour as soon as it gets and until midnight usually.
[00:10:13] Annie Gauthier: Yeah. So we had, we knew that we had been able to see the Eiffel tower from the Pont des Arts when we started. So we walked back down there, but we kind of got distracted by a few pretty things along the way. And. I thought sparkling as we were running kind of jogging on to the bridge.
And then by the time we got where we could, we had a full view, it had stopped
[00:10:31] Annie Sargent: Right, right.
[00:10:32] Annie Gauthier: I was like, that’s okay. We have other days see So anyway, but the next morning we picked up another one of your tours since we’re in the Saint Germain area, we walked over to the start of that tour and did most of it, and then had to kind of cut it a little bit short because we needed to join the pilgrimage group over by the Arc de Triomphe.
[00:10:52] Annie Sargent: We headed over there and joined them and they dropped us off by the Bon Marché shopping centers. So we enjoyed shopping and a picnic and a little garden near
Oh, so you went to, you went into that church with the magic medallions.
We get well, so we didn’t do that one that day. We did have met there on our final day pilgrimage, but on the first day we actually, they dropped us off at the the Bon Marché, the Grande Epicerie. If he said, Hey for a few hours to just, you know, kind of orient ourselves and browse and enjoy.
[00:11:24] Annie Gauthier: We bought some sandwiches. We split a split, a croque-monsieur and a baguette ham and butter. So jambon-beurre. split a couple of sandwiches and some bottles of water in the park. It was another beautiful day. And we went to the pilgrimage kind of started, I guess we went to mass at the chapel of St. Vincent DePaul and then on the following Friday, we did go to the chapel of the miraculous medal which is different. So there they’re just a block or two apart, but different churches. So
[00:11:49] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Which goes to show you that there are churches all over Paris, everywhere.
yes, absolutely. There was another church nearby. That a friend of mine had recommended. I go see that also had relatives in it, which we never did make it to, but it was like another five or 10 minute walk. And we also, we had already been inside that day, courtesy of your tour Saint Germain des Près church and walked by Saint Sulpice.
So none of which are all that far from that
Right, right.
[00:12:16] Annie Gauthier: But yeah, so then we got to do one of the other things we were excited about, which was get on the cruise ship. The boat docked like a three-quarters of a mile west of the Eiffel tower. We had a great unobstructed view of the tower.
And so we got settled and had dinner and then walked off our dinner and actually managed to see the Eiffel tower sparkle. That’s that night at 10. So it was just kind of fun. It was probably my kid’s most memorable FaceTime call of the trip as I FaceTime after it had been sparkling for a minute it was like, I’m going to get really tired of just watching it sparkle for five minutes.
So called them. And that was fun. They were just getting off of school often they did obviously not come with us.
[00:12:54] Annie Sargent: That’s great. So what was the name of the ship and the cruise company?
[00:13:00] Annie Gauthier: So the cruise company was Croisi Europe, C R O I S I Europe. And the ship was MS. Renoir.
[00:13:08] Annie Sargent: Okay.
[00:13:09] Annie Gauthier: Like the artist.
[00:13:09] Annie Sargent: Was, that good? Was it a nice ship? Have you done river cruises before?
[00:13:15] Annie Gauthier: No, I’ve never done any other. So I thought it was nice but I have no point of comparison other than we were able to see some other ships because in some of our other ports, including in Paris, we were docked near either Viking ships, or I think an Avalon ship or a couple other companies we didn’t recognize.
So I would say our ship probably appeared not quite as luxe as some of those. It was more laid back and casual, but still very nice. food that was prepared on board was delicious and amazing. Everybody raved about it. So it was really good, including the French tour guides that were with us because we ended up having kind of two pilgrimage groups, both on that same boat.
The other group was just about 20 people. So I think we were almost 70 people altogether and they had a French tour guide and we had a French tour guide a native per region. And he did he did encourage us to enjoy the food on the ship because it was very good.
[00:14:05] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And you’ve paid for it besides, you know, like
[00:14:09] Annie Gauthier: We did. Yeah. Obviously it was included in We stayed docked in Paris at night and the following morning, the following day actually spent the day in Paris. That morning we visited as a group outside of Notre Dame. So we were back in some of the same places that Katie and I had walked to the day before.
And then we took the took a bus over to the Montmartre area. We opted to climb the stairs instead of taking this funicular up to Sacré Coeur. And it was, you know, it is not for the faint of heart.
What is it? What, it 200 steps or something? I think it’s about 200
I, you know, I wanted to look it up. I could tell my kids that night. I never did look it up, but yeah, that sounds about right.
It felt like about 1200 at the time. It’s a great way to bring us to prayer before going into the church, because it took some prayer to finish those last few steps. But but yeah, so then we were in the Sacré Coeur for awhile. We had a private mass there in the chapel, down in the crypt, and then I liked this tour because we had a lot of time to just be on our own as well at the the different places.
So the rest of that day was at leisure and we actually met up with some French family friends who came. They live just east of Paris. And so they drove in and we enjoyed crêpes with them at a crêperie in Montmartre down the hill. That was really lovely.
My friend, I speak some French, but I’m not fluent l like me, grew up hearing some French and we had, we were taught it in school, you know, grammar, basic vocabulary and basic grammar from first grade almost through to high school. So she had some familiarity because like she said, I can read the menu and I can read signs, but she’s not conversationally fluent.
