Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Loire Valley, Off the Beaten Track in France
Discussed in this Episode
- Saumur
- Chinon
- Château de Saumur
- Château de Brézé
- Château de Montreuil-Bellay
- Château du Riveau
- Château de Montsoreau
- Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud
- Fontevraud L'Abbaye
- Château de Chinon
- Château de Langeais
- Château de l'Islette
- Château d'Ussé
- Château de Brissac
- Château de Serrant
- Angers
- Turquant
- Montsoreau
- Le Thouet River
- Loire River
- Vienne River
- Le Pot de Lapin (Saumur)
- A Charbon (Chinon)
[00:00:00] Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 516, cinq cent seize.
Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today on the Podcast
[00:00:31] Annie Sargent: Today, I chat with Paul Gulesserian about uncovering the hidden gems of the Loire Valley.
We explore lesser known chateaus, recount fascinating historical tales, and share insider tips on must visit spots, and delicious local cuisine as well.
Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or planning your first trip to France, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration you don’t want to miss.
Podcast Supporters
[00:00:58] Annie Sargent: This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and services, including my itinerary consult service, my GPS self-guided tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app, or take a day trip with me around the Southwest of France in my electric car. You can browse all of that at my boutique: joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
And remember, Patreon supporters get the podcast ad-free as soon as it’s ready. Click on the link in the show notes to enjoy this Patreon reward for as little as 2$ per month.
Magazine segment
[00:01:31] Annie Sargent: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Paul today, I’ll discuss phone safety while on the go.
Maybe you know all of this, but there are simple steps you can take to make yourself less vulnerable.
Bootcamp 2025
[00:01:45] Annie Sargent: And good news, the reservation system for Bootcamp 2025 is now open to all. You can join me and Elyse in France in real life for Bootcamp 2025. This is a 10 day immersive tour starting the morning of May 10th, 2025 of course, and ending late on May 18th in Toulouse.
You’ll have the possibility of taking French classes every weekday morning, and the rest of the time we’ll visit some of the best attractions of the Southwest, including Albi, Carcassonne, the Painted Cave of Pêche Merle, The Castle of Foix, and several more.
You can hear previous bootcampers talk about their experiences on episodes 445 and 498 of the podcast. If you’d like to read more about the specifics or secure your spot, head over to joinusinfrance.com/bootcamp2025, no spaces or dashes. Let’s make 2025 a year of unforgettable French memories.
Annie and Paul
[00:03:01] Annie Sargent: Bonjour, Paul Gulesserian, and welcome to Join Us in France.
[00:03:05] Paul Gulesserian: Bonjour Annie, I’m super happy to be with you today.
[00:03:08] Annie Sargent: Lovely to talk to you. So you’re actually living in France. I’m getting French people, yay.
[00:03:12] Paul Gulesserian: That’s right. That’s right, though I am an American, but yes, I am living in France for the past six years now. I can’t believe it.
[00:03:19] Annie Sargent: Wonderful, and your husband is French.
[00:03:21] Paul Gulesserian: So my husband is French, originally. So, I was actually living in France 15 years ago, my work transferred me to France, I met him, we spent some time in France, then I got transferred to London, we lived in London, then moved to New York, lived in New York for 6 years, and then we both came back to France 6 years ago.
[00:03:40] Annie Sargent: Wonderful.
Exploring the Loire Valley
[00:03:41] Annie Sargent: You’ve probably had plenty of trips through France, but today we’re going to talk about one that you took around the Loire Valley. And especially since you have your time, you go to some that people don’t get to, right?
[00:03:55] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, you know, I am a Francophile, I’m proud to admit it, I am an ultimate Francophile, and since being in France, I have fallen in love with this country. And everywhere we go, we find something more and more beautiful. And me and Florian, my husband, we love exploring and finding new sites, natural wonders, trying the cuisine.
French Citizenship and Travel Experiences
[00:04:16] Paul Gulesserian: I love France so much, I actually became a French citizen three years ago.
[00:04:19] Annie Sargent: Bravo, bravo, merci.
[00:04:22] Paul Gulesserian: And it’s funny with Florian, he’s actually seen more of France with me than he had, you know, his entire life living in France, so I’ve helped him become more French.
[00:04:31] Annie Sargent: That’s very good. Yeah, nothing like leaving France and then you come back and you go, huh, I actually don’t know the country that well.
[00:04:39] Paul Gulesserian: And it’s funny, I think I know France now better than the United States, because in France we have lots of vacation time, it’s kind of exotic to see, so lots of exploring.
[00:04:49] Annie Sargent: Where are you based out of? Where do you live?
[00:04:51] Paul Gulesserian: So we spend our time half the time in Paris, and then we have a house just outside of Paris in this town called Chantilly, Chantilly in English, about 45 minutes north of Paris. So we’re spending our weekends and our downtimethere in Chantilly.
And actually, Annie, I was looking, we actually listened to a podcast, I think, on the Château of Chantilly, that you had a couple of seasons ago. So, yeah, we’re in Chantilly, just outside of Paris, and actually, yesterday in Chantilly, the Olympic flame came through the town, so we were at work from home, and we saw this flame pass in front of the château in the town, which was quite moving, I have to say.
[00:05:30] Annie Sargent: Beautiful. Yes, beautiful stuff.
[00:05:32] Paul Gulesserian: But, speaking of chateaus, I am a château addict. Ha ha ha ha!
I actually think we’ve lost count of the number of chateaus that we’ve seen in France. And so we’ve actually been to the Loire Valley region once before in 2020. And during that trip, we saw all of the big name chateaus that I’m sure a lot of your listeners have heard about.
It’s like Chambord, Chenonceau, Cheverny, all the big ones.
[00:06:00] Annie Sargent: Amboise.
[00:06:02] Paul Gulesserian: Amboise, Blois, I forget the name, the one where Da Vinci…
[00:06:05] Annie Sargent: That’s Clos Lucé.
[00:06:07] Paul Gulesserian: The Clos Lucé, also.
[00:06:08] Annie Sargent: It’s in Amboise as well, in the town of Amboise, yes.
[00:06:10] Paul Gulesserian: So we did all of these chateaus, but we took this trip to visit some of the other chateaus, some of the lesser known ones, and spend some time exploring the rest of that beautiful part of France.
[00:06:21] Annie Sargent: Fantastic. I want to hear all about it because people often ask, you know, is it even worth going to the other ones? And of course it is, but I would like you to tell us about that.
[00:06:30] Paul Gulesserian: Sure.
Planning and Starting the Loire Valley Trip
[00:06:30] Paul Gulesserian: So we did this trip in May, kind of the beginning of May, and…
[00:06:35] Annie Sargent: 2024?
[00:06:36] Paul Gulesserian: 2024. Yes. And May is a very particular month in France because there’s like five bank holidays in the month of May. So it, depending when they fall, you get these super long weekends, or a random day in the middle of the week.
And so that particular week, there was two bank holidays in the week. There was the May 8th, which is like the Victory in Europe Day. And the May 9th is the Ascension Day, I’m not sure what it actually is celebrating, but it’s a day off.
