Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Off the Beaten Track in France, Paris Walks
538 How to Plan a Leisurely Trip to France with Carol Handel
[00:00:00] Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 538, cinq cent trente-huit.
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
[00:00:32] Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with Carol Handel about how to plan a leisurely trip to France. Carol shares her insights on starting a blog, selecting charming places to visit, and the joys of slow travel.
Whether you’re curious about the best cycling route, enjoying French markets, or practical tips for watching the Tour de France, this episode is packed with valuable advice for planning your next French adventure.
Podcast supporters
[00:00:59] 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 on my boutique: JoinUsinFrance.com/boutique.
And remember, Patreon supporters get the podcast ad-free and as soon as it’s ready. Click on the link in the show notes to enjoy this Patreon reward for as little as $3 per month
Magazine segment
[00:01:32] Annie: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Carol today, I’ll discuss some fun walks you can take in Paris, for those of you who like to roam.
Introduction and Greetings
[00:01:52] Annie: Bonjour, Carol Handel, and welcome to Join us in France.
[00:01:56] Carol: And bonsoir, Annie, from Sydney. It’s seven o’clock in the evening here.
[00:02:02] Annie: Very good.
Starting a Blog About France
[00:02:03] Annie: Lovely to talk to you today about your blog and about how to plan a leisurely trip in France. So tell me about this blog that you started and why you decided to start a blog about France.
[00:02:19] Carol: Yeah, thank you, Annie. So, I guess back in 2009, my husband Chris and I, took a long trip to France, and I spent a lot of time researching, planning out our trip that was going to take between three and six months.
And it was very difficult to find all the information. So I made a lot of notes as I went and then that accumulated into another long trip in 2015. And then we thought, well, maybe I should do something with this information. Maybe I thought of about an e-book and then e-books kind of came and went and then it was about, well, what a blog post or a website, and I kept looking at it and thinking, oh, it’s too hard or the technical.
Then COVID came along and I guess I got presented with an opportunity and also there were different platforms that had evolved. So I chose a platform which is Squarespace and it was quite easy for me, and I thought well I’ll just do this and I’ll just record our past trips, and you know, throw out some information and just see how I go.
And I guess it’s evolved from there, in that I’ve also invited people to be like guest writers. I’ve thrown some interview questions to them and they provided their photos and just information, I suppose, to locally, here in Australia, little markets that we’ve been to.
[00:03:45] Annie: Right, so it’s kind of like what I do with Join Us, except in a blog form, yeah, fantastic.
Planning Long Trips to France
[00:03:54] Annie: So, tell me about your trips and tell me about why you enjoy traveling to France. When was your last trip to France, for instance?
[00:04:01] Carol: June – July 2024.
[00:04:04] Annie: Alright.
[00:04:05] Carol: Yeah so we hadn’t been for a few years, for the obvious reasons of COVID and then just getting back into the rhythm of planning a longer trip. Coming from Australia, it’s, you know, for us we needed to be decent length of time to, you know, offset that large airfare and also the long journey that it takes.
So, we started planning for that trip about 12 months out, coming up with a bit of an itinerary, places that we’ve been to before that we’d like to revisit. So yeah, we’ve sort of built up this trip with mainly some one week stays and then a few shorter stays in between. So it was five weeks in total.
[00:04:50] Annie: So you normally spend a week in each area that you’re going to visit?
[00:04:54] Carol: If we can now, because we’ve worked out that we’d like to be settled into kind of our own place where we could have, you know, a kitchen, washing machine, a parking area. You know, a small town or a village where we’ve got some facilities, and we just like to try and slow down the pace and just move out from there.
[00:05:18] Annie: And you stay how long in each of these places?
[00:05:21] Carol: Well, if we can a week, but sometimes that doesn’t always work out. And it depends on the type of accommodation that you can find. If we can find somewhere that is, you know, we’ve got our own,that’s great, but sometimes if it’s a B&B, we may not stay for as long, it really just depends, Annie.
But a week is a really good opportunity to really get to know an area, that’s what we find.
[00:05:49] Annie: Right. Right. And how do you select the places where you’re going to go? Do you go, I mean, like, do you read books? Do you read websites? Do you, I suppose you listen to Join Us in France a little bit too. How do you decide?
[00:06:02] Carol: Yeah, so look, a lot of research that goes into that. Definitely your blog posts, your podcast, lots of other information like that. We watch YouTube videos, we’ve watched movies. I read a lot of books about France, just getting little snippets of ideas of what we would like to do.
Cycling Adventures in France
[00:06:22] Carol: We do like to do some cycling. So if possible, we like to be able to take our bikes and we do like to be able to go to areas where we can both do some cycling.
[00:06:35] Annie: Oh, so you bring your bikes from Australia?