The husband and wife that we met, the wife is completely fluent in French and English. The husband has about as much English as my friend does French. So we had a great Franglais or Frenglish lunch for two hours. And it was great! The language sometimes was the source of laughter. And sometimes we laugh despite the language. So it there was a lot of fun for anybody. Who’s got anxiety about the language, I would say set that aside and just go.
I mean, all the shopkeepers, all the waitresses really anybody that we encountered, we didn’t have any negative experiences.
[00:16:15] Annie Sargent: So how long did your ship… how long did it stay docked in
So we were docked in Paris again that evening. So we did walk around again that evening after visiting the Louvre that afternoon for a little while, and then we set sail
So they took you to the Louvre on the ship.
[00:16:33] Annie Gauthier: No, our French friends dropped us at the Louvre. We were planning to get back there under our own steam. But no, we had that whole afternoon, at leasure.
We had a dinner that night on this ship. and we technically didn’t have to return to the ship until I think 6:00 AM the next morning when it was time to sail. We of course did. But but yeah, so and enjoy that and then set sail the next day for Poissy to transfer to Versailles and visited the palace for a few hours in the gardens for a bit.
We didn’t go out to the Marie Antoinette Hamlet or anything further a field. But we had a guided tour through the palace and then went to mass at a church, in, in the city of Versailles and then transferred back to the ship to keep sailing. And we only sailed during the day and from what I saw in the other ports, like ships seem to dock that seemed to be pretty normal that they would dock for the evening.
And then that set sail again in the morning. I don’t if that’s a hundred percent typical, but that was what we did. We never sailed at night.
[00:17:31] Annie Sargent: So I wanted to ask you between Poissy off the top of my head. I don’t know how far Poissy is to Versailles.
[00:17:39] Annie Gauthier: It was probably, I didn’t time it, but I would say we were probably on the bus for 30 to 45 minutes. It wasn’t really long, but wasn’t really quick either. It may seem an odd introduction into a Catholic feminist pilgrimage to visit the palace of Versailles. But it was interesting to, I guess, contemplate the accesses of wealth and the, you know the, just again, how to humans organize ourselves and how do other people react when those who have power use it in certain ways. It kind of sits there
[00:18:07] Annie Sargent: French Kings were very pious for the most part.
[00:18:10] Annie Gauthier: Sure. Sure. It was just such a, such an important part. I think, of the French I guess patrimony, or just to see the beauty of the palace and the gardens. And it was lovely.
[00:18:21] Annie Sargent: Very good.
[00:18:23] Annie Gauthier: So following day we were in Rouen. And we sailed to Rouen. And had again, a little like overview, a walking tour of the city by our guide who took us in in front of the cathedral and in front of a couple of other significant churches, including the newer and very modern and Viking ship inspired apparently church of St. Joan of arc.
And then we had the rest of that day, pretty much on our own in Rouen to explore. And it was really lovely. I loved that city is the only day that we really got rainy weather. So, but it didn’t really rain until right when it was about time to get back on the boat.
[00:19:01] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Rouen is one of the nicest towns in France.
[00:19:05] Annie Gauthier: It was beautiful. Yeah, it was very nice. We really enjoyed our time there. And then we sailed the next day we got off the boat. I’m trying to remember where we met a bus again and the bus took us out to Omaha beach. That was obviously a longer bus ride. That was about two and a half hours.
And the ship kept sailing during the day and we met it back a little further up. So it was just like two hours where we returned, which was in Caudebec-en-Caux which looked really charming. That’s where we picked the boat back up through it a little bit of time there.
But we enjoyed lunch on our own, like in Port-en-Bessin near Omaha beach. And so that was, it was nice to be on the coast and just kind of see something different after city and in Versailles and then Rouen and then to get out to the coast. and then obviously
[00:19:52] Annie Sargent: So, did you have a tour guide at Omaha beach?
[00:19:54] Annie Gauthier: We did. So, so the French tour guide that was with our group, he followed our group the whole way. He guided us around Paris. He guided us around Rouen at Omaha beach every day, along the way he was our guide. So he was with us the whole way through.
[00:20:08] Annie Sargent: Very nice.
[00:20:10] Annie Gauthier: Yeah. And then we sailed on to Honfleur that night and docked and stayed docked in Honfleur for two nights. So the following day we started with our walking tour again around Honfleur. And then we had mass and then had the day at leisure in Honfleur, which was, you know, we were really sad to have left Rouen, but really in love with Honfleur as well.
And we had hoped to see a market to visit a market and had missed on that in Paris. And so we were glad to be able to see a small market and also, and buy a little bit of fresh fruit and some pastry there and then climb the hill up to an old church.
And it was a pretty steep hill. My friend was encouraged. She says, you know, this man with this little dog just passed us and if that little dog can make it up the hill then so can and I looked at and had the heart to tell her that the man was now carrying the little dog whose tongue was hanging out of his mouth.
But we did make it all the way up to views towards the English channel and down over the delta of the river were really beautiful. And the church was lovely as well. And. That was fine. But then we went back down and it started drizzling. But it was very scenic and atmospheric. We bought a lot of salted butter caramels chocolate, and it was where we kind of stuck up on goodies to bring home to the kids and our husband.
[00:21:28] Annie Sargent: Yes Honfleur is very popular. It’s so it’s a beautiful touristy town. I mean, honestly, it’s what it is.