And so that was the Wednesday and Thursday and in our job they gave us what they call in France, the they gave us the extra Friday off.
So we had three days off in a row, so we only had to take off two days, and we had a full week ofdays off, which was nice.
[00:07:19] Annie Sargent: French people love this. What sort of work do you do that you can do this sort of thing?
[00:07:23] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah. So, me and my husband actually both work for a French beauty company. I do HR, I do training. So, I actually spend a lot of my time in conversations like on this, like on Teams, educating and upscaling people. And my husband works in purchasing.
It’s a French based company, you know, that’s very, very generous with the days.
[00:07:42] Annie Sargent: Right, so, you get French holidays, and French…
[00:07:45] Paul Gulesserian: We get the French, the French holidays, which is very nice.
[00:07:47] Annie Sargent: And you also get your five weeks off, I assume, in the summer or whenever you want to take them?
[00:07:51] Paul Gulesserian: So, we’re recording this in kind of middle of July, and in 1 week I have one month off, so I can’t complain.
[00:07:58] Annie Sargent: Fantastic. Enjoy. Enjoy.
Château Visits and Local Discoveries
[00:08:00] Annie Sargent: All right, let’s talk about your trip last May through the Loire Valley. Where did you go?
[00:08:07] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, so we kind of focused on the western part of the Loire Valley, and during that trip we visited two different departments in two different regions of France. So the first part of the trip we spent four days in between Saumur and Chinon, and then two days around Angers. So we’re in between the Annes et Loire Department and the Maine et Loire department.
[00:08:31] Annie Sargent: Right. Right. It’s because of course it’s a river, so it’s long.
[00:08:35] Paul Gulesserian: Yes. Yes.
[00:08:37] Annie Sargent: I mean, this is obvious, but when I do itinerary with people, they say, what’s a central place in the Loire Valley? I’m like, well, if it was a circular river, it’d be an easy question, but since it’s not a circular river.
[00:08:51] Paul Gulesserian: I think it’s the longest river in France.
[00:08:53] Annie Sargent: It’s possible.
[00:08:55] Paul Gulesserian: Right. So you started from Saumur and Chinon.
Tips for Driving in France
[00:08:59] Paul Gulesserian: Yep, that’s exactly right. We actually drove from our house in Chantilly to Saumur. It was the first stop. It was about maybe a four hour drive. We left super early on a Saturday morning, so there was literally no traffic, direct shot. And you know, the highway system in France is extremely well maintained, I think it’s actually much more maintained than you find in the US. And it’s maintained by private companies, actually. So the downside is, there’s a lot of tolls. So I think we paid, like 35 euros in tolls to get there. But the ride was super smooth. The rest stops are very well maintained and clean.
So it’s kind of worth the price. I wanted to give your listeners, Annie, a bit of warning though about driving in France. I’ve heard this a couple of times already on your podcast. There’s a lot of automatic sensors for speeding. And if you get flashed by one of these sensors, you’ll get in the mail a fine later on.
[00:09:53] Annie Sargent: Yep. That happened to me last week as a matter of fact.
Okay.
I was driving to my sister’s house and she lives in the neighborhood where I grew up. We both grew up in that neighborhood, it’s the same house where we grew up. And I was not aware that they had put a speed thing at the bottom of the hill. And I was 6 over the speed limit, which cost me 90 euros.
[00:10:16] Paul Gulesserian: Oh!
[00:10:16] Annie Sargent: Oh well, now I know. And that one, because it was in the city, there’s not even a flash.
No flash. I didn’t know until…
[00:10:23] Paul Gulesserian: It showed up in the mail.
[00:10:24] Annie Sargent: But it was me. It was me.
[00:10:27] Paul Gulesserian: What was interesting here, so, it was a very rainy period, when we were driving, it was raining, then stopping, raining, and stopping, and in France, the normal speed limit on the autoroute is what, 130 kilometers per hour, which I think is like 80 miles per hour. But when it’s raining, it goes to 110, and so, on the way there, we thought we were flashed, because we were going above 110, because it actually wasn’t raining anymore, but it was still a little wet.
So, fingers crossed, we haven’t received anything yet, and it was about two months, so hopefully we’re in the clear.
[00:10:59] Annie Sargent: Oh, yeah, two months, you’re fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get those, I mean, if you live outside of France, it can take longer, but within France, I got mine within a week.
[00:11:08] Paul Gulesserian: Okay. All right. Good. So no fine for us.
[00:11:10] Annie Sargent: You’re good, you’re good.
[00:11:11] Paul Gulesserian: Good.
[00:11:12] Annie Sargent: But yes, you do have to be very careful about your speed.
[00:11:16] Paul Gulesserian: And I noticed now since the Olympics, I see a lot more of the sensing machines. Like, we were driving back to Paris yesterday and there’s quite a few more new ones around. So it’s something to watch out for.
Saumur
[00:11:27] Annie Sargent: Watch out. Yes. Watch out. All right. So, Saumur, you started with, where were you staying? Were you, did you move hotels every night? Well, how did you do this?
[00:11:36] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah. So we stayed four nights kind of in between Saumur and Chinon. And we actually stayed at this beautiful, this beautiful domain, it was kind of like a renovated farm complex. So there was many, many, many buildings. And I’ll tell you the name in one second, I’m just looking for my notes here.
It was called the Hotel Le Domaine de Mestré in a town called Fontevrault L’Abbaye.
So it’s kind of in between Saumur and Chinon. And like I said, it was kind of like an old farm complex with different buildings, all renovated, and kind of a French country decor. Honestly, I was really impressed with this property.
There was like a nice shared family room, there was a dining room restaurant on premises that we had dinner one night. And the rooms all renovated, super comfy bed, you know, nice decor, no TV, but you know what? We didn’t miss it. We didn’t miss it. They had a pool with, like an indoor pool, with a sauna and a hot tub.
So it was really honestly one of the best hotels I’ve stayed at. So, I’ll share with you the link.
[00:12:44] Annie Sargent: Yes, and I’ll put that in the show notes. When people enjoy a hotel, I put it in the show notes, because why not? That’s great.
Château de Saumur, Musée des Arts Décoratifs et du Cheval
[00:12:50] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, so we stayed there, and so the first day we went to Saumur, and it was raining horribly, but that didn’t stop us, so cute town, about 27,000 people, known for great wine, and it’s a horse town, so there was like a cavalry station there. They had the farmer’s market on the Saturday.
Very traditional French country market with the butcher, the cheese, the veggies. And when we were there, it was all about the strawberries, and the white asparagus, which was everywhere, so beautiful to see. We went to the château that was there. So the château de Saumur.
Not as big, but it was situated on a hill, and it had a beautiful, beautifulview of the Loire River just below.
Inside, you know, there’s like a porcelain collection, some horse collections, some memorabilia, so we just kind of walked around and checked it out.
[00:13:40] Annie Sargent: So yeah, I wonder if the Château de Saumur is not a national château?
