Table of Contents for this Episode
Category: Off the Beaten Track in France
[00:00:00] Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 531, cinq cent trente-et-un.
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
[00:00:30] Annie: Today, I bring you a trip report with Liz Van Monfort from Christchurch, New Zealand.
Liz spent six weeks traveling across France, soaking in the local culture, exploring historic landmarks, watching major sports events, and navigating the nuances of French daily life.
From the bustling streets of Paris to the charming villages of Provence, Liz shares her food adventures, transport tips and the joy of home exchanges. Have you noticed that the podcast is getting a little bit more international? I love it.
Podcast supporters
[00:01:04] Annie: 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.
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[00:01:24] Annie: There are only four spots left for the Bootcamp 2025, explore the Southwest with Annie and Elyse and a group of your fellow Francophiles and make fantastic memories. So you can browse all of that at the boutique: joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
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Magazine segment
[00:01:51] Annie: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Liz today, I’ll discuss Orlybus, cause there are some big changes coming soon. I’ll also discuss my major update to one of my Voicemap tours, my week in Paris, and most importantly for you, I’ll explain how lines and tickets work in Paris, because if you know what to expect, you’ll have a much better experience.
I’ll also explain why ‘skip the line’ tickets are a complete rip off in Paris.
Welcome Liz van Montfort
[00:02:30] Annie: Bonjour Liz van Montfort, and welcome to Join Us in France.
[00:02:33] Liz: Bonjour Annie.
[00:02:35] Annie: Lovely to have you all the way from New Zealand.
[00:02:38] Liz: Yes, Christchurch, New Zealand.
[00:02:40] Annie: Wonderful. So, you spent six weeks in France, which is something that very few people get to do. So I want to hear all about that. What motivated your trip? Where did you go? What did you love? What did you not love? All of that good stuff.
[00:02:56] Liz: All of that.
Planning the Trip for the Rugby World Cup
[00:02:57] Liz: So we spent six weeks in France last year, in 2023, in September and October. And we were there for the Rugby World Cup.
[00:03:05] Annie: And you were there for the whole thing?
[00:03:07] Liz: No, we missed… it was quite a long event, it went for about eight or nine weeks. So we missed the opening games, but we had tickets to the pool games, and to the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals which were in Paris.
[00:03:22] Annie: Right, so that took you all over France. There were rugby in many cities, right?
[00:03:27] Liz: There were, and my husband started booking tickets online about 18 months before the event, and our trip was completely dictated around rugby games.
[00:03:42] Annie: Yes, well, in New Zealand, rugby is a big deal, right?
[00:03:45] Liz: It’s a huge deal. We were traveling with another couple and the boys are totally obsessed with rugby.
[00:03:53] Annie: Well, you know, I’m from Toulouse, so I understand that.
[00:03:59] Liz: You had some rugby, I think, didn’t you?
[00:04:01] Annie: Yes, we had some. And really, I’m not sure the World Cup was that huge a deal here, I mean, there were some games, but what’s a bigger deal is the national championship. I mean, when the national championship is on, oh, it’s just a big, huge deal, yeah. Everybody goes downtown, like this year, they had a lot of successes.
Everybody goes downtown, they have to have a lot of security, although it usually goes really happy-go-lucky kind of celebration. So, we’ve been lucky that it’s been, it’s been fine, really.
[00:04:33] Liz: Yeah. Well, we had a great time. We were in Paris for the end and there was a lot of celebrations, and a lot of craziness, and a lot of fun.
[00:04:45] Annie: That’s wonderful. All right.
Traveling Across France
[00:04:47] Annie: So, from New Zealand, you flew through Singapore?
[00:04:50] Liz: That’s correct. From Christchurch to Singapore is 12 hours.And we stopped over on the way through, for a night, because we just got our life all sorted out for a six week holiday. So we were still a little bit fatigued by the time we got on the plane. So we stopped in Singapore for a night and then we travelled on and flew into Paris.
We’ve just sort of come out of that long lockdown period after COVID and we hadn’t travelled and all that sort of thing. So we were a bit scared about the crowd. And I booked a rural hotel in a little village called Maureguard, which was about 10 minutes from Charles de Gaulle. We stayed there for two nights just to, you know, get over the jet lag and find our feet again once we got to France. Because Christchurch-Singapore was sort of 12, 12 and a half hours, and then Singapore-Paris was about the same again.
[00:05:44] Annie: Right, it’s a brutal flight.
[00:05:47] Liz: It’s a long way.
[00:05:49] Annie: Yes, I, you know, when I go to the Western United States, it’s, you know, 11-12 hours and that feels like forever, but then you have to do that again.
[00:05:59] Liz: Yeah, well, on the way home, we didn’t stop over, we flew all the way home just with the hour and a half to run through Singapore airport to catch the connecting flight. But luckily on the airlines, they sort of treat it like a day you get on, you have your dinner, you go to bed and then you wake up and you’re in another country, so…
It wasn’t that bad.
[00:06:19] Annie: Have you done a lot of European trips, or not too many?
[00:06:23] Liz: My husband had, he’s been over twice. He did his big overseas thing when he left school. And we did a holiday in 1997 and then we had kids and our life wasn’t our own anymore.
So now they’re all grown up and the World Cup was a chance to, you know, get away and do some traveling again.
[00:06:43] Annie: So this was you, your husband, did any of your children come?
[00:06:48] Liz: No, no, our kids didn’t come. And we travelled with another couple who we’ve been friends with for years, and years, and years. And Paul and my husband Brian, they love rugby. And Lisa and I get on very well, so the trip was fantastic. We couldn’t have asked for better.
Getting Around France
[00:07:06] Annie: That’s wonderful. And how did you get around during your time in France?