[00:06:38] Carol: That’s correct, yes. We’ve done it on a number of occasions. So far, my husband took his on the first trip in 2009. And then since then we’ve tried to take ours together, and so I let him go on his adventures up mountains, but we do a lot of lovely countryside.
[00:06:58] Annie: Very nice.
Challenges and Logistics of Traveling with Bikes
[00:06:59] Annie: Is there a reason why you don’t just rent a bike in France?
[00:07:02] Carol: Over the years, I’ve looked at various methods. And I think what we’ve worked out is that if because we like to move on to different regions and not just be there in like one regional, one accommodation for the full time, we have seen that it could be quite pricey. Plus, there is that confidence in your own bike, especially for Chris, because he’s riding up mountains, and you want to know that the, you know, the machine that you’re riding on top of it is, you know, something that you can really, really believe in, in that situation.
[00:07:39] Annie: Wow. So that must add to the complication. I mean, if you’ve done it several times, you know how by now. Did you write a blog post about that?
[00:07:47] Carol: I’ve got some information there about cycling, just some general bits and pieces that we’ve done. But what we’ve come about is that we actually fly with British Airways. British Airways will allow us to bring our bicycles in a hard case box, and that protects the bike, and it is a set price. It’s not a per kilo price. So it actually works out quite cost effective to do it that way.
But then obviously we do have to then hire a van because we’re not the cyclists that cycle with panniers from place to place.
We are driving around and then we take our bikes out as part of the trip, it’s not all consuming cycling.
Introducing the Blog ‘French Views’
[00:08:35] Annie: So we’ve mentioned your blog, but we didn’t say what it’s called. It’s called French Views, and so it’s frenchviews.com.au is where you can find. Yeah, where you can find it.
And on your front page, I see that you have a post about the Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval, which we’ve talked about on the podcast not too long ago.
You talk about Grignan in the Drôme, the funicular to the Fourvière, which is great. Yeah. So a lot of little snippets of things that you do in France, which I think is, really for people who like to read because there are people who enjoy the podcast, which, you know, Join Us in France is a podcast and a website.
And I tried to make the blog posts as engaging as possible, but I’m not a blogger per se, you know, I’m more of a talker.
[00:09:29] Carol: Yes.
[00:09:29] Annie: There are people who prefer to read.
[00:09:32] Carol: Yes. And I found that. I found that I’ve had quite a bit of interest. People have reached out to me and thanked me and said it was very entertaining. Which, you know, I’m really just doing this out of a love of France and our enjoyment of traveling there. It’s just sharing the experience and I guess showing people, you know, what we’ve done just with a little bit of research, and anyone really can do this if you’re willing to put in a little bit of effort, and go off the beaten track, you can find these nice places and not just stick to the typical… you know, that everybody goes to places.
[00:10:11] Annie: Right.
[00:10:12] Carol: Yeah.
Planning the trips
[00:10:12] Annie: And so on a practical level, how do you plan your trip? Like, do you use an app? Do you use a software? Do you use, I don’t know, an Excel sheet, a Word file? How do you do it?
[00:10:24] Carol: Yeah, so I guess it’s very basic, really. Yeah, just Word docs and I keep a calendar. We keep a bit of a, like, we put the dates in where we’re going and where we’ll stay, making sure that they all flow on. And then we use it, we’ve used an Excel spreadsheet before as well. It’s just gathering all the information in the beginning.
And doing a lot of research and a lot like what interests us, and then nutting it down to, let’s choose these places. Then doing some research into like, weather, accommodation, as I said, we’ve got a bit of criteria because we do like to try to be self-sufficient, so that we can then experience markets, go and buy fresh produce, you know, try to interact with the people at the markets and have that experience as well.
The B&Bs are great and we’ve also had some wonderful meals at some of those table d’hôte, where, you know, you can share that experience with people having meal in the host’s home.Yeah, so there’s so many different experiences, but just bringing it all together into sort of one document that then, you know, I can keep track of it and make sure that we’ve got all the correctly and we haven’t made a mistake.
But basically, I’m doing this all, you know, myself from booking the flights and accommodation, and researching, even down to some special restaurants that we’ve gone to on the last trip, particularly.
[00:12:00] Annie: Right, have you found that you need to reserve those restaurants in advance or can you do that just, you know, when you arrive or whatever?
[00:12:09] Carol: Hmm. To be honest, I think in past trips, we’ve mainly just winged it, if you like. Sometimes that doesn’t always work though. There has been times when we’ve been turned away. I mean, we’ve learned a little bit about the timing, the French timing of meals. But in the last trip, there were a few places that we have booked in advance, then there’s some others that have just come our way, which have been absolutely wonderful experiences.
[00:12:39] Annie: Yeah.