[00:13:44] Paul Gulesserian: Mm.
[00:13:44] Annie Sargent: That makes a difference. Some of them are national, which means that they are… so they call it Château de Saumur, Musée des Arts Décoratifs et du Cheval. So they have an emphasis on decorative arts and horsey things.
[00:14:01] Paul Gulesserian: It was really well maintained. Looks like it was renovated, cared for, they had a nice welcome center, so honestly, this one was pretty nice.
[00:14:08] Annie Sargent: Mm hmm, mm hmm. But it’s not as big as the other ones, it’s not as famous as the other ones, you know?
[00:14:13] Paul Gulesserian: No, no, no. Honestly, we toured the thing in 20 minutes. The view outside, because you’re perched up high, you know, down in the river below was really spectacular.
[00:14:22] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Okay, fantastic. So, you recommend this one for people who want, what? They are looking for…?
[00:14:29] Paul Gulesserian: If you have a passion for horses, there’s a lot of horse memorabilia there. The town itself is cute, and especially on a weekend to see the farmer’s market. It was raining, so we couldn’t profit, but you can go to the farmer’s market, grab a sandwich, or a pastry, you know, and sit up on the hill near the château and you get a great view of the Loire River below.
[00:14:48] Annie Sargent: Yeah. You don’t need to do anything spectacular to have a good time in France. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so pleasant to live here, is because you can just go somewhere, and just take it easy, and look around, and have a meal and a drink and enjoy it.
[00:15:02] Paul Gulesserian: It’s this joie de vivre.
[00:15:06] Annie Sargent: Although we’re not quite as joyous when it’s raining too much.
[00:15:09] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, but you know what? I had my yellow raincoats and we powered through.
[00:15:13] Annie Sargent: Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, what came next?
[00:15:17] Paul Gulesserian: We did about a 15 minute drive, and that’s what’s actually interesting with the Loire Valley. Every 20 minutes, you hit a chateau.
[00:15:23] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah.
Château de Brézé
[00:15:24] Paul Gulesserian: So we drove 20 minutes to this other one called the Château de Brézé.
[00:15:28] Annie Sargent: Which I have not seen.
[00:15:29] Paul Gulesserian: This one, honestly, it’s a hidden gem, and they advertise it as un château sous un château, a château under a château.
So, basically you go, and it’s a beautiful château. The château itself, nothing amazing, kind of standard. But underground, it was built on this massive network of underground tunnels that were carved into, like, the limestone over the last thousand years.
So it was this big underground fortress that, you could actually, there was rooms where you saw they used to make bread in this underground chateau. They were making wine in this fortress. They had horses were living all underground. So it was completely something you would not expect, until you actually go down below.
Really, really different.
[00:16:15] Annie Sargent: That’s very different. Do you remember why they did that?
[00:16:19] Paul Gulesserian: It was, like, originally it was a defensive fortress in the Middle Ages, carved out for the stone that they were excavating for other things, so it was just a defensive, a defensive station. And they just kept adding to it over the years.
[00:16:32] Annie Sargent: An underground shelter.
[00:16:34] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:36] Annie Sargent: Interesting, interesting. So I suppose that one didn’t have quite so many visitors.
[00:16:40] Paul Gulesserian: Well, not as many, and if mobility is a challenge, it’s not good for that. It’s quite steep going down, and you know, going in the underground part is a little bit, a little bit difficult.
[00:16:50] Annie Sargent: Okay. Okay. All right. That’s good to know. That’s good to know. That would be a problem for some people, but most people can probably handle it. I mean, for most people, it’ll be okay, I suppose.
Château de Montreuil-Bellay
[00:16:58] Paul Gulesserian: Then the next one, again, another 50 minute drive, we hit a chateau. This one was called, honestly, it’s crazy, you throw a stone and you hit one.
[00:17:05] Annie Sargent: This one was called the Château de Montreuil-Bellay. This one was tiny. Tiny, tiny, tiny. Again, it was perched up on a hill, this time above the le Thouet River, so a smaller tributary, I guess, of the Loire River, had this beautiful, beautiful very manicured garden.
[00:17:23] Paul Gulesserian: So, you know, we were just kind of walking around the garden, checking out this house, and, you know, funny story here, a bit of a memorable experience, we’re walking around, outside of the garden, all of a sudden, we felt like something hit us, and actually a bird had pooped on Florian’s head and jacket.
[00:17:39] Annie Sargent: Oh, oh.
[00:17:41] Paul Gulesserian: But when it happened, I remembered, oh, I actually think that’s good luck.
[00:17:46] Annie Sargent: Perhaps it is. Let’s say it is.
[00:17:47] Paul Gulesserian: It happens. Yeah, so if some, some reason I had that in my head, it’s good luck. So, right after we left the chateau, we went across the street to the magazine shop. We bought the lottery ticket hoping, hoping we would win, but unfortunately we had to go back to work on Monday, so we didn’t win.
So, it wasn’t that lucky.
[00:18:04] Annie Sargent: Alas.
Oh, that’s great. Yes, yes. That’s great. So what was special about that one?
[00:18:09] Paul Gulesserian: Well, you know, the garden was quite special, and again, a lot of these chateaus are perched up on the hills, you have these just, views, the views of the river, and you can see quite far, and you know, even though it was overcast with the clouds, it’s just beautiful scenery.
And honestly, I think I was just standing there for ten minutes, just like… looking around, I’m like, this is just beautiful.
You see the slate roofs of the little village. You see the bridges and the river. You see some forest. It’s just like, wow, this is just a really magical place. It’s breathtaking.
[00:18:40] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure that was big, I mean, of course, safety was the name of the game back then. But you know, a lot of the chateaus in the Loire were not built that long ago that they were worried about invasions by the, I don’t know, the Vikings, or whatever. That was over by then, but they still enjoyed beautiful high up, you know, because it’s both, I can see down below, but also you can see me, and how cool I am that I have this big château on the hill.
[00:19:09] Paul Gulesserian: I’m the boss up here.
[00:19:10] Annie Sargent: That’s right. That’s right. The boss has the… I guess it’s the ultimate penthouse.
[00:19:15] Paul Gulesserian: The ultimate penthouse, I think that’s right, Annie.
[00:19:19] Annie Sargent: So that one took how long for the visit?
[00:19:21] Paul Gulesserian: 20 minutes. 20-25 minutes. We spent most time in the garden and then we walk around the château. And this one was interesting, it almost looked like inside people were actually still living there, you know, there’s like some of the furniture was modern in the salon, and this family picture is so… maybe they lived there into the 50s or 60s, you know, so it’s, you could see that a family still had a somewhat of a presence there.
Ticket prices
[00:19:45] Annie Sargent: Huh. And I assume you had to pay a little bit to get into all of these chateaus, right? They are not free!
[00:19:50] Paul Gulesserian: They’re not cheap either, you know, sometimes I think the price is like between 8 euros and 14 euros per person. So, you know, we visited 13 chateaus, so it, you know, it adds up.