[00:07:10] Liz: Oh gosh, it was quite, we did everything. We did,so we flew into France , then our first pool games were down in Lyon and we took a bus to Lyon.
[00:07:21] Annie: Oh.
[00:07:22] Liz: I know! We stopped in Dijon for a night and then took the bus the next day to Lyon. It was just quite good, you know, to be able to see a bit of the countryside.
Often in the fast trains you don’t get to see everything.
The FlixBus Experience
[00:07:35] Annie: Yeah. So was that a FlixBus or…?
[00:07:38] Liz: It was Flixbus.
[00:07:39] Annie: It was FlixBus. So the big green buses, yeah.
[00:07:42] Liz: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was an adventure.
[00:07:45] Annie: Give us some details of why it was an adventure.
[00:07:48] Liz: We were still getting our French shoes on, So we’d just arrived, we’d had our two nights at Maureguard, and then the next day we took the bus to Dijon, and that was from Bercy Seine bus station in Paris. Which was a little bit, yeah, a little bit unsafe.
[00:08:06] Annie: Yeah, yeah, it’s not the best part of town, yeah.
[00:08:10] Liz: No, no. So that was interesting, but we were really aware of our surroundings and our security.
So, that was good. Trying to find a few bus stops was a bit challenging. Trying to cope with the pace of everybody else knowing what was going on. And we really didn’t. But it was good. We got to see France from the road and from a good perspective.
And it was really nice.
[00:08:32] Annie: Right, once you’re in the bus, it’s fine, the buses themselves are fine. It’s just the train station, the bus stations are sometimes, because FlixBus it’s not an expensive way to travel, so sometimes you get… you know, tickets for like 10 euros. They can’t afford a massive, beautiful terminal in central Paris, it’s a budget kind of operation.
[00:08:54] Liz: Yeah, and it was budget. It cost us nine euro each to go from Paris to Dijon. And then Dijon to Lyon was about 11 euro each. So, you know, it was definitely budget, but it was good.
[00:09:05] Annie: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:09:08] Liz: And then after we were in Lyon for a couple of nights for two rugby games. And after that we hired a car, and we drove down to Provence.
Driving in France
[00:09:17] Liz: The boys were driving. They had both bought their international license with them, and they’d both driven in Europe previously, so they were okay with the, so down here in New Zealand, the driver’s seat is on the right hand side of the car, and we drive on the left hand side of the road. And in Europe it’s the opposite.
So things like roundabouts and merging traffic can get a wee bit challenging. So the boys drove, I was navigator and it went really well. Yeah, really well.
[00:09:49] Annie: Cool. So you mentioned that they brought their international driver’s licenses. Did anybody ask to see that or were they just happy with their New Zealand driver’s licenses?
[00:09:59] Liz: I think when we hired the car, like at check in, they asked to see the international one.They probably would have been fine with our normal one, because I think as long as it’s all written in English, and they can cope with it. Yeah.
[00:10:13] Annie: Yeah, as far as I know, the only time they ask for the international driver’s license, it’s when you have a different alphabet. If your original driver’s license isn’t Chinese characters or Japanese characters, or Arabic, or Hebrew or something very, you know, unintelligible to Europeans, then they need the international.
But otherwise, if it’s the Roman alphabet, they are fine, yeah.
[00:10:39] Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Exploring Provence
[00:10:40] Liz: So, when we were staying down in Provence and we were driving, we had a few day trips out, which was really nice. We went to Cassis, up to the castle at Les Baux.
[00:10:51] Annie: Les Baux, yes, yes, yes, Les Baux de Provence.
How did you like that?
[00:10:55] Liz: It was beautiful, oh, it was beautiful. And just to have something, you know, that old, New Zealand’s a relatively new country, we’ve only been here for a sort of couple of hundred years, so we don’t have a lot of ruins and things. So that was amazing. And the light show was amazing at Les Baux.
[00:11:13] Annie: So yeah, that’s Les Carrières de Lumière is what you meant, what you’re talking about, yeah.
[00:11:18] Liz: Yeah, that was incredible actually. It was really mind blowing to just be in the cave it was really good .
[00:11:24] Annie: Yeah. Right. so this has come up a lot on the podcast, but I’ll explain it briefly again. This is an old quarry, so they’ve extracted these big, beautiful, white stones, and they now have all these walls and ceilings, and they project images, you know, it’s all digital stuff, but it’s on a theme.
Typically, it’s an artist or one or more artists, and there’s also some sound. And it’s very immersive. They try to repeat the experience in other places, in many cities in the world, you can buy tickets, but you end up being in a warehouse with light and sound. And it’s not the same as the original in Les Baux de Provence, because that is just a beautiful setting.
And you feel the coolness of the space and the sound is very rich in the cave.
[00:12:23] Liz: And the grandeur as well, the grandeur of it was just incredible, you know, I don’t know how high those walls were, but it was incredible. So yeah, that was… that was great. And then the wee township of Les Baux, and the castle, that was a great day trip out for us.
[00:12:39] Annie: The town is very touristic in the summer, you know, there’s a lot of people. Oh, I didn’t ask you what time of year, but the Rugby World Cup was in September, October, right?
[00:12:48] Liz: Yeah, September, October. So it was the end of summer. It was still quite warm down in Provence.There wasn’t the huge crowds, but then we avoided them as well, so we didn’t go to any big cities. Yeah.
[00:13:01] Annie: Yeah, wonderful. And so, you also went to some games, obviously, in Provence, I assume.
[00:13:08] Liz: The boys went to rugby games in Lyon, so that was their first two, or four pool games.And so there was two on the first weekend, like the Friday, Saturday, and then we went back for maybe Friday, Saturday again for two more games.
[00:13:26] Annie: So do they paint their face, and bring a flag, and all of that?