[00:21:35] Annie Gauthier: Yeah. And that’s what our tour guide explained that it, it caters at this point to foreign tourists then also to just weekend or escaping Paris it’s far to be somewhere else. And it’s got a lot of change up that are in Paris that also have locations. And also, so we understood that we were that it was maybe, you know, that it was what it was, but it was still lovely for what it
[00:21:55] Annie Sargent: Exactly. You still want to go because it’s very nice. The reason why it got so popular is it’s really nice.
[00:22:00] Annie Gauthier: It really was. It was charming. And again, we had great interactions there. I, by then we were almost a weekend and so I was a lot more reliant on my French. We actually did run into several shopkeepers there who according to them did not speak English. So my friend was relying on me person translation there, as we try to understand about some of the products we were buying or whatever, but But again, I think without me, she, would’ve managed to find sign language and smiles and patience and pointing go a long way. And trying so, you know, so,
[00:22:34] Annie Sargent: Okay. What to next?
[00:22:37] Annie Gauthier: After that, we we got off the boat after six nights on the boat. And we drove to Lisieux and checked into a hotel there. And we spent the day there visiting sites associated with St. Therese of Lisieux and her parents. And I had a lovely family style lunch at an, in a building attached to the convent where she lived a cloistered nun.
And that was nice. And It was it was bigger than I thought it would be Lisieux. I don’t know why in my head it was a smaller place, but visited several churches again there and had mass in the bustle, in the crypt of the Basilica there. And the Basilica was really, it was really beautiful.
It’s very stunning. Both the main part of the church and then the crypt at the bottom. Different experience to the crypt below the Sacré Coeur . So it was just really beautiful and enjoy it again some time on our own that afternoon there. And then the next morning we were headed back to Paris for our final night some of the group kept going down to Lourdes, but we didn’t.
That wasn’t going to fit for us on this trip, but we transferred to Paris on the boat. So I mean on the bus still with our same tour guide. And we went by way of Chartres to see the cathedral there. And we had a few hours at leisure there as well. So I had a delicious lunch at a crêperie there.
We had, I think we enjoyed crêpes for meals three or four or five times the trip.
[00:24:02] Annie Sargent: Yeah, it’s fun. Those are good and inexpensive usually and fast.
[00:24:08] Annie Gauthier: It was quick and easy. Yeah. It fit with the timeframes we had and we got to try different flavor combinations, you know we had several favorite ones. We had dessert crêpes a few other times as well. We were never disappointed with anything we tried. So that was uh, was a lot of fun. And then back into Paris, which seemed, it seems like we had just left and also, it seems like we’d been gone for a year.
As we returned and it started kind of ended right back where we’d started with the bus parked in the same place, you know, the Bon Marché shopping center. And that time we did go to mass at the Chapel of the miraculous metal. And I got to attend some services that were going on there in French prior to that.
And yeah, it was our last night, but on Wednesday I had called. This was kinda the ultimate test of my French. I’d called and made a reservation completely in French for us to spend the night at the hostel attached to the Sacré Coeur. Someone had shared about that on your Facebook group a couple of years ago, before I even knew where we’re going.
And so I was hoping I had successfully made that reservation. If not, we could have returned to our hotel, but Katie and I checked into the hotel, got freshened up and then took just our day bag and took a cab up the Sacré Coeur and checked in for that. And so spent the at Sacré Coeur and had access to the church throughout that night.
And,
[00:25:26] Annie Sargent: Yeah very unusual.
[00:25:30] Annie Gauthier: Yeah, it was a neat way to, to, you know, it’s obviously not going to be for everybody, a lot of things that were part of this trip were not going to be for everybody and nor should they. That’s the beauty of the world is we’re all different.
Um, but it was it was a very fitting way for the two of us to finish out that trip.
[00:25:45] Annie Sargent: Right. think it’s really important for me emphasize that this is only for pilgrims. I mean, this is for people who want to go to the Sacré Coeur to pray, no other reason.
[00:25:57] Annie Gauthier: Correct. The way it worked, we weren’t sure how it was going to work. And there was there was a mass service, obviously in French at 10 o’clock at night. And then after that they gave a few minutes, they kind of started to shut the lights down. They gave a few minutes before they went around and actually checked to make sure that people had permission.
We had to show your cards that they had given us our keys to stay there and they asked everyone else to leave and move them out and then shut the lights down all around the cathedral. And then kind of use double ropes to cordon off. Like, basically we could go to the walkway, to the hostel.
And only lights for, you know, up on the altar for adoration. The ability to stay in the hostel as attached to participating in Eucharistic adoration. So it is absolutely for pilgrims, but there were never several school groups or scouting groups that were there cause their dormitory rooms as well as more private rooms.
So for anybody, if that picture box I’d really recommend it it was a wonderful and moving experience. If that’s, if you just want to tour the church as a tourist and definitely third are open basically during daylight hours, so go then and have full access.
[00:26:59] Annie Sargent: So what was your favorite church that you saw this whole time? You saw a lot of churches. Did you have a favorite?
[00:27:06] Annie Gauthier: We did. So probably my favorite was the Basilica in Lisieux the Basilica for St. Therese.
It was beautiful. And when we were there it was very not crowded. So didn’t feel touristy at all. Obviously it is a site for tourists and pilgrimsalike, but it was just really a stunning place in other people’s life.