But actually, one pro tip, Annie, that we came across the way, like,it’s interesting if you visit a château to ask them, are they in a network with some of the other chateaus, because we went to actually this one château and they said, oh, hey, we’re in collaboration with this other chateau.
So if you go there and show the receipt to this one, you get like a two euro reduction and it goes both ways.
[00:20:25] Annie Sargent: Yes.
[00:20:26] Paul Gulesserian: It’s helpful to ask that, like if you’re visiting a cultural place.
[00:20:29] Annie Sargent: And they might have a combo pass, something with like more than one that you can get. That’s worth asking at the chateau. And this is the sort of thing that you just need to ask when you get there because it probably changes all the time.
[00:20:40] Paul Gulesserian: So that was the first day.
[00:20:42] Annie Sargent: So there’s three chateaus in one day. That’s… that’s… yeah, you like chateaus.
[00:20:46] Paul Gulesserian: We like to be pretty active on our vacations and we spend a lot of time planning. And I actually find planning for trips like a relaxing moment, you know, studying a bit and making a spreadsheet of where we’re going to go. But the way we like to do it is we get up early and we bang out a lot of the cultural sites and then we’re back at the hotel at like maybe 2pm, 3pm, read a book, here is the pool, so we go in the pool and hang out, and you have the afternoon off before you go to dinner. So we find for us, it’s like a nice balance, an active morning, relaxing afternoon.
[00:21:16] Annie Sargent: That’s great. That’s fantastic.
So that was day one.
Biking on Day 2
[00:21:19] Paul Gulesserian: That was day one. So day two. It was still raining, but we brought our bikes with us, and we were determined, okay, we want to go biking. And so we have these bikes that fold up, they’re easy to put in the car, so we can take them pretty easily, unfold it and go.
So this day, we’re like, okay, let’s put on our rain gear, and we’re going to go for a bike ride. So we did it. We biked about maybe 20-30 minutes, and we stopped in this town called Turquant, and I’m not sure what to call it in English, but it’s a troglodyte village.
So it’s a village that’s actually built into a side like a cliff, like houses and stores are built into caves in the side of the mountain, and they’re living in there.
[00:22:05] Annie Sargent: That’s great. Yeah, those are fun.
[00:22:07] Paul Gulesserian: So you have this whole street of these little cave stores, and it was filled with art galleries, so each little house was an art gallery, and you could go in and tour. And one of them was kind of a funny story, so it was this beautiful art gallery with different types of media and stuff.
Even though we’re living in France and Florian’s French, you know, him and I, we talk in English. So we’re in the store talking in English and the owner hears us and he comes over and he starts engaging us in English. And it was a little bit difficult for him, but he kept engaging us in English, which is very nice.
And then at some point he said, oh, we even ship to the UK. So I guess he thought we were, we’re British. And we’re like, oh no, we actually live in France. And he’s like, wait a second, you’re French and you’re making me speak English? Like what’s going on? And so like he burst laughing for like 10 minutes.
He thought it was like the funniest, the funniest thing ever, but it made me come to realize like the French people are very welcoming and they make an effort to welcome people from different cultures. And if you make the effort back, with the Bonjour and the S’il vous plait, honestly, it’s very appreciated and you can find some really special moments with new people.
[00:23:13] Annie Sargent: Yeah. No, that’s wonderful. And again, these little towns, you read about them, but there’s not that many in the Loire Valley that are left. There were more before. And there’s also mushroom caves. Did you run into any mushroom caves?
[00:23:26] Paul Gulesserian: We didn’t see any, but I remember when we were in summer, there was a lot of mushrooms at the market, and we saw a sign that was like a museum mushroom site or something that you could see.
[00:23:38] Annie Sargent: Yeah, if you like to see where mushrooms grow, you can do that in the Loire Valley as well.
[00:23:43] Paul Gulesserian:
Domaine des Amandiers
[00:23:43] Paul Gulesserian: What was also in that town, and one of the caves, was like a winery, called the Domaine des Amandiers, so the almond domain. And we actually did a tasting. And this guy, this gentleman had a really beautiful, a rosé crément, so like a a rosé sparkling, sparkling wine, and it was super, super sweet, which we love, so it’s, like, really nice for an aperitif in the summer. So we bought two bottles, not super expensive, like, 8.70 Euros, that we’ll save for the vacation in a couple weeks.
[00:24:13] Annie Sargent: Yeah, and you managed to take all of that on your bike. So were you drenched by then or not quite yet?
[00:24:20] Paul Gulesserian: You know, it was, like drizzling, on and off.
[00:24:23] Annie Sargent: Okay.
[00:24:24] Paul Gulesserian: It was okay.
[00:24:25] Annie Sargent: It was okay.
Okay.
All right. All right. Yeah.
Exploring Montsoreau and Its Modern Art Chateau
[00:24:28] Paul Gulesserian: So then we biked 30 minutes to a town called Montsoreau. It’s one of the plus beaux village de France. One of the most beautiful villages in France. And we saw a sign there, apparently the Olympic torch went through that town as well.
There was a small château that we went into. And it was completely, everything original was gone inside and they turned it into a modern art gallery with modern installations and videos. Like some of the stuff was a bit weird for me, you know, it was a bit too modern. But what was interesting about this chateau, you could go on the roof, at the very, very top.
And so again, you had an amazing view.
The Loire river, and it’s just stunning, even raining, it’s stunning,
[00:25:11] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah. Even raining, it’s stunning. Yeah, that’s true.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
Discovering the Abbaye Royale Fontevraud
[00:25:16] Paul Gulesserian: And so then, the best site of the day was the last one, so we biked another 20 minutes, and here we started to get wet. But we powered through, and we went to this site called l’Abbaye Royale Fontevraud.
[00:25:29] Annie Sargent: Yes.
[00:25:30] Paul Gulesserian: This was one of the most beautiful sites I have seen in France, and you really can’t see it if you get past the entrance complex and you walk through the entrance lobby.
[00:25:40] Annie Sargent: This one is not on a hill.
[00:25:41] Paul Gulesserian: No, it’s not on a hill. It’s actually kind of down a bit. And it’s this complex of these religious buildings, this beautiful abbey, and it has quite an interesting history because it was this abbey. Apparently, I was reading that the Eleanorof Aquitaine and her son, the Richard Lionhearted are buried there.
So some very famous figures in France were there. So you had this Abb ey that was turned into a prison, and then it was turned into a museum, and in the museum it’s different types of modern arts and multimedia stuff, so many things to see.
I think we spent two hours there.
[00:26:17] Annie Sargent: Yeah, I really enjoyed that visit, as well, yeah. It’s a beautiful place and it’s a lovely village too, I mean, it’s very small, but it’s very pleasant.
[00:26:26] Paul Gulesserian: Very pleasant, honestly, unexpected. It’s like, oh, we’re going to an abbaye, okay, another church. No, it was really, really something spectacular.
So for me that’s, but you can’t miss that one.