[00:13:29] Liz: Oh yeah, they bring a flag and… yeah… yeah. We were number one supporters.
[00:13:37] Annie: I love that. We just got done with the regular Olympics as we record this, with the Paralympics to follow, but plenty of people with painted faces, and flags, and hats, and all of that sort of stuff. It’s great fun.
[00:13:53] Liz: Yeah. So, after we were down in Lyon, we had, again, it was one of those sort of impulse things. My husband decided that we should go to Barcelona because it was cheap.
[00:14:04] Annie: Okay.
[00:14:05] Liz: We flew to Barcelona just for a couple of days before going back up to Paris for the quarterfinals and semifinals and the final, of course.
So, we had our little time in Barcelona, which, it was okay, but it wasn’t France. We were, by then, we’d had a couple of weeks in France, and we were just smitten. And, so, we had our time in Barcelona, and then we flew back to Paris, and we had three weeks in Paris.
Home Exchange Experience in Paris
[00:14:33] Liz: And while we were staying in Paris, we had a home exchange apartment. So we are part of the homeexchange.com website, and by being members of that for the last four years, we were able to secure an apartment in Paris for the whole time we were there. And it didn’t really cost us anything, which was fantastic.
So, yeah, and it was in the 17th Arrondissement, so, nice and central to, you know, that was ten minutes from the Arc de Triomphe, and we had a nice little neighbourhood with a supermarket and our coffee shop, and we worked out where our metro stations were.
And it was fantastic. It was a two bedroom apartment, you know, in one of your beautiful old buildings with a balcony.
[00:15:23] Annie: Nice. Nice. So how does that work? Home Exchange? We haven’t talked about that very much on the podcast. Tell me how that works.
[00:15:29] Liz: So, homeexchange.com is a website where you register to exchange your home with the other like-minded travellers, I guess. You pay an annual fee, which is about probably a hundred and, maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty US a year.
[00:15:50] Annie: Mm hmm.
[00:15:51] Liz: And then, when you decide that you’re going to go somewhere, through the website, you just approach people.
We approached people who had secondary residences in Paris. Because then we knew that we wouldn’t have to have a reciprocal, so we didn’t have to manage people coming to our house when we weren’t here, basically.
[00:16:11] Annie: Uh huh.
[00:16:12] Liz: Yeah, because not many people would probably want to come to Christchurch for six weeks.
So, we got our apartment over there for three weeks, and it was a two bedroom apartment. So, if you look at the fees we paid probably for the four years, it might have cost us $450, but it was still, you know, an absolute steal when you’re looking at hotel or AirBnB or paying for accommodation in Paris.
[00:16:39] Annie: Right. And so you don’t have to have people in your own home, in exchange.
[00:16:45] Liz: No. Eventually you do, because the currency is in the website, so when people come and stay in our home, we get guest points and then we use those guest points to stay somewhere else.
[00:17:01] Annie: I see.
[00:17:02] Liz: Yeah, so it builds up the currency within the website.
[00:17:06] Annie: But at this point, you have never had anybody stay at your home.
[00:17:09] Liz: We have, we just didn’t want to, yeah, we didn’t want to do it for that six weeks. Well, we had a house sitter here as well looking after the dog, so it wasn’t, doing a reciprocal wasn’t really going to work for us.
[00:17:22] Annie: But it’s true that it would work out well for people who have a secondary residence because then you’re not there all the time by definition. So you could probably let somebody else have it while and accrue points for your own trips.
[00:17:37] Liz: Yeah. Yeah. So, worked really well, really well for us, and like I said it was in a great location and just in an apartment building,
[00:17:46] Annie: Yeah, I assume there’s like everything else you get, you get to read reviews of people who’ve been in that property before.
[00:17:53] Liz: Yeah, and reviews on, you know, you get reviewed, so people can trust that you’re okay, and you’re going to look after their home. And yeah, you get to see pictures, and now with, you know, Google Maps and that sort of thing, you can just sort of zoom in and have a look and know that it’s all good.
[00:18:11] Annie: Right.
[00:18:12] Liz: We also stayed in a home exchange in Dijon, and we did another wee side trip over to Europe and we got to use it over there too in Windsor.
[00:18:20] Annie: And that was fine?
[00:18:21] Liz: Yeah, it was all good.
[00:18:22] Annie: Oh, that’s good to know. Because it’s not something that’s come up a lot on the podcast. I think a couple of people have mentioned it though, but it’s good to know that it, that it works out.
Sightseeing and Day Trips from Paris
[00:18:32] Annie: And so while you were in Paris, you visited Paris, I assume.
[00:18:36] Liz: Oh, we visited Paris. On our first day in Paris we got to vote in the New Zealand general election. So we had to… we had to find the New Zealand embassy so we could cast our absentee votes. So that was quite kind of cool.
[00:18:52] Annie: And where is that? Is that by the Eiffel Tower?
[00:18:55] Liz: No, it’s down near Concord.
[00:18:57] Annie: Okay. Okay. Oh, so it’s by the American embassy.
[00:19:02] Liz: Yeah. Yeah. So it was down there. And we went and did that on our first day and then on the way back from there, there was a lot of police blowing their whistles and road closures and a lot of security. And we later found out that the president of Mongolia was visiting and so he got to have horses and brass bands and all manner of things.
Yeah, so it was kind of cool to see because it was a whole lot of… a whole lot of busyness for this guy.
[00:19:38] Annie: So you saw the Garde Republicaine, the French, you know, kind of show off guard.
[00:19:43] Liz: Yeah, yeah, we did. Yeah, yeah. So that was cool. And while we’re in Paris also, so we were there for rugby games. So basically we had rugby games each weekend.And during the weekdays, we could do some sightseeing and things. So we, again, being a bit scared of crowds, we took the double decker bus to sort of have a look at all the sights of Paris.