So and a close second to that would probably be the little church that I had never heard of until right before we climbed the hill, in Honfleur which is Notre Dame de Grace. So our lady of grace It’s an old well-used church, you know, it’s obviously a lot of the sailor associations and boating association since it’s right there on the coast
[00:27:46] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah. Usually that’s how it works. Was there a lot of singing along the way? So
[00:27:51] Annie Gauthier: We didn’t meet up with any foreign choirs, but there were several women in our group. And everybody in our group turned that was American. And we had brought a priest to come with us as well. And so well actually between the two pilgramage groups we had three American priests with us.
So all we had mass daylight and our masses were all in English because they were all conducted by one of our three priests. But a lot of the ladies who were in some of the men who were in the. We’re on our pilgramage sang beautifully and have experienced in choirs or whatever. So there was a lot of impromptu acapella singing, some outdoors and some in some of the churches and some had better acoustics than others, but to hear them sing in the, in some of the crypts are, and that made the, for the acoustics were difficult, actually to hear the spoken word, they were beautiful for the song word.
So yeah it was lovely, but yeah.
[00:28:40] Annie Sargent: And did you have a favorite place in Paris? Some you
know, a place that you were surprised by.
[00:28:47] Annie Gauthier: I think I was just surprised by I guess particularly the Saint Germain neighborhoods since that’s where we were staying. It just, it felt so. I mean, obviously it was beautiful, but it felt so manageable. Like I wasn’t sure. I mean, obviously Paris is a big city and I hadn’t been in a long time.
And you know, when I went before I was a teenager. And so didn’t know if that was, if it was built up in my head to be something that it wasn’t going to be. But certainly that area was just, it was. It wasn’t overwhelming. Sometimes as much as I love London, sometimes I have certain London and felt overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of things that come from a town of 1500 people.
And I live outside of that town in the countryside, in rural Louisiana. So you know, there’s more people in Paris or London than there are in the whole state I live in. But it just, it was just lovely. It felt very approachable. And I think as I reflect on this, that you’re that your walking tours may have contributed to it feeling manageable and also meaningful, and that we were aware of some of what we were walking by and what we were seeing.
To me really added to the enjoyment of it. So we did even squeeze in some of your Montmartre tour, but kind of, kind of backwards as we walked down the hill on that final morning, back to our hotel, before we headed to the restaurant. We did, we took a few detours just to see place.
[00:30:03] Annie Sargent:
So did you get to the place where the is at the very end of the two? Okay. So I want to know what you heard, what you thought about that. Okay.
[00:30:16] Annie Gauthier: So, um, I had listened to all of your, all of the voicemail toilets before I left. Um, I had some appreciation for what I wanted to see. Um, and I’d kind of forgotten about that story.
I’ve forgotten that it was there. So we were walking park. I’m like, oh, let’s, let’s, let’s listen to we’re near some of the south. Let’s listen to, um, that. That’s just a crazy story.
[00:30:36] Annie Sargent: So let me explain a little bit soon before the French revolution, there was a young man called Le Chevalier de la Barre who was poor. Well, he was noble, but he was not monied.
He had lost his parents. He was being raised by a family member. And he got into the wrong crowd, kind of and this crowd of kids were accused of being very disrespectful to a procession of priests who were coming by. They hung the blame on him and they tortured him and killed him to make an example of him.
And this story is often told as one of the reasons why at the French revolution, French people were so mean to clergy and destroyed a lot of churches destroyed a lot of church property. I don’t know that priests were killed, but probably somewhere, you know, but it was, I mean, they didn’t set out to kill them, nuns and priests, but they were pretty awful at the French revolution to, uh, to the clergy.
And so. So this is often explained as kind of payback for the Chevalier de la Barre and when they set up the church at Montmartre, Which is of course a pretty recent thing for France anyway. Uh, so the, the city of Paris gave permission for this Basilica to be built and to be very visible. And it’s a Basilica where, uh, people are, you know, it’s, these are fervent Catholics.
For example, if you go to La Madeleine church in central Paris by now it’s mostly a concert hall. I mean, you know, there’s some mass there, but it’s, it’s mostly used for concerts. You go to Sacré Coeur on Montmartre and, uh, it’s, it’s a church it’s, you know, it’s a working church. They want you to be quiet. They have people praying there 24 7.
Um, it was set up as a place for France to, uh, ask for forgiveness for the sins of the revolution, not just the revolution, but also since France had lost to the Austrians in 1870s, uh, they, they thought that God was punishing France for not behaving. So this church is obviously a very pious church on top of a hill.
And so the city of Paris made sure that it is surrounded by reminders of the reasons why we need to keep the Catholic church in check. But they’re very subtle reminders.
[00:33:13] Annie Gauthier: Right. Yeah. And without, without your podcast, in fact that the VoiceMap tour, obviously I’d had no reference point for that. Yeah, another bookmark for just the excesses of anything are, you know, are obviously had, can have terrible consequences,
[00:33:27] Annie Sargent: Both the Catholic church and the French revolution did horrible things. But it’s interesting that they did it on purpose. You know, they surrounded the Montmartre Basilica with la rue du Chevalier de la Barre and then you have a, you have a statue right at the foot of the Basilica. I mean, this is, this was not, uh, you know, a coincidence. It just, it happened on purpose by design and French people who read history, know this stuff. And most of the time tour guides don’t talk about this because, you know, he could rub people the wrong way, but I felt it was really important to include it in the tour because it’s, it really speaks to. French culture in a very big way.