[00:26:35] Annie Sargent: Yeah, and so from there you biked back to where you were staying?
[00:26:39] Paul Gulesserian: The hotel. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s actually, it was in that town. So we were five minutes from home with the ho and we went right to the pool afterwards.
[00:26:48] Annie Sargent: You were wet already.
Get a little wet more. Yeah, that’s great. Did you enjoy the hotel there or was it just okay?
[00:26:57] Paul Gulesserian: That hotel? Well, then I was still at the hotel that I mentioned before.
[00:27:00] Annie Sargent: Okay. Okay. Same one.
Same one.
Okay. Very good.
Chinon and the Challenges of Google Maps for Biking
[00:27:03] Paul Gulesserian: So, the next day, we drove to Chinon, so a 20 minute drive. We parked near the Royal Fortress of Chinon, and I think this one is probably more well known than some of the other ones we had visited, I think this one does have a name.
[00:27:18] Annie Sargent: Well, Fontevraud is also famous. For people who love history, they know Fontevraud.
[00:27:22] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah. It does have a rich history.
[00:27:24] Annie Sargent: But Chinon is also one of the more popular ones, I guess.
[00:27:27] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, and honestly, again, the view, it’s this ancient fortress, it’s mostly destroyed, so it’s mostly ruins of towers, and you know, château pieces, you can go in some, but some are still ruined, so it’s a mix, you know, some things you can view, some things you can’t. But you’re perched up on the hill, above the Vienne River, so another river in the Loire ecosystem. And again, the view, the village, all the slate roofs, and honestly, I thought of like a storybook of this this view of Chinon.
So you had the view, we explored some of the sites. We profited from the histopad that they had, which I know you’ve spoken about before where you, you know, it’s the iPad where you hold it up and it kind of shows you what things looked like, when the château wasn’t destroyed. So we were able to see what it was like in its heyday.
[00:28:19] Annie Sargent: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, those are very fun. If you can do a visit with a histopad, I think that’s a very good way to go.
[00:28:25] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, and it was included in the price. Some places will charge you, I guess, for the audio guide, here was included. So it was nice to be able to profit from that as well. And we arrived just in time because right behind us was a group of school kids, like 50 kids. So it’s like we were able to sneak through and tour it and then not have to wait behind all the cute kids.
[00:28:45] Annie Sargent: That would be loud. Oh, 50 kids, that would be loud.
[00:28:48] Paul Gulesserian: So then we had brought our bikes with us in the car from Chignon. And so we did it, we tried to do another bike ride that day.
Biking Advice
[00:28:55] Paul Gulesserian: And I wanted to give some advice on bike trips. And I think you might have mentioned this in a podcast before, and I fell victim to it. So I should have listened more carefully.
I used the Google Maps to build the itinerary for the bike, the bike ride, and you know, it looks pretty nice and so 9/10 times it’s pretty good. But sometimes it’s taking you through a route that’s really not a route, so you’re going in a field of crops in between the corn and the wheat. You’re going through what’s really thick bush, and you end up having to push your bike. And when it’s muddy and raining, it’s not the nicest experience, so check it before you go.
[00:29:33] Annie Sargent: Yeah, you know, the Google map, the bike route, it’s better than not having it, but if when you get there it doesn’t look right, back off and go some other way.
[00:29:43] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, and sometimes we’re like, oh, it’s probably just five minutes, and then it’s like half an hour you’re pushing.
[00:29:48] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I’ve had this experience as well, right around my area, but of course, it’s my area, so I knew where else I could go.
Like, I’ll just take the road where the car is, where I do this on the car instead of this dumb… especially if it’s uphill, there’s holes and gravel and, ugh, no, no, no, not for me.
Château Adventures: From Riveau to Brissac
[00:30:08] Paul Gulesserian: But anyway, we found our way, and we found this other château called the Château du Riveau. This one was stunning. It was a beautiful chateau, super well renovated and maintained, with a mix of antique pieces, with modern art pieces. Each room was really quite visually stunning to look at, but the most exciting part was the gardens.
The gardens was one of the most beautiful gardens I’ve seen, and it was quite diverse. You know, you had a traditional vegetable garden, there was like, you know how they do the maze sometimes with shrubs, there were beehives, they had phoenix birds like in a cage, they had trees where they harvest the truffles from the roots there, there were peacocks, there were rabbits. Exploring the garden was really, really, really magical.
[00:31:00] Annie Sargent: And it wasn’t raining at that point?
[00:31:02] Paul Gulesserian: We were in between, we were in between the rain.
[00:31:05] Annie Sargent: Oh, that’s the best kind. That’s the best kind. Because then you know, the flowers are going to be happy. They’re happy and wet… but it’s not raining on you. So that’s perfect. That’s great because I don’t think I’ve been to, I’m sure I haven’t been to Riveau.
[00:31:18] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, no, it was a really beautiful day.
We brought sandwiches, we sat outside and just had lunch.
Food in the area
[00:31:23] Annie Sargent: Yeah, I meant to ask you, how did you do for food there? You brought your own or you had, you enjoyed the cafes at the chateaus if they had one?
[00:31:30] Paul Gulesserian: Well, what we usually do when we travel, it’s like, okay, we’ll stop on the way, get a croissant for breakfast. And we usually pack lunch like on the way or just get a sandwich on the way. And then we save room for the dinners, because the dinners is where we’ll do the three courses and have the wine and everything.
So lunch, we’ll kind of, the casual sandwich just sitting outside where there’s a nice view.
[00:31:54] Annie Sargent: Fantastic.
[00:31:55] Paul Gulesserian: Oh, and I wanted to mention about the rain, too, because it was quite particular here. So the first time we went to the Loire Valley, the river itself was almost empty. And you could actually see the ground, and it wasn’t a hugely rapidly rapid river. This time there had been so much rain in the season, the rivers were to the max.
And there was actually quite a bit of flooding everywhere. Some of the vineyards were flooded, some of the roads were flooded, so even when we weretaking the bike, we had to be rerouted because we couldn’t go through.
[00:32:25] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, this year was very different that way. We had a lot of rain. It stopped. Although this morning I got up early and I was walking my dog and it was looking like it was going to be 20, you know, it was like 23 degrees when I left.An hour later, it was raining pretty hard on us. But only for 10 minutes, but it was at the end of the walk, so it didn’t matter.
I was like, okay, well, I was all wet, both me and the dog were all wet, but it didn’t matter because we were just heading home anyway, so…
[00:32:50] Paul Gulesserian: The weather has been extreme this year.
[00:32:52] Annie Sargent: Yeah, it’s been different. It’s been different. But I’d rather have too much rain than too much heat waves, you know?
[00:32:57] Paul Gulesserian: It’s true. I agree with you.
Okay.
Château de Langeais
[00:32:59] Paul Gulesserian: So next day we drove. We went to this town called Langeais. Another super cute medieval town and they have a château there. Surprise, surprise. So we went to the château Langeais, and this one was just rich with history.