We had been to Paris before, we’d been up the Eiffel Tower, we’d been to the Arc de Triomphe, I think we’d been out to Versailles even before, so we didn’t bother with a lot of those things. We saw them all from the top of the double decker bus, which was fantastic. But we didn’t have to fight with the thousands of people on the ground to get close. So, we did that for a day. We did a day out to Reims.
to Veuve Clicquot, to the, we did the wine tour out there, which was, again, amazing. We took the train to go out there, the high speed train, was it the RER?
[00:20:47] Annie: The TGV.
[00:20:48] Liz: TGV, there we go!
[00:20:50] Annie: RER is the regional train around Paris.
[00:20:53] Liz: Oh, okay. Yep. It is a train, yeah, we took the TGV out to Reims, so we just did a day trip out there to the, to Veuve Clicquot, and we also did a couple of days to Northern France And we visited the war graves from World War I. So we stayed in Ypres, which is in Belgium, just over the border, and we visited probably about, oh, maybe six Commonwealth war grave cemeteries. I have great great uncles buried in two of them and Paul, who was traveling with us, he had family members buried as well at Passchendaele.
So, that was an amazing trip. It completely blew me away about how well kept the graves are, and how well respected the fallen soldiers have been, so…
[00:21:51] Annie: Yeah. You didn’t, you didn’t go to see the La Bataille d’Arras. There’s a big New Zealand kind of memorial, where they dug out tunnels. They sent a group of folks from New Zealand to dig out tunnels. Ah, let me, let me find that. Keep, keep talking. I’ll find it.
[00:22:14] Liz: Yeah, yeah, we didn’t… we didn’t go there, I do know about it because my daughter’s a surveyor a land surveyor at Herb’s Survey School, they have mapped those tunnels again, and that, it must be around the Somme somewhere.
[00:22:30] Annie: Right. Right. So it’s, I think it’s in Arras. Let me find it. It was one of the last things we did on our trip.
[00:22:39] Liz: Was it World War I?
[00:22:40] Annie: Yes. Okay. La Carrière Wellington. So the Wellington monument.
Exploring the Tunnels of Arras
[00:22:48] Annie: And I can show you, I’ll show you some photos. Obviously, people who are listening to the episode can’t see the photos, but it’ll probably jot your memory, if you have been there. That’s the entrance. So you have this long, kind of,it’s not a very nice looking entrance, but it’s all about the soldiers who liberated Arras, and there were a lot of tunnelers from New Zealand who came and just dug up tunnels, and the whole point of digging up these tunnels was to then explode them once they knew there were German troops above. You know, it’s a… it’s a really interesting part of history.
[00:23:38] Liz: It really is. No, we didn’t go there, unfortunately.
We only had, we had a couple of nights in Ypres and…
[00:23:44] Annie: Yeah, there are so many, you can’t see them all, that’s the problem, you know, there are many, many, and you definitely cannot see them all. So I’m going to, I’m going to tell you exactly where it is, just a sec. It’s in Arras, it’s in the City of Arras, Rue Arthur de l’Etoile, is where it is exactly. But at any rate, people who want to see the Carrière Wellington…
[00:24:09] Liz: That’ll be next time.
[00:24:11] Annie: And it’s a… it’s a beautiful moving memorial as well, but there are many, that’s the problem with World War I, there were, it was such a big area, well it’s the same with World War II really, there’s so many sites that you can visit.
Visiting World War I Memorials
[00:24:24] Liz: We went to Polygon Wood, and Hubertine Cemeteries. We also went to the New Zealand Memorial again, which is just over the border in Belgium. The boys wanted to go to one of the graveyards where there was a rugby boy buried.
A Day in Dunkirk
[00:24:45] Liz: And we also went up to Dunkirk. So we came back over the border and went up to Dunkirk Beach.
[00:24:53] Annie: What’s that like? Because I haven’t been, I wanted to go to Dunkirk, to the beach and I, we didn’t make it.
[00:24:58] Liz: It was good. There’s a little bit of memorabilia around. There’s not as much as I imagine there is up at Normandy.And again, more time next time. Just, you know, just to really be able to find out a bit more of the history around that.
[00:25:18] Annie: It’s really hard to appreciate how long, or how short, things are going to take. One of the biases that people have about visiting France is that they think that, for example, they think in Provence, you need a day per village, and you really don’t, you don’t. In Provence those villages, if you go on market day, perhaps it’ll take you four hours. And if you don’t go on market day in two hours, you’re done.
It’s really hard for people who, visitors who don’t know the area to have an appreciation, but to see World War I or World War II sites in either Normandy, or inthe Lille area, Somme, et cetera, it takes more time because these sites are spread out. And you need time to get there and to visit.
I mean, some of these visits will take several hours, because there are some, I mean, I haven’t been to Ypres, but I assume it takes some time to visit the sites.
[00:26:21] Liz: And Ypres is amazing. They have a, they have an Anzac memorial service every evening at 8 o’clock, and they have done since 1927.
[00:26:32] Annie: Wow.
[00:26:33] Liz: I know and every night they have a big crowd there and they, yeah, they have a full ANZAC service with the last post and yeah, it’s amazing. So we were really fortunate to be able to spend some time there.
We had a couple of nights and they’ve got a good museum, and we had a car, you definitely need a car when you’re up there.
[00:26:58] Annie: Oh yes.
[00:26:58] Liz: Otherwise, you can’t get round.
[00:27:01] Annie: Right.
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Experiencing Parisian Life
[00:27:03] Annie: So, tell me more about your time in Paris. How did you, because you were in Paris a while, so what did you do every day?