You know, it’s, it’s a big example because people wonder why a French people so anti-religion, you know, generally speaking and you can see it there. Although things are changing. I mean, French people I can’t say they are anti-religion because you’ve seen Lisieux, you’ve you’ve seen Rouen, you’ve seen stuff for Joan of Arc. I mean, these are revered people, so we have both it’s complicated country.
[00:34:37] Annie Gauthier: It’s people, right? And people are complicated and history is complicated. And I really, as a history student, a history major in college, I really appreciate just how visible and tangible history is in France and that for better or for worse, you know, we’re not going to hide from it. We remember it and I’m sure there, you know, whatever it is. So, I think those examples are, are fitting.
Again, without your VoiceMap tour, we wouldn’t have had that appreciation, um, because I’d never heard that story, you know, as an American, even as a history major in college, um, and from a friend either, so it gave us something to contemplate.
And if we were listening to that story standing right by the statute, as the sun came up, in Paris, so it kind of felt like we had Paris to ourselves. The morning as we walked back down to our hotel at the base of the hill and, um, We did take a detour to see then the man walking out of the wall.
[00:35:30] Annie Sargent: Of course. That’s another interesting story. And I tell that story in the tour. It’s it’s another fun story.
[00:35:38] Annie Gauthier: I was looking at the stops and I was like, oh, we have to take this detour. And she was like, okay, what are we going to see? I was like a man walking out of a wall. Um, so then I, I told her, we’ll fill up this story.
So. Anyway, so it really did, but it added joy so much joy to our experience. Otherwise we would have just walked down the hill to where our was call us and said, we detour to place du Tertre. Or we, you know, we heard some stories there. We didn’t listen to that whole, um, tour and we didn’t listen to it in order, but we were able to listen to various.
Yeah.
[00:36:09] Annie Sargent: Yeah, this is sometimes people take those VoiceMap tours in the wrong order. And I wish there was a way to start it in a different place. I need to talk to VoiceMap about that because it would be really interesting to be able to start anywhere and do the loop. But I don’t know if technically that’s easy or not, but yeah, I’m not sure I need to ask them.
[00:36:30] Annie Gauthier: And for us it was fine. We just looked at the map. I mean, that’s the only one we really did out of order. And, you know, we, we skipped a few stops around our hotel when we had lost track. When we done the Saint Germain one, when we walked back into the hotel were packing up, we kept listening to the stories, but we could, we can keep on.
And then we just kind of picked back up, um, and walked that one. And then we just cut it short. We missed the end. Um, but in Montmartre we probably listened to half of the Montmartre one. But none of them, a few of them were in order. We’d like go through sections in order. And it was kind of like move them to the next place.
Obviously not how it’s designed. It’s definitely better to listen to them all on the order.
[00:37:04] Annie Sargent: If you listen in order it makes your life easier because I just tell you where to go next, you know, but that’s fine. If you can figure it out by yourself. It’s fine.
[00:37:13] Annie Gauthier: Yeah, we had, we just had the map pulled up, but we knew where we were going, you know, kind of right back down where we, where we were trying to get to navigate to it.
It wasn’t difficult.
[00:37:20] Annie Sargent: Yeah. And you know, I know I I’m, I’m going to sound like I’m tooting my own horn horn here, but honestly, these tours, I foot a lot of thought into them and they do help you enjoy Paris better. Because instead of walking by stuff and having no idea what you’re looking at, I will give you a quick explanation.
Now it’s. You know, if you’re a history buff and you’ve read a dozen books about this topic, then you’re going to go, ah, this was nothing. Yeah. It’s, this is a general introduction to the topics, but I do go into French history quite a bit because I think it’s interesting.
[00:37:56] Annie Gauthier: Yeah, no, I do too. And I think even for somebody, I am not a French history expert, but I think even. For somebody, who’s got some basic understanding of the history to just, to, to tie the geography to the history and to realize, oh, this is the place where that thing happened, or this is connected to that other thing I think your tours really bring that to life in a really good way. Um, and you know, in the spirit of full disclosure. I am, I am not paid for these endorsements. This is, this is my honest opinion. And it, and it added to my friends’ enjoyment as well. Cause I was like, look, we don’t have to do this. If I was here by myself, this is what I would be doing. This doesn’t have to be what we do if you want to do something different.
And she was like, oh, it sounds great. Kinda kept checking in with her and like, you still good. She was like, oh, this is cool. So, um, we didn’t really run around trying to visit attraction after attraction, after attraction, that just, we walked a lot in the city, but instead of merely wandering without appreciating what we were seeing, we kind of, I think at the best of both worlds, Um, and on our own schedule.
[00:38:51] Annie Sargent: So, no, you’re very welcome. And there’s a ton of people who, buy the tour who don’t know me from Adam, they don’t listen to the podcast, they just get it straight from the app. And they like it too. I mean, it’s, you know, these are, it’s just interesting stuff and I take you to the most interesting areas of any given neighborhoods.
So do you have any more advice for the listeners on things that you would love to do again or things that you wouldn’t do again?
[00:39:17] Annie Gauthier: I don’t know that there’s anything that we did that I wouldn’t do again. I would, you know, yeah, no, I mean, we really, everything. It really was a dream. Um, and even, you know, Kevin, those couple of bouts of a little bit of rain was nice.
It kind of checked us up and gave us a different appreciation for these beautiful cities in, uh, in gloomy weather too. Um, no, it was good. I’ve I’ve never done organized travel before. So this was like my first river cruise. My first organized travel. And, uh, my first pilgrimage, so there’s a lot of first there.