Apparently at this hotel, chateau, not hotel, there was the secret wedding of Anne de Bretagne, and Charles VIII, King of France, which, because of that marriage, Brittany became part of France. So they had a kind of a multimedia exhibition, kind of like the animatronic characters reenacting this wedding.
It was something different to see and it was actually quite well done. Really well restored with a lot of medieval furniture and everything.
In the attic, they had all these like toy Playmobil mini chateaus set up to see, which was kind of funny, and this one had another great garden, had this massive three story treehouse, which was funny to explore and get some pictures again.
But, you know, Annie, a lot of these chateaus, the grounds are equally spectacular to the interior and sometimes actually nicer.
[00:34:05] Annie Sargent: That’s very true. That’s very true. If you enjoy gardens, chateaus, they normally have a really, really good garden. Some of them stand out as truly spectacular, but most of them are very nice. No question about that.
Château de l’Islette
[00:34:17] Paul Gulesserian: Next one we went to, I didn’t actually like that much, it was called the Château de l’Islette. It looked nice. It was beautiful. Beautiful grounds, beautiful château, but people were still living there. So, it was actually modern inside. So, you’re going into a modern kitchen, and a modern bathroom, a modern bedroom, which is kind of like, weird.
[00:34:40] Annie Sargent: Yeah.
[00:34:41] Paul Gulesserian: It’s like, I don’t just see their toilet.
[00:34:43] Annie Sargent: Yeah. Okay. So this one is l’Islette.
I never even heard of it.
[00:34:49] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah. It was beautiful, but, and actually on the grounds too, there was a lot of animals and there was a goose that tried to attack me. So, it was like, the experience overall was kind of not so great at that one.
[00:34:59] Annie Sargent: So, not recommended.
[00:35:00] Paul Gulesserian: Not recommended that one.
Château D’Ussé
[00:35:02] Paul Gulesserian: But the next one we saw, highly recommend. This one was the Château D’Usse. And this one, apparently was the inspiration for the book, the original book of Sleeping Beauty, by Charles Perrault. The castle, I guess, inspired him to write that story. So, big, impressive castle, with its own little cathedral, and then in the upper floors, they have basically all reenactment scenes from The Sleeping Beauty done with like mannequins and you see the wheel where they make the thread that she picksherself, you can see all that.
It was kind of well done.
Kids would really like that, I think.
[00:35:36] Annie Sargent: Uh huh. That’s cool. That’s very nice. Yeah, I haven’t seen the Château d’Ussé, but I have heard about it.
[00:35:42] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, it was really impressive. So that ended the first four days of the trip and then we actually relocated. So we drove about an hour heading towards Angers, and before we got to Angers, well, first of all, the weather turned, and it was actually, it got beautiful. Sun out, you know, we have the shorts on, finally, we’re able to profit a bit, so that was nice.
Château de Brissac
[00:36:06] Paul Gulesserian: But on the way to Angers, we stopped at a chateau which was actually my favorite of the trip. This one was called the Château de Brissac. It was huge. It was about six or seven floors, so like this massive square tower, about 20 minutes outside of Angers. Really well maintained, beautiful rooms.
And it was interesting because on the top floor, they actually built a fully functional theater to do like plays and musicals that could s eat 50 to 75 people. So, like, at the top floor of this thing, there’s a full theater, which was kind of different and unexpected to see.
[00:36:43] Annie Sargent: What’s the name of the château again, sorry?
[00:36:44] Paul Gulesserian: Brissac, B-R-I-S-S-A-C.
[00:36:49] Annie Sargent: Ah, okay. I haven’t heard of this one either. You did go into some very interesting ones. That’s wonderful.
[00:36:56] Paul Gulesserian: That’s what’s kind of interesting Annie, it’s like, the big ones like Chambord, Chenonceau, they’re impressive, and they’re amazing, and you definitely need to visit them, because they’re monumental. All these little ones, there’s something different and unexpected in each one. You know, so they may not be the most big and impressive, but there’s these little gems that we found in each place that made it equally as special and interesting to visit.
[00:37:22] Annie Sargent: That’s wonderful.
[00:37:23] Paul Gulesserian: This one had a wine tasting as well, so we were able to test different rose wines that they actually make there. And we bought a couple bottles as well, so that was nice.
Angers
[00:37:32] Paul Gulesserian: Then we drove to Angers, beautiful city, about 120,000 people. It’s young. It’s a university town. It’s vibrant. I was reading, I think it’s voted as like one of the mostlikable places to live in France. So we set up shop in Angers. In Angers, we took an Airbnb.
So we stayed there for two nights. We did an Airbnb, and it was okay, you know, it was clean, modern, it had everything, but it was kind of sterile, you know, it had no, it didn’t have charm like the place, the place before.
[00:38:07] Annie Sargent: Yeah, well, Airbnb, you know, I mean, that’s what they tell you, everything should be from Ikea, disposable, like if they break it and they break it, fine, you know. So Airbnb, don’t expect too much, unless it’s a really expensive Airbnb and blah, blah, blah.
[00:38:22] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, but it did the job, you know, it was fine.
[00:38:24] Annie Sargent: Yeah.
[00:38:25] Paul Gulesserian: We had a place to sleep.
[00:38:26] Annie Sargent: Exactly, exactly.
Château de Speran
[00:38:28] Paul Gulesserian: And then that day we also did one other château just outside of Angers called the Château de Serrant. This one wasn’t the most beautiful, it was actually kind of run down, but what’s interesting here, you could go in the basement and visit like the servant area.
So you could see like the kitchens, where the butler was, where they did the ironing and the dishwashing, and the furnace. So again, it was something different, you know.
It was like Downton Abbey, you know, we’re downstairs with the servants.
[00:38:59] Annie Sargent: You’re with the servants. I love it.
Yeah.
[00:39:01] Paul Gulesserian: So again, something different, you know, that you didn’t expect.
[00:39:04] Annie Sargent: Yeah, most chateaus you don’t get to see the kitchen. I mean, some of them you do, but many of them you don’t. So that would be really interesting to see that.
[00:39:12] Paul Gulesserian: And I think people lived into it, lived in it into the 1900s. So it was kind of, you know, turn of the century stuff. It was kind of cool to see. And so the next day we spent the whole day in Angers, doing a self walking tour. And again, the weather was spectacular, so we were so happy to be outside.
Don’t ignore the Tourist Office
[00:39:28] Paul Gulesserian: And you know, one pro tip I wanted to share with you, Annie, and the listeners is, every town in France, almost every town in France has the tourist office. And these are gems of resource and sometimes some really good deals. We’ve hit the tourist office here to get a map and everything, and actually, they told us about this Angers city pass, which is basically for 28 euros, for 48 hours, get granted you access to 25 sites around Angers.
And so with that, we actually built our walking tour, like, okay, let’s hit all of these sites. And so I think we paid 28 euros, but I think it actually, if we added up all the prices, it would have been 50 euros per person. So it was a great deal to save some money, and see all of these fantastic sites.