[00:27:10] Liz: On the days when we had rugby, the rugby started at 9 o’clock at night, so we had to, we’d generally have a bit of a rest during the afternoon, and then have dinner, early dinner. And we’d have to leave to take the metro normally about 6-6:30. And the metro was jammed with people. There was one we went on to the Irish game. It was so cramped, I could only stand on one foot. I couldn’t… It was so cramped. And then by the time you got there and you got through the crowds and you got through the security and then you got into the stand, we were normally sort of into our seats at about 8:30.
Then you had to, at the end of the game, at 11 o’clock when it finished, you know, you were turning around and you were doing the reverse, so we weren’t getting home until sort of 1-1:30. So that kind of, the Friday and Saturday night games, that kind of took up the full days and the next morning. We just did some normal day trips. We did the Wargraves which was an overnight. We did a day trip to the Chateau de Chantilly.
[00:28:23] Annie: Ah, yes, that’s right.
[00:28:25] Liz: Yes, which I absolutely loved.
[00:28:28] Annie: Right, and so you took the train there, right?
[00:28:30] Liz: Well, that was actually at the end of our trip and we had a car.
So, on the last day we picked up a car from the airport and we did that and we stayed out that way. We went to one of the markets, the big market, and I can’t remember its name, and I didn’t put it in my notes.
[00:28:49] Annie: There’s so many in Paris.
[00:28:51] Liz: I mean, there’s dozens of them, so…
I know, I know. That was really cool though. We went and had lunch and we sort of met a few of the local stallholders, and things like that. So that was, it was, really nice.
[00:29:04] Annie: Did you go to any museums or took tours or anything like that?
[00:29:08] Liz: No, we didn’t. No, we had a talk. We had a day down in, we went down to see how Notre Dame’s coming along and had lunch down there.
We just sort of generally went to areas and had lunch and had a bit of a walk around, checked out some of the shops, and the markets and… No, we didn’t, we didn’t go to any museums, didn’t go to the Louvre, didn’t…
Cooking
[00:29:31] Annie: So, how are things different when, because I assume you cooked for yourself since you had an apartment? Right, so how was that different from cooking at home? Like, did you find the same stuff at the grocery store that you’re used to? Was it very different? Somewhat similar? How was it?
[00:29:46] Liz: No, so we went to the grocery store, every, we’d have breakfast at home, and then we’d go out for coffee.And we’d normally have lunch out, and then we’d have dinner back at home. So we would just buy from the supermarket, normally some sort of easy ready meals, or pre made salads and that sort of thing.
Cheese, we’d have croissants for breakfast, we absolutely loved all of the French food. The baguettes were beautiful. Everything from, you know, the patisserie, croissants every day with beautiful cheeses and things like that, so yeah. So, we might have gone out for dinner a couple of times, I think we mainly went out when we weren’t back in Paris, well, we called Paris home, while we were back at home, we just, we always just prepared a meal.
[00:30:38] Annie: Uhhuh. How about prices? Did you find prices startlingly low or high or…?
[00:30:43] Liz: Well, it doesn’t pay to convert it back to the New Zealand dollar because everything was double. So whenever… yeah, I know… that meant my coffee cost $15. So, basically we just didn’t think about that. We kind of had a bit of a rule that we spent under 20 Euro on a meal.
And that was okay. You can get, you know, crepes, and pizza, and burgers, and that kind of food for under 20 Euro. It was mainly lunch menus and coffee. Everything else we ate at home.
[00:31:19] Annie: Did you like the coffee? Or, some people say it’s horrible, some people say they love it, but where did you fall on that?
[00:31:25] Liz: Well, I really liked it, and a lot of the time it wasn’t barista made coffee, it was machine made coffee, but yeah, it worked for us.
[00:31:36] Annie: It was fine.
[00:31:37] Liz: Yeah, it was fine. Yeah, down in New Zealand we do a lot more barista made as opposed to barista machine made, you know, where they just push the button and the cappuccino comes out kind of thing.
That’s what we got a lot in France, it was really nice.
[00:31:56] Annie: Yeah, so it sounds like you did, like, you didn’t do a lot of research about the restaurants when you were eating out at lunch, you just found a place you liked.
[00:32:03] Liz: Found a place we liked, at a time we liked, you know, we were generally a bit later, but we could always find something.
[00:32:12] Annie: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Navigating Paris with Ease
[00:32:13] Annie: And in Paris to get around you used the Navigo Pass. Did you get a Navigo Easy, or a Navigo Weekly, or…?
[00:32:21] Liz: Navigo Weekly. So we got that when we first arrived, and we just topped that up each week.
[00:32:29] Annie: Uh huh.
[00:32:30] Liz: We needed it for the rugby, a couple of nights a week and then just getting around to, tootling around in the neighbourhoods and things. We could use it for the buses as well.
[00:32:40] Annie: So I assume for the rugby, you mostly went to Stade de France in Saint Denis? Mm hmm. Uh huh. That area has changed a lot, by the way, because of the Olympics, because that’s where the Olympics village is, so they’ve improved the area quite a bit. And they use the Stade de France for a lot of rugby, rugby seven, and also soccer, I think.
[00:33:02] Liz: Yeah. We didn’t feel unsafe at all. The security was amazing. The metro operation was amazing. It was so well organized on game nights there was extra staff on, they were helpful, there was extra security, there was police on horses, they would, you know, control the crowd when everybody is leaving and there was just masses and masses of people because it’s… I think it’s about 80,000 per game.
It was a lot of people to manage, you know, funneling into the metro. As an area, that Saint Denis, it was really good. It was nice, and it was safe, and it was really well managed.
Getting around Paris
[00:33:41] Annie: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Did you find navigation in Paris complicated, easy? What apps did you use? How did you get around that way?