And my first time to travel was an adult without my family, without having them, my husband and our children with us. And, uh, it was, it was really all great. I think, you know, on balance personally, my style is probably more that, of the independent travelers. So I probably, I don’t think I’m going to stop doing it on my own and start only doing it with tour groups.
I think for, for my friend and for several of the other women on the trip, having the comfort of knowing we were part of a group even had it not been expected in a particular group, we’re part of made, made life a lot easier and that we could see a lot. And I liked, I really, really, really liked the river cruise because part of it.
For me, part of what we try to do when we travel is try to come over to Europe. Usually it’s been Britain for, uh, you know, two to three weeks at a time. If we can, and then have a series of home basis, we don’t move around and try to see everything on the whole, in the whole country. In that timeframe, we try to go deep in a few places.
And so the river cruise kind of gave us. Some ways, the best of both worlds with a short trip. Cause we were, we spent nine nights in France, so we got to see a lot, but we didn’t have to keep losing time to packing up and, you know, repacking and all that kind of thing. We kind of had a home base, but it was a mobile home base.
Um, so I’d been, I’d been interested in that idea for a long time. I would do another river cruise in a heartbeat. You know, there are a lot of, lot of rivers in France and a lot of the other ones that have river on them. So I have already. Planted that bug with my husband. So we’ll see where that goes, because that’ll probably be one day when the kids are older.
Yeah. I’ve got, we’ve got young kids still at home, so that
[00:41:30] Annie Sargent: won’t be anytime soon
[00:41:31] Annie Gauthier: after that. Yeah. My biggest advice would be if you want to go, just go,
[00:41:35] Annie Sargent: go. Thank you so much. Annie, that was really interesting and pretty new because I have, we hadn’t talked to anybody who had done either a river cruise or a pilgrimage. Very very good. Thank you very much.
[00:41:50] Annie Gauthier: Well, thank you very much for having me and thank you for all the the wealth of knowledge that you’ve shared over the podcast, your website, your Facebook group, and the VoiceMap tours, as I really can’t imagine having taken this trip without it. And quite frankly, your, your podcast reignited my interest in revisiting France sooner than later.
[00:42:07] Annie Sargent: Oh, that’s great. Oh, that makes me happy. Thank you.
[00:42:10] Annie Gauthier: Yeah, no, it’s really true. Then listen to it for several years and yeah. Yeah. So I don’t know that I’d have gone to France this year. If it hadn’t been listen to your podcast, you made me miss it so much that when this opportunity came up
[00:42:24] Annie Sargent: and you are very welcome.
And I want you to know, I mean, to me, it makes no difference whether you come or not, because I, you know, I don’t like, it’s not like I’m selling hotel rooms or whatever. I’m just someone who loves France and wants to tell you about it. So there you go. Merci beaucoup annie,
[00:42:39] Annie Gauthier: Thank you for having me, merci à vous.
[00:42:40] Annie Sargent: Au revoir !
Again, I want to thank my patrons for supporting the show and giving back. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing so. You can see them at https://patreon.com/JoinUs P a T R E O N. Join Us no spaces or dashes. Thank you all for supporting the show. Some of you have been doing it for many years. Thank you so much. And a shout out this week to new patrons: Tom Montanez, Lisa Yoshikawa, Nicole Livengood, Lori Butler and Adrienne. Thank you so much for becoming patrons and making this podcast possible.
This week, I had a conversation with listener Lisa Leon who found herself in a situation that well, it didn’t used to happen to vaccinated people anyway before the Omicron variant took over the world. Her daughter tested positive for COVID at the end of their trip to Paris. This is something you need to consider before you fly to France, which is why I wanted to talk to her. Sure, the borders are open, but what would you do if this happened to you? Let’s hear what happened.
Bonjour Lisa and welcome to Join Us in France. I am talking to you today because you got stuck in France. I I’m dying to hear what happened.
[00:44:06] Lisa Leon: Being stuck in Paris sounds wonderful. It wasn’t. We were supposed to fly home on December 31st. We were supposed to test the day before, which would be the 30th of December. So, my husband, my daughter, and I went and tested on the 30th of December and honestly walked in thinking it’d be no problem.
It’s just one thing to cross off the list. The pharmacist, told me immediately that our daughter was positive and I was in shock. Total shock, not prepared at all for this.
[00:44:43] Annie Sargent: I’m assuming that she’s vaccinated.
[00:44:45] Lisa Leon: She she’s vaccinated. We just didn’t do the booster for her because it had been like four and a half months.
[00:44:53] Annie Sargent: Right.
[00:44:54] Lisa Leon: Right. But she’s fully vaccinated. My husband and I are fully vaccinated. Husband and I even have the booster.
[00:45:02] Annie Sargent: Um.
[00:45:03] Lisa Leon: Anyways, we, we were so much in shock. We actually walked like right down the street to another pharmacy to test again because we didn’t think it was real.
[00:45:13] Annie Sargent: Sure.
[00:45:14] Lisa Leon: Uh, and it also came up positive. So we were in such shock. We went back to the hotel room trying to figure things out, like, what are we going to do?
[00:45:24] Annie Sargent: So did the pharmacist give you any instructions on what to do?
[00:45:28] Lisa Leon: The first pharmacist only said we could test every two days and that was literally it.
[00:45:35] Annie Sargent: Okay.
[00:45:36] Lisa Leon: So back at the hotel room we started searching on our own for an Airbnb. We had no other instructions or what to do.