[00:40:20] Annie Sargent: And also it gives you a list of all the places that are worth seeing, that are not the one that everybody finds on the page one of Google. But, you know, that’s always a problem, like, a lot of these places, they have a lot of interesting stuff, but they don’t show up on Google, if you don’t show up in the first five, it’s like you don’t exist.
Unless you have a nicetourist office that say, okay, you can visit all these outstanding things and they’re all interesting, or they wouldn’t even be in this deal, you know, if they weren’t interesting in some way.
[00:40:52] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah. So we were happy to have that, they were very helpful. They got told us where to start and everything. So unless it does tourist offices, you know, really help you plan nicely.
[00:41:01] Annie Sargent: Yes, I agree.
Restaurant Recommendations
[00:41:03] Annie Sargent: Let’s move on to some restaurants because we don’t have a lot of time and you had some very good meals that you wanted to recommend. So let’s talk about those.
[00:41:10] Paul Gulesserian: We ate one night in Saumur at this restaurant called Le Pot de Lapin. So it’s the rabbit, the rabbit pot, I guess that translates to English. And this restaurant was styled as, they called it a bouchon saumurois. Kind of like a Bouchon Lyonnais, but more to that…
[00:41:31] Annie Sargent: Yeah,
[00:41:32] Paul Gulesserian: Very familial, you know, a homey, nothing fancy, fresh, local ingredients.
And the experience was fantastic because the chalkboard with everything written, the waitress came over and walked us through every single item on the chalkboard, having fun, laughing with us, you know, created a really, really nice moment for us. And you know, we had a delicious, delicious meal there, really fresh and local.
And there was one thing on the menu that was something new that was really, really spectacular. It was one of their starters, and it was called Foie Gras de Pauvre, so Poor Man’s Foie Gras. So Foie Gras is made from duck or goose liver. Here, it was made from rabbit liver, which I guess is less costly thanthe duck or the goose, and it’s mixed with lots of garlic and herbs. It’s made to look exactly like a regular foie gras, but the taste and texture was so light, so aromatic, it was just something really, really fresh and delicious. And I encourage your listeners, in France be adventurous, you know, be adventurous and try something new, because worst case, you don’t like it, and okay, you have a great story to tell your friends, you tried something weird, but you might fall in love, and you find something really, really spectacular.
[00:42:57] Annie Sargent: I’ve never heard of Foie Gras de Lapin, never heard of it.
[00:43:00] Paul Gulesserian: I didn’t either.
[00:43:01] Annie Sargent: Well, I wouldn’t try it, my husband would.
[00:43:03] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:43:05] Annie Sargent: In Chinon, you also had a good dinner.
[00:43:07] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, so in Chinon, we ate at a restaurant called A Charbon, translates to charcoal, I guess, in English. And basically the restaurant used to be a pizza place, so they had this big wood burning oven, but they changed owners, and they made it into a rotisserie restaurant, so they’re cooking all the meats directly in this wood burning stove.
Nice.
And so Florian, he loves the roasted bone marrow where you spread it on the bread. So he had that and then we had the braised pork belly for the main. And it’s just, you know, you can’t go wrong.
[00:43:40] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that’s wonderful.
[00:43:43] Paul Gulesserian: And one thing I do when I travel to them, like give me the local wine. Give me your local red wine, or white wine and let them pick, and it pairs so well with what they’re doing there.
Sharing Tips about Living in France
[00:43:51] Annie Sargent: Fantastic. So you’ve talked to me about some of the things that you learned in France, because, I mean, you live in France. For people who aspire to spend more time in France, perhaps live in France, do you have encouraging words or things that you want to share about that?
[00:44:07] Paul Gulesserian: Well, you know, one thing I’ve discovered about France, and this is why I’m a Francophile, compared to the US it’s not a big country, land wise, but in terms of what it has to offer, it’s huge. And what I love about this country is, every place you go, two hours this way, two hours that way, it’s something very, very different. Culturally, architecturally, food wise, wine wise, there’s so much to see. So really explore. Point one.
Point two. Yes, see all the big things, the Eiffel Tower, all the big name chateaus I was talking about on the first visit, but find some of the off the beaten path sites to see as well because you’re going to find something really extraordinary and unique, and something different. Like on this trip, you know, it’s what? We saw the Castle of Sleeping Beauty. In Angers, we saw this medieval tapestry of the Apocalypse, which is this giant, giant tapestry that it’s amazing, it’s huge.
[00:45:00] Annie Sargent: Angers is a wonderful town. We recorded an episode about it, I went and loved it. I thought it was a beautiful town.
[00:45:06] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, really beautiful. Every place you go, even if it’s not a brand name, you find something really extraordinary because there’s this, such a long and rich history, you know, so this is so much stuff to see.
[00:45:16] Annie Sargent: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
And one word of caution that you mentioned in your write up is double check opening times, don’t expect things to be open 24-7 the way you might think they are in the US.
[00:45:28] Paul Gulesserian: Yeah, and like some of the places like Angers and that walking tour we had hoped to hit. It’s like some museum we walk up to and it’s only open on like the third weekend of school vacation and from 2 to 4 PM. So it’s like, okay, that’s a bit specific. And watch out for Mondays. Mondays, traditionally, places are closed, especially outside of Paris.
On Monday night we actually struggled to find a restaurant to eat at.
[00:45:53] Annie Sargent: Yeah, Sunday nights and Monday nights can be a problem. Yeah, definitely. You need to not be picky those nights.
If it’s open, go eat there.
[00:46:01] Paul Gulesserian: So we found a Chinese, Chinese restaurant, which is fine.
[00:46:03] Annie Sargent: It’s fine, it’s fine. You’re not going to go hungry or anything, but…
[00:46:07] Paul Gulesserian: I would say the last advice too, some places require a reservation, so take a look before, like, in Angers, we had hoped to visit, cause it was included in the city pass I was talking about, the Cointreau factory, so it’s like that orange liquor they was part, you get a free visit with that Angers Pass. But they were sold out, we’d have to have booked several days in advance, but c’est la vie.
[00:46:28] Annie Sargent: Yeah, sometimes things do get sold out, so…
All right, Paul, you are a delight to talk to. I can see the enthusiasm about France and chateaus, and stuff like that, that’s wonderful. You’re going to make a lot of people jealous.
They’re like, oh, that’s what I want to do.
[00:46:45] Paul Gulesserian: Well, I’m happy to share it. I had a great experience on this trip and like I said, I love France. It’s a magical place. It’s so rich.
[00:46:53] Annie Sargent: When you moved here did you have the job before your move or did you okay? Yeah.
[00:46:57] Paul Gulesserian: I did. And they helped me with the move, and my husband was French, so it was easy, it was easy to, you know, ‘easy to do it’.
[00:47:06] Annie Sargent: Right, right. Well, it was the same for me, it was 20 years ago, but my husband and I’m French, but I was like, oh, I don’t know, you know how we’re going to do finding work in France? Because, especially back then it was pretty difficult. And so he asked his boss if he could transfer and, yep, he did.