[00:33:50] Liz: In Paris, we had an app, I think for transport, we had an app.We walked a lot.
[00:33:58] Annie: Yeah.
[00:33:59] Liz: Good old Google Maps, you know.
We just walked, used the metro, used the bus if we ended up somewhere where we kind of didn’t really know where we were. The bus is sometimes easier than the metro because, you know, you’re above ground and you can see where you’re at.
We found it pretty easy just with plugging the information into Google and it would tell ushow long it was going to be to walk, how long, which metro to take.
[00:34:22] Annie: So how, do you speak French at all or a little bit or…?
[00:34:26] Liz: No, just a little bit. We were good with our, we did a French word of the day to try and elaborate on some of our conversations. I had done a bit on Duolingo to prepare for the trip and it wasn’t helpful at all, really. It didn’t give me the stuff I needed to talk about, you know, as a tourist. But we got by with our little bit of French and people were always, you know, really, really helpful.
We’d let them know that we were from New Zealand and, you know, on game day they could tell you were from New Zealand because, you know, you had your jerseys on and everything like that.
[00:35:05] Annie: When you paint your face it’s easy to tell.
[00:35:08] Liz: Ah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. So, no, the language, the only time the language was truly a problem was with our washing machine in the apartment because it was a combo washer dryer, and all of the instructions were in French and everything I googled up online was in French as well, and it became a bit of a lottery.
You put your washing in, you didn’t know if it was going to get washed or dried, or washed twice, or dried once, or whatever.
[00:35:42] Annie: It’s surprising the number of people who report stories like this, where the washers and dryers were just difficult. They didn’t, weren’t sure how to make them run.
[00:35:51] Liz: No, no, but that’s alright. I spent a couple of hours sitting on the floor in the kitchen trying to read a manual online and didn’t work, but that’s alright.
[00:36:02] Annie: Yeah. I never bought a washer dryer. I have one of each. Different machines, it’s much simpler, you know, it’s either on, or not.
[00:36:12] Liz: That’s right.
[00:36:14] Annie: Yeah.
[00:36:14] Liz: That’s right.
In Paris also, a couple of times we took Ubers or Bolt cars, which was a little bit of a problem because we were four adults, and four bags, and our four carry on backpacks. And we couldn’t fit all our luggage in a lot of the time.
So we had to split up and take two.
Yeah.
[00:36:36] Annie: Yeah, and besides with Uber, they don’t let anybody sit by the driver. So if there’s four of you, you need a bigger car.
[00:36:45] Liz: Yeah, even taxis that we took, it was a bit of a problem with our luggage, but they managed to, most of the time, they managed to squeeze us in. And even with the hire car as well, when we were down in Provence and we had the hire car, we had a larger car, we had an SUV, but it still wouldn’t take four bags, which… bit of a trick, trick for young players.
So we just smiled, we smiled and waved and popped one in the car and… because we were staying somewhere for a long period of time we said is it right we’re only we’re traveling there, we can put with put up with one in the back seat.
[00:37:22] Annie: Yeah.
[00:37:23] Liz: Yeah.
Reflections on the French Adventure
[00:37:23] Annie: So what did you learn about France on this trip? Because six weeks, I mean, this is really a long time to spend. What did you learn about France? Did you make memories?
[00:37:33] Liz: Oh my gosh. We absolutely love France. I’d visited France in the late 90s and I didn’t like it very much, I have to say. But this time, I think with age, and maturity, we just had a great time. We want to go back. We want to go back and spend a long period of time. The people were so friendly.
They were so helpful. We didn’t come across anybody that made our trip unpleasant.
[00:38:01] Annie: Mm-hmm
[00:38:01] Liz: Everybody was fantastic. There were a couple of times we were on the metro and we could clearly see pickpocketers at work, and that sort of stuff, butwe looked after ourselves and we had no problems at all.
Wise cards for payments
[00:38:15] Annie: You mentioned that you use Wise card for payments. Tell me a little bit more about that.
[00:38:21] Liz: So. The WISE card worked really, really well. It was contactless most of the time, just on our phones. We did have a card as well for backup. You can load up, I think up to 30 currencies on it. And you can control it all by an app, you know, if you lose the card or you lose your phone, you can hop online and you can cancel the card and you can lock it so nobody can use it.
We had Euros on there, we had our New Zealand money, you know, Singapore dollars. And you can just move it all around. And because there was four of us travelling, we also used an app called Splitwise, where if we were at a restaurant for lunch, then one person would pay, because you can’t get separate bills a lot of the time. And then at the end of the night, the boys would just sit down and work out who paid for what with tolls, and food and coffes and put it all into Splitwise and there’d be a residual amount which they just transferred between them on the Wise card. So it worked really, really well. Our finances, you know, they were really easy to manage.
[00:39:29] Annie: Mm hmm. When you had to buy train tickets, did you do it at the train station or did you use an app or… the SNCF Connect?
[00:39:37] Liz: Yeah, we used an app for all of that travel.
[00:39:40] Annie: Uh huh.
[00:39:41] Liz: There was a special one that the boys had got sorted out.
Yeah, it was the SNCF Connect app for the trains and buses. And, I think you can only book your trains about three months in advance?
[00:39:56] Annie: Right. Right.
[00:39:58] Liz: Yeah.
[00:39:58] Annie: Some trains, it’s six months in advance, but mostly it’s three months in advance.
[00:40:02] Liz: Yeah. Yeah. So, we got a couple booked in advance, but some of them we didn’t get really good deals on because we were sort of quite late notice, but that was all right.
[00:40:13] Annie: Yeah, with fast trains, with the TGVs, you need to book them in advance, or you will pay very often more than a plane, as a matter of fact. If I try to book a train to go to Paris tomorrow, it would be more expensive than flying.