[00:45:48] Annie Sargent: Um
[00:45:48] Lisa Leon: I found an Airbnb. He said it was 500 meters just outside of the city. Uh, and I, and I, I booked it right before I lost it. I booked it. And then we had to call the airline and change the flight.
[00:46:03] Annie Sargent: Right. Was the airline helpful? Like, did they charge you any fees to change that flight?
[00:46:09] Lisa Leon: They charged me. Yes. They were not helpful. No.
[00:46:13] Annie Sargent: Wow. What airline was it?
[00:46:15] Lisa Leon: It was American airlines.
[00:46:17] Annie Sargent: Uh
[00:46:18] Lisa Leon: I’ve even called them after we got home to see if they could help me out because it was based on COVID helped me out financially or, or give me a voucher. And they said, no,
[00:46:30] Annie Sargent: Dang.
[00:46:31] Lisa Leon: They absolutely said no. I was really upset. I mean, it’s a big chunk of money that we had to pay. We had the money, but you know, now I, instead of a cushion that we had, it’s gone.
[00:46:46] Annie Sargent: I suppose you and your husband could have flown home, but
[00:46:50] Lisa Leon: One of us. Yeah. There’s no way I would leave her alone. She’s 14, right? No, no, I know. Right. A lot of people are telling me like 14 she’d be… No!,
[00:46:59] Annie Sargent: No, no, no.
[00:47:03] Lisa Leon: Right?
[00:47:04] Annie Sargent: Yeah. No. So both of you decided to stay with her?
[00:47:08] Lisa Leon: Yes. Hmm. So, but we, we left the hotel. It was new year’s Eve.
[00:47:15] Annie Sargent: Yeah.
[00:47:16] Lisa Leon: It was, it was packed, uh, trying to leave the hotel. It was crowded. Uh, people coming in, uh, trying to move over to the other Airbnb. It was not pleasant, but we were able to get over to the other Airbnb. And then I had to find a grocery store before it got dark, because it was new years. So that wasn’t easy. We wound up eating like eggs and bread because it was all I could find for a quick moment.
[00:47:47] Annie Sargent: I’m sorry!
[00:47:47] Lisa Leon: It’s okay. Yeah.
[00:47:50] Annie Sargent: Yeah. So you said your Airbnb was 500 meters away from the city.
[00:47:58] Lisa Leon: Um, I’m trying to remember what it was called. It was called, like Levallois Perret, something like that.
[00:48:05] Annie Sargent: Okay.
[00:48:05] Lisa Leon: It wasn’t a, um, a difficult, uh, like city to move to, uh, you know, outside of the city. It wasn’t that far. I just wasn’t familiar with it. So I didn’t know where things were.
[00:48:18] Annie Sargent: Right. And you couldn’t have stayed at your hotel because it was fully booked.
[00:48:22] Lisa Leon: Yeah, it was fully booked,
[00:48:24] Annie Sargent: Right. Yeah. New year’s Eve is a big weekend in Paris. And as a matter of fact, the prices of hotels go up a lot. Over that, you know, the 30th 31st, first and second, you pay more for hotels a lot more usually because it’s new year’s eve.
[00:48:45] Lisa Leon: Yeah. Which is understandable. You know, business wise you’d want to get a little bit more money out of it. Um, but yeah. It would have been nice to say.
[00:48:56] Annie Sargent: Yeah, but you couldn’t. So did the pharmacist notify the French government in any way that you were positive?
[00:49:05] Lisa Leon: No. No. They, they didn’t notify the French government. There was, there was litterally no governmental agency monitoring me.
[00:49:14] Annie Sargent: Correct.
[00:49:14] Lisa Leon: Nothing.
[00:49:15] Annie Sargent: Right. So it’s just the airline, like the ticket agent asking you for your negative tests that kept you from going home.
[00:49:24] Lisa Leon: Correct.
[00:49:25] Annie Sargent: If you had lived in another European country that you could drive to, you could have just gone home.
[00:49:31] Lisa Leon: Correct, yeah. I would have loved that.
[00:49:34] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Nobody was keeping you except the airline wasn’t going to let you on.
[00:49:39] Lisa Leon: Correct. Yeah.
[00:49:41] Annie Sargent: And I just want to make sure that it’s clear to everybody that this was at your own cost. Not only did you have to pay for the plane tickets, but you also had to support yourselves for that the days when you were supposed to stay in Paris against your will, I guess.
[00:50:03] Lisa Leon: Yeah, right! Against our will. Yeah,totally. 100% out of our pocket. We paid for everything. The airline, the Airbnb, the groceries, and testing. Which was, I have to say on a side note, that was the wonderful of, of France to be able to go. Basically every 200 feet to a pharmacy and spent 30 minutes in line to walk in to pay, to get tested, to get a result. I loved that. Yes.
[00:50:33] Annie Sargent: And also tests are not as expensive in France as they are in the U S
[00:50:37] Lisa Leon: Correct.?
[00:50:38] Annie Sargent: Yeah. In France, it’s like 25 bucks or 28. Maybe. I don’t remember. I don’t have to pay for it because I’m in the French healthcare, so I don’t have to pay for it but…
[00:50:47] Lisa Leon: Right. No, I paid 25 euros each time we tested..
[00:50:51] Annie Sargent: Okay.
[00:50:52] Lisa Leon: And I tested our daughter every two days because it had reached a point where I just wanted to go home.