And it worked out just fine, and then I found work as well. But it was really good that one of us had a job anyway, you know, I think if you can pull it off, it’s the best way to do this.
[00:47:33] Paul Gulesserian: We were lucky because we were working for this French company in the US and get transferred to Paris, so it worked out quite nicely.
[00:47:39] Annie Sargent: Wonderful. Well, thank you very much, Paul. I hope that everybody’s going to enjoy this episode and go visit some of these places. I might have to do that myself.
[00:47:49] Paul Gulesserian: There’s some gems. Thank you so much, Annie.
[00:47:51] Annie Sargent: Merci beaucoup. Au revoir.
[00:47:54] Paul Gulesserian: Au revoir.
Thank you Patrons
[00:48:01] Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
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Would you join them too? You can do it for as little as $2 a month. And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/ElysArt.
Annie’s Tours
[00:48:40] Annie Sargent: Somebody left this review of my Saint Germain des Prés tour this week: ‘Absolutely lovely, thoroughly enjoyed this interesting and beautiful tour’.
Well, thank you very much. Saint Germain des Prés is a beautiful area indeed, and there’s lots of little streets that you’ll miss if you don’t have some help visiting it.
Podcast listeners get a big discount for buying these tours from my website, but if you buy directly from me, it’s a manual process because I am not a robot. Ha ha. So it might take a few hours before you get the codes on account of sleep, and time differences as well.
And if you want to read more reviews of these tours, go to joinusinfrance.com/VMR. That stands for VoiceMap Reviews. There’s hundreds of reviews of each of my tours.
Annie’s Itinerary Consultations
[00:49:32] Annie Sargent: If you’re planning a trip to France and you need personalized advice, hire me as your itinerary consultant. Choose the Bonjour service for a Zoom call with tailored recommendations, or go for the VIP for the same call, plus a very detailed follow up guide. And sometimes it’s hundreds, I mean, it can be as many as 200 pages, so it’s very detailed.
Ready to start? Visit joinusinfrance.com/boutique and follow the email instructions.
Self-guided GPS tours on the VoiceMap App
[00:50:04] Annie Sargent: And of course, if you don’t need a one on one consultation, you can still make your trip to Paris better by taking me along with you, by using my self-guided GPS tours on the VoiceMap app.
These are very inexpensive and they lead you to the best of Paris, covering the Eiffel Tower, Le Marais, Montmartre, Latin Quarter, Ile de la Cité and Saint Germain des Prés, and the food themed tour around Les Halles.
And because Christmas is coming up, I should mention that you can also support the podcast and discover some of my favorite products on Amazon by going to joinusinfrance.com/Amazon. Every purchase made through this link helps me keep bringing more great conversations about France, and it won’t cost you a penny more. Thank you for your support.
Phone Safety
[00:50:53] Annie Sargent: Let’s talk about phone safety.
Two friends are hiking in the woods when they encounter a bear. As the bear notices them and starts approaching, one friend quickly drops to the ground and begins tightening his shoelaces. The other friend, panicking, says: What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear! The friend calmly replies. I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you.
It’s the same thing about phone safety. You don’t need to have the most incredible phone safety protocol in the world. It just needs to be better than that of most other tourists. Do what you can not to be an easy mark, because most thieves are looking for an easy mark. All modern phones are password protected.
Some have some lock, unlock, some do facial recognition. Those things work great. But you must get into the habit of locking your phone when you’re not using it. It’ll save the battery too. Set up your phone to backup constantly. With iPhones, it’ll be on iCloud, and with Android it’ll be on your Google account.
My photos are also backed up to my OneDrive. You could use any backup system you want. There are many, but your device must be backed up, not a special backup that you run when you think about it, but one that runs all the time in the background. That way, if you lose your phone, you can get a new phone and restore the data, and it’s like, you never lost it at all.
It’s a pain because you probably won’t get that new phone for a few days, perhaps not until you get home, but at least you’ll find all your stuff again. iPhones have something called Find My Phone. Android phones have something called, I think it’s called, Find My Device.
Enable it, set it up before your trip. Should you lose your phone or have it stolen, you’ll need to log in to your Apple or Google account, know your password, to do any number of things, lock the phone, make it ring or buzz, wipe all its data, etc. But you need to know your credentials to log in to that Apple or Google account from a computer or from another phone.
So, there are some passwords you need to know, your Gmail, or whatever email you use, and your phone, either your Apple account, or your Google account.
Phones are getting more and more sophisticated and you’ll get to the point where stealing a phone will be totally useless and then it’ll stop.
Apple is getting there, I think, but not quite. And, you know, remember when people used to steal car radios until they made it useless because you couldn’t use a car radio in a different car. And so that stopped. It’ll happen with phones, but we’re not quite there yet.
Beware of public Wifi. This was especially true before Google forced every site pretty much to go to HTTPS instead of HTTP. But avoid accessing sensitive information like banking apps on public Wifi. This is one good reason to purchase data from your own phone provider. Say you’re with T Mobile or AT&T or any other provider.
If they are the ones giving you data in France, then it’s just as safe as if you were using your phone at home. I suppose you could rely on public Wifi and use a VPN, that’s a Virtual Private Network, to encrypt your data when connected to a public network. But that’ll cost you some money as well, and it’ll only work when you’re around public Wifi, so you might as well pay for data from your regular provider.
I know all American providers have something you can sign up for. It probably won’t be included in your regular service. By now, it’s a must have when traveling. I’m very lucky because my home phone plan is with Freemobile. It’s a French data provider. And we’ve had free roaming for years all over Europe, and the US, and Canada.
It’s not as fast sometimes as if I were at home, but it’s totally usable, and it’s safe, and in my case it’s free. Maybe it’ll be free for you as well, you do need to check.
And then there’s physical safety. Use a good phone case, a good screen protector, beware of your surroundings, be city smart, and don’t assume that that nice young lady asking you if you speak English needs your help.
When you’re not using it, your phone should have its screen locked and be in a zipped pocket. And if someone is trying to distract you, someone else is probably trying to rob you.
Don’t do anything difficult like figuring out the RER system when you’ve just arrived and are tired and jet lagged. Don’t be too trusting in new social situations, especially when drinking, okay, I’m showing my age, but it’s the reality, okay? When you start drinking, you get dumb.
So it’s easy, six steps, let’s recap.
Lock your phone when not in use, and put it in a zipped pocket.
Number two, enable continuous backups.
Number three, enable ‘Find my Phone’ and know your credentials.
Number four, buy data from your provider.
Number five, protect your phone with a case and a screen protector.
Number six, don’t tackle complex tasks like navigating the RER when tired and jet lagged.
You are now less exposed to ruining your vacation because of a thief.
My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast
[00:56:40] Annie Sargent: Next week on the podcast an episode with Elyse on the city of Bourges and its many hidden gems.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
Copyright
[00:56:54] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and Copyright 2024 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
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Episode Page Guest NotesCategories: Loire Valley, Off the Beaten Track in France