[00:40:27] Liz: Right.
[00:40:28] Annie: You have to plan these things in advance.
The last question I asked is, was your trip restful or stressful? And you say it was restful and if you had your time…
Short trip to London
[00:40:37] Annie: oh, you also took a side trip to London.
[00:40:40] Liz: Yeah, we did. We popped over to London. I had a old aunt that I was hoping to see. Unfortunately, she passed away two months before her 100th birthday.
[00:40:50] Annie: Oh dear. Wow.
[00:40:51] Liz: I know. I know. So, we carried on anyway and we popped over to see family in London. We went over on the Eurostar.
[00:41:01] Annie: How was that?
[00:41:02] Liz: It was great. Yeah, it was great.
It was really, again, you know, your public transport is so well organised and it’s so efficient and it just, it just goes A to B.
[00:41:14] Annie: Yeah, that’s good. You also mentioned that you only started listening to the podcast after you had your trip.
[00:41:21] Liz: I know, how useless was that? But now I’m at an absolute, like, I think I’ve listened, you’ve done over, well over 500 now, and I think I’ve listened to about 300 of them already.
[00:41:33] Annie: Wow.
[00:41:35] Liz: I know! I know! I listen to them every day when I walk the dog.
[00:41:39] Annie: Wow. And you managed just fine. Like you were well prepared, and it sounds like you had a great time. So good on you.
[00:41:47] Liz: Yeah, I know, but you see, you’ve given me so many more things that I want to come back and do. So our next trip is going to… it’s going to have to be more like six months or a year to fit it all in.
[00:41:59] Annie: Wonderful. All right. Well, Liz, thank you so much for talking to me. I think we need to say goodbye because we’ve been talking a long time, but thank you so very much for sharing all these experiences and I hope you get to come back. And like most people in New Zealand, Australia, most of you come for a long time.
Like you don’t stay a week, you stay a month.
[00:42:24] Liz: Exactly. So it will be a long time for the next trip, definitely.
[00:42:29] Annie: Wonderful. Merci beaucoup, Liz.
[00:42:32] Liz: Merci. Au revoir.
[00:42:33] Annie: Au revoir!
Thank you Patrons
[00:42:41] Annie: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patreon supporters get new episodes as soon as they are ready and ad-free. Please be like them, follow the link in the show notes. Patrons get exclusive rewards and you can see all of them at patreon.com/joinus.
A special shout out this week to my new, one and only, Join us in France paid champion, Neil Jaynert, who chose to be at the ‘Groupie du Podcast’ level yearly. Thank you so much, Neil. And to all my current patrons, it is wonderful to have you on board in the community of travel enthusiasts and Francophiles who keep this podcast going.
And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/ElyseArt.
Thank you also Meris Ruzow for your one time donation, although in your case, it wasn’t just one time. You are a repeat donor. Thank you. Using any of the green buttons on Join Us in France that say ‘Tip your guide’. Maris wrote: Thank you for all your continuing help, Annie. Well, thank you for your support, Meris.
Now, if you’re thinking about taking a trip to France this year or next, and you have a hard time deciding what to do, I can help you with my 1-1 consultation on Zoom.I offer two levels of Itinerary Consultations on Zoom to help you plan your trip. Bonjour and VIP. Of course, you get more for the VIP, but they’re both really, really good. Sometimes asking a local is the best way to get all your questions answered. And again, you can see the details and book it at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
Orly Airport Bus Service
[00:44:23] Annie: Here’s an update for anyone planning to travel to Orly airport in the near future. Many of you flying in from North America, or Australia, or New Zealand arrive at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Some of you flying in from England arrive at the other major airport, the other international airport in Paris.
That’s the Orly Airport. And all domestic flights, pretty much, leave from Orly. Île de France Mobilités, that’s the regional transportation authority for Paris, has announced the discontinuation of the Orly bus service starting March 3rd, 2025. Why? Well, it’s all thanks to the hugely successful extension of Metro Line 14, which now serves the airport directly.
Since the Metro’s expansion, ridership on the Orly bus has dropped by over 80% with some buses even running completely empty. The Line 14 extension operated by the RATP has made getting to Orly a breeze. The train runs every 95 seconds during peak times, and soon that’ll be every 85 seconds.
It’s a quick 25 minute ride from Châtelet to Orly.It’s no wonder passengers have switched to this faster and more frequent option. In comparison, the Orly bus takes 30 minutes and only runs every 20 to 30 minutes, so it’s just not as convenient.
By closing the Orly bus, the transport authority aims to save public money, reduce waste, and cut unnecessary air pollution. That said, they’ll still provide substitute buses to the airport if there’s ever a disruption on line 14, which can happen. If you’re planning a trip to Orly, now is the time to get familiar with line 14. It’s efficient, quick, and an excellent way to travel. And that’s your transportation update for today.
Updated Voicemap Tour Ile de la Cité
[00:46:26] Annie: I was in Paris last week to make a major update to my Ile de la Cité tour. The fire at Notre Dame happened while I was putting the last touches to that tour in 2019.
As a result, I had to go back to Paris in a hurry and completely change the last third of the tour so you’d walk around the cathedral and see it from a distance, since nobody could get close. Of course, that’s not necessary anymore. Access to the cathedral has been completely restored. Well, not a hundred percent, but mostly.
So, I decided to go back and modify the tour the way I had originally written it, but never released it. The changes start right after the Sainte Chapelle and go up until the end. Many of you probably bought this tour. And if you did, you can get the update for free, open the Voicemap app, tap on the library at the bottom, then go to the tours you’ve downloaded.
It says downloaded at the top, tap on the dot, dot, dot, and then select to delete the tour. Now go to the ‘Ready to download’ tab and download that tour again. It’s as simple as that. Now, this original tour is about the entire Ile de la Cité.