[00:50:59] Annie Sargent: Well, so when you booked your new airline ticket, did you book it for a specific date? What, how did you decide?
[00:51:06] Lisa Leon: Right. We decided on the 10 days, because we thought. What we needed was a 10 day quarantine, for sure. But then after like a day or two, we started to realize nobody was monitoring. And in America, the CDC had changed the rules from 10 days to five days.
[00:51:28] Annie Sargent: And they have in France as well.
[00:51:30] Lisa Leon: Right. So we tested negative actually on the fourth, which was five days later. So first I booked the airfare, the airline for leaving on the 10th because it was 10 days when we tested negative on the fourth, I immediately picked up the phone called the airline and got out on the fifth.
[00:51:55] Annie Sargent: Okay.
[00:51:55] Lisa Leon: So I had to change the flight again,
[00:51:58] Annie Sargent: Which caused you another expense, obviously?
[00:52:01] Lisa Leon: Yes.
[00:52:03] Annie Sargent: Ah, the joys.
[00:52:04] Lisa Leon: Yeah, I know. We could’ve gone to Paris a second time from the amount of money we spent.
[00:52:10] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Oh, that’s terrible. And so were you able to do anything while you were just waiting to test out?
[00:52:18] Lisa Leon: In a sense, no. What I would say was like, we’re in Paris, you want to do something? And she said, no, I want to get rid of this. Let’s say inside.
[00:52:27] Annie Sargent: Was she feeling sick at all?
[00:52:29] Lisa Leon: No. It really looked like she had a very minor cold. She did not have a headache. She did not have a fever. Her stomach was fine, but there was some congestion in her nose. I think postnasal drip caused a little bit of coughing, but not a lot of coughing, honestly, not a lot. Yeah.
[00:52:50] Annie Sargent: And did you and your husband ever test positive or was it just her the whole time?
[00:52:55] Lisa Leon: It was just her the whole time it was crazy!
[00:52:59] Annie Sargent: Kids you love them, but
[00:53:03] Lisa Leon: I know, right? And typically for, from her growing up, my husband, I would always get sick whenever she got sick. But not this time.
[00:53:12] Annie Sargent: Well, you were vaccinated and boosted. That’s the thing with these vaccines. They work surprisingly well, and they worked for your daughter as well, since she didn’t feel very sick. It’s just that she still tested positive, which is a bummer. And so you’re the first person I’ve heard that this has happened to, but I think it does happen now with Omicron because it has the ability to get through, unless you’re boosted. And even for people who have had a previous infection, it seems like they are getting reinfected fairly easily with Omicron.
So maybe people should really take this into consideration before booking a trip to France. What would, what do you say to people when they tell you: oh, I’m thinking of going to France. What would you say?
[00:54:03] Lisa Leon: I think honestly, I think right now, while we were there, the surge definitely increased.
We didn’t think it would be a problem when we flew out. Right now, if I were to fly out in the next two days a week, I’d probably wait, uh, because it is so highly contagious. And you think you just have a cold, I’ve even read some, some news articles that say it looks like a cold. It’s definitely not like the way the pandemic started, which is wonderful.
People are not getting nearly as sick at that time or, or dying because of the pandemic, which is really, really wonderful. I don’t know. I’d say for the moment, I’d wait.
[00:54:46] Annie Sargent: Right. But they are getting stuck at an Airbnb in Paris where they don’t want to be and have to pay for, you know, changing their airplane and all of this stuff, so it can get expensive. And did he cause you any trouble with your work situation?
[00:55:01] Lisa Leon: No, fortunately I was able to tell my work, like, I’m sorry, I’m stuck in Paris. And, uh, they were all able to help out jump in, you know? But Mo most people were saying, oh my gosh, how horrible stuck in Paris! It sounds good,
[00:55:22] Annie Sargent: But not really!
[00:55:24] Lisa Leon: Not really. Yeah.
[00:55:27] Annie Sargent: Okay. So you’re able to laugh about it a little bit now. I’m sure it’ll be a fantastic story a year from now when hopefully all of this is behind us, but I am very sorry this happened to you and I think you’re wise to say now, maybe a good time to not come to France for a few more weeks. Just let this wave pass.
[00:55:50] Lisa Leon: Correct. Yes. I would wait a little bit, definitely wonderful vacation. We loved every minute of it was not a great way to end, but, um, this wave, I would wait for it to pass. And then consider going.
[00:56:06] Annie Sargent: Well, thank you so much for telling us all about this and hopefully I’ll have you back on the podcast to talk about that wonderful vacation you had before it all went….
[00:56:15] Lisa Leon: We really did have a wonderful time. I would love to tell you more details about the week we were there. We had a wonderful time.
[00:56:23] Annie Sargent: Oh, good. Thank you so much, Lisa.
You’re welcome.
[00:56:28] Lisa Leon: Au revoir!
[00:56:29] Annie Sargent: Thank you again, Lisa, for helping us keeping it real. This is an evolving situation, obviously. I used to not worry about people testing positive at the end of their trip. Now it’s a lot more likely. So keep that under consideration. I’m sure it will change again because that’s, what’s happening a lot with this pandemic.
Show notes for this episode are on https://joinusinfrance.com/372, the numeral. And if you scroll to the bottom of the episode, page you will see a blue button for the transcript and guest notes. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir!
[00:57:26] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2022 by addicted to France. It is released under a creative commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
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Episode PageCategories: Normandy & Brittany, Paris