[00:12:39] Carol: Yeah, so it just depends on what you’re looking for, I think. And some of the places we’ve been to have been very small. And therefore, if you wanted a particular day to fit in with your itinerary, you do need to probably have a look at that in as much advance as you can.
[00:12:55] Annie: Yes, and also you never know, they might be closed that day and you just, you wouldn’t know unless you try to reserve and then they, oh, we’re closed that day for whatever reason. You know, these are very small businesses. There’s this lady in the village next to mine. She has a small épicerie. She sells beautiful cheeses, a few wines, some fruits and vegetables. She has some tables up front. Anyway, it’s a lovely little place and she just procures things locally. So it’s all locally produced things. But she’s open or closed at very odd times because she’s a young mom and so you never know if it’s going to be open or closed.
Places like that, I mean, she doesn’t offer food, but places like that, if it’s just a mom and pop shop, sometimes it’s best to call them or send an email to make sure that they’re going to be open at that time.
[00:13:52] Carol: Absolutely.
Deciding How Long to Stay in Each Place
[00:13:53] Annie: How do you decide how long to stay in a given place? Because one of the problems with planning a trip, based on what you read, what you hear is that there are a lot of bloggers who are very good at hyping a place.
For instance the Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval, well, that’s a two three hour experience. Is there enough to do around there to spend a week, is the question. How do you figure out where you can spend just two days and where you’re going to spend a week?
[00:14:25] Carol: I think that this last trip, majority of it we were looking at in terms of cycling, Annie. So, you know, we arrived in Lyon and we were only there for a couple of days and we were staying in a hotel. Certainly no cycling there, but we were just zoned in on, you know, having a look at the city,we focused on the silk tour that was really interesting, and obviously the food.
But then the next stop was Provence, and we knew that even a week is not enough, because we’ve been before. And so the cycling was the main thrust of that. But obviously we then did some other bits and pieces around there as well.
There is so much, if you start looking into an area, realistically there is so much that you can do. If it’s hot or if it’s cold or if it’s raining, you know, but just trying to make it go around market days. A French market is a great place to go. There are plenty on every day of the week and, you know, they could just be within 30 minutes of the place where you’re staying. There could be 10 different places to go. So I just think that, yeah, some places we could stay easily for two weeks and have, you know, more than enough to do.
But then other places, like we went down to the Pyrenees. We’ve been there for a good few times, but we went there specifically for the Tour de France last year, and actually just for a particular couple of stages. So we were based in the area, we focused on the Tour de France, we had a bit of cycling ourselves and we just had an enjoyable time.
It really just depends.
So if you have your bikes with you, you mentioned a van, so you rent a vehicle large enough to keep your bikes in the van? Is that how it works?
Yeah, that’s… that’s correct, Annie. So not always easy because often when you’re renting a vehicle, you can rent a particular of vehicle, but you can’t be very specific. And so you take a chance. We do all the measurements. So we know that we’re arriving with two suitcases and two hard case bike boxes. As long as we can get to the first venue and then we unpack the bikes and assemble them, but the idea is to try to keep everything together in the van so that we can be flexible and just, you know, go for a drive and pull out the bikes. We’re obviously leaving out the suitcases until it’s time to move on to the next place.
It does become a bit more expensive than a small vehicle, obviously, and just driving around the place.
Rental agencies
[00:17:08] Annie: And what rental agencies have you had good luck with?
[00:17:11] Carol: Well, the one that we’ve been using mostly in the last few years is called Auto Europe. They have various agencies around the world. We’ve used them in France, I think in the UK. And also, we’ve had a couple of trips to Hawaii. So we’ve used the same company. Yeah, you can just use various locations.They outsource to the different actual rental company.
[00:17:36] Annie: Because Auto Europe is kind of an aggregator.
[00:17:39] Carol: Yes, exactly. Yes. So, it just depends on the price and the type of vehicle that you are choosing. Vans are not as easy because sometimes when they say van, it’s actually a very small, like, SUV and you can’t really fit all of our luggage into that.
So, yeah.
[00:17:58] Annie: Yeah, that’s a problem. We had the same issue in the U.S. We wanted something big enough for four people and a wheelchair and our luggage. And they wanted to give us a suburban. So that’s a massive car, but you can’t fit four people comfortably and a wheelchair and luggage. We requested a van.
We just want a, just a simple family van where we can put the seats down and we have more room. They tend to be more space efficient, I think.
[00:18:27] Carol: Exactly.
[00:18:28] Annie: Yeah, you worry about your stuff getting stolen in your van like when you’re sleeping, or you park somewhere and you leave your bikes and your stuff, do you worry about that?
[00:18:38] Carol: I guess mostly we haven’t, we’ve never had an issue, touch wood. I guess if we’re staying in accommodation, we’ve left the majority of our things there, and we may put our bikes in the van and then drive to a certain place and then go cycling, you know, so then we’ve got the bikes out of the van. But yeah, we may have some other things in the van. Like Chris, I’ve mentioned to you is a photographer and so he’ll often have his photographygear with us.