Walking the whole thing takes two hours and I didn’t want to make it any longer. But, while I was working on it and with a smart suggestion from my friend, Patricia, with whom I was staying, I realized that I also really needed to write a new tour that is just about Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, and the Conciergerie.
And since 2019, the VoiceMap app itself has also been improved a lot, and now I can use it to take you inside of buildings, which is what I’ll do with this new tour. I plan to get back to Paris in March to work on the new tour and test it as many times as it takes to make it just right. For now, it’s all in my head, but I think it’s going to be very, very cool.
Paris in January was wet and cold, but as lovely as ever. There were quite a few visitors, more than I can remember in January’s past. I mean, I’ve been there in January many times, but that was a lot of people, I thought. I got to try several new restaurants around Notre Dame. I always try several restaurants and recommend my favorites in the tour.
And I was happily surprised by one of them. Another one is still great, but probably, only for folks who speak very good French. The Saint Régis, which is the restaurant I was recommending in the original version of the tour, is still a solid choice.
One was meh, and the other we walked out on, so… I shared all the details and photos with my patrons. It’s always tricky finding good restaurants in a super touristy area like Notre Dame. But it can be done and I do try as hard as I can.
Patricia, Jennifer, and I also took a day trip to Chartres on the train, and we will record an episode about that soon. So you’ll get to hear all about that in that episode.
Patricia’s Magic Cards or How to Get Through Security Fast
[00:49:43] Annie: Patricia has what she calls magic cards. Those are wonderful. I’m going to tell you a little bit about them. She purchases an annual pass for several museums in Paris and that gives her faster access because you jump towards the front of the security queue.
In Paris, what slows you down is the security line. Even in January. And even if you have a museum pass or a timed entry ticket you have to suffer through the long security line. I asked the man who was filtering at the Grand Palais if he would have let us in with a museum pass and he said no. Only for VIP guests, I guess if you’re coming with the mayor, you’re in.
And annual pass holders, okay? Patricia knows a lot of people and loves all the cultural offerings of Paris. She goes to museums all the time. It’s worth it to her to get the annual pass. And she’s very generous and gets the card for two people. But for regular people, for you listening, even for people who plan ahead and buy tickets in advance with timed tickets, you know, count on 20 to 30 minutes in line for security.
Some places are worse than others, of course. I know some of you who go back to Paris every year or perhaps twice a year also get the annual pass because it gives you fast access, early access, a discount at the gift shop. You can go into the special exhibits when they happen.
It’s really good. The annual membership is the only way to skip the line in Paris, okay? Because it takes you to the front of the security line and you already have your waltz in ticket. Because with an annual pass, you can go whenever you want. No need to reserve, you can just go.
So I’m sorry to say all the companies that sell ‘skip the line’ tickets are American travel companies that you’ve all heard of, and you’ve all used, and they’re ripping you off. They charge 50 bucks or more for a timed entry ticket that you could have bought by yourself by going to the official website of the venue and paid the normal entry fee.
There are even scammers selling tickets to skip the line at Notre Dame when entrance is free… free! And the only way to get in faster is to be going to Mass. So, people will try to scam you out of money every which way. And there are people who know absolutely nothing about Paris, but they do know how to make a website rank on Google, and that’s what they use to get money from you.
So security at the San Chapelle is particularly slow because there is one airport, like full body scanner, you know, like when you lift your hands and, you know, and the thing goes around you. There’s one of those in there and everyone has to go through it. And it’s the one access for both the St. Chapelle and the courthouse. And the reason why it’s a full body scanner is because it’s a courthouse, of course. There to jump the queue, you would, you would have to be with a live tour guide or be a VIP or have the annual pass. Or have a letter asking you to report to the courthouse specific day, specific time.
But once you get through security, you get to the ticket line and it’s trivial by comparison because they have more than one person selling tickets and you know, there’s nobody there.
There’s other places where it’s easy peasy. We went to Les Invalides so Musée de l’armée des Invalides where… Napoleon’s tomb. Okay? We went on Sunday morning and there was no line. And by the way, Les Invalides, it’s really cool because you can get into the beautiful courtyard, into the beautiful church, without a ticket.
They only ask for a ticket when you enter specific museum areas within the complex. And they have more than one place to buy the ticket once you get past security. So, Les Invalides is really easy.
I’m not telling you all of this to talk you out of going to Paris, of course, but I would like you to understand how this works so you don’t end up with a useless, skip the line ticket in Paris.
Perhaps get an annual membership at your favorite Paris museum, because that’s where the magic card is, you know. And be prepared to be in line for security just about anywhere you want to visit in Paris.
And by the way, the security checks at Notre Dame has gotten very good and very fast. They have new airport like portals, you know, you walk through that.
I’m sure it’s scanning for metal, you know, but they hardly ever go off and it’s really fast. It’s much faster than the full body scan at the St. Chapelle and the courthouse, of course. Now, Paris is worth it, of course, but I figured you’d want to know about these things because I definitely don’t want you getting ripped off.
It annoys me every time I think about it.
My thank to podcast editors, Anne and Christian Cotovan, who produced the transcript, and remember patrons get a ad-free version of this episode, as well as many other perks. Click on the link in the show notes of this episode to be like them.
Next week on the podcast
[00:54:53] Annie: Next week on the podcast, an episode where we discover the bold world of Niki de Saint Phalle, artist, rebel, and creator of iconic Nana sculptures. And it’ll be an episode with Elyse.
Thank you so much for listening. And I hope you join me next time so we can look around France. together. Au revoir.
Copyright
[00:55:14] Annie: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent, and Copyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
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Episode PageCategory: Off the Beaten Track in France