[00:19:07] Annie: Oh, wow!
[00:19:08] Carol: And he’s not carrying a big heavy cameras when we’re out and about on the bikes, but we might bring the bikes back to the van and then we’ll go off and he’ll take some, you know, photos and… yeah, so touch wood.
No, no problem so far. But obviously we are cautious. We do lock up and we do try to make sure that things aren’t obvious when you’re looking through the window.
You know, it’s, it hasn’t really been a problem .
[00:19:33] Annie: Yeah, I don’t think France has big problem with cars getting broken into, especially of late, but you never know. I mean, there are people, I’m asking because I know there are people who are going to think, Oh no, no, no, you can’t do that. Your stuff’s going to be gone when you come back.
[00:19:51] Carol: Yeah. Well, after numerous trips so far, we haven’t had any issues at all.
[00:19:58] Annie: Yeah, that’s good to know. (Mid-roll ad spot)
Favorite Places for Leisurely Cycling
[00:20:02] Annie: What are your favorite places to go cycling and visiting and spending a leisurely time?
[00:20:09] Carol: Well, I guess first up, I’ll have to say Provence. We tend to visit in June, July, and the last visit we started off in June and we headed to much straight to Provence because we obviously, we don’t really like cycling when it’s too hot either. We tend to try and hit off early, make the most of that morning and then get back and, you know, relax, go sightsee or hop in, you know, in the pool. So, Provence obviously allows that kind of, it’s got a bit of a mixture of cycling. There’s things that I can do and then Chris could go and conquer Mont Ventoux and, you know, some other places. So that’s always been, you know, a bit of a hit. Also, I mean, we have done some cycling in the Pyrenees.
Again, me, you know, something more simple, but Chris is, there’s numerous places in the Pyrenees where you can, you know, go and ride up a mountain.
We’ve also, this time, we spent some time in Gascony, the Gers, which was a bit more rolling hill. We had never been there before. It was very hot by the time we got there in July, but well worth all the beautiful sunflowers, and the vineyards and little villages to cycle around as well.
[00:21:28] Annie: The Gers is beautiful and it’s, yeah, it’s not very long, steep hills, but it’s hilly. It’s not flat. Yeah.
[00:21:38] Carol: Hillier than I thought it was going to be.
[00:21:41] Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve taken my own bike to The Gers a couple of times and it’s fun, but it can get it, well, mine’s an electric bike, so I don’t have any… and just turn on the assistance and I’m okay, you know.
[00:21:54] Carol: Well, when it was high 30 degrees, you know, 30 degrees centigrade, you know, probably between 35 and 39, the day we went cycling, yeah, that was a bit of a shock.
Exploring Paris: Tips and Experiences
[00:22:05] Annie: Yeah, so it’s interesting because you, I mean, you sound like someone who enjoys mostly rural places and to be outside, and biking and things like that. But on your blog, you also have quite a bit of stuff about Paris, by arrondissement.Tell me about that. Why do you do that?
Do you spend a lot of time in Paris?
[00:22:25] Carol: We haven’t been for a good few years, but we’ve really loved Paris and I think it’s definitely still on the agenda for another visit, because there’s much more I’ve learned about Paris in the last couple of years that making a long list. So yeah, we had a couple of one week stays in Paris, and we’ve stayed quite close to the River Seine, both sides, and it’s just been nice to be able to walk out and just walk, and walk, and go and visit all sorts of different places, take your time, just look around, not have a huge agenda each day.
And I think that’s one of the main thrust of like how we travel now, we don’t try to cram 20 things into a day, we just really pace ourself, and have those pauses where you just stop and watch the world go by a little bit. But yeah, I think Paris is one of those places where you can certainly spend an awful lot of time justabsorbing it all as well as the doing.
Yeah.
[00:23:30] Annie: Yeah. So I, for Paris, I think, if you are the type of person who wants to take it easy, then perhaps you should plan on doing something around 10 in the morning and then something around three or four in the afternoon. And that’s it. Don’t plan anything else, like so in the morning you go visit one of the magnificent churches.
There’s many, pick one, any one. And then in the afternoon you go to a museum, or something. And then you have time in between to get places, to stop at a cafe, to have some lunch, to see things. If you plan more than two things in a day, really you’re going to rush, I think.
[00:24:10] Carol: We’ve definitely done that in the past, too much, but now, certainly not so much. We’ve learned our lesson.
[00:24:18] Annie: So, do you have a favorite of all these, so you said you’ve stayed on both sides of the river, which is a very good thing to, and that’s a very good way to approach it. You know, stay close to the river on either side in the central arrondissement and you’ll be walking distance to a lot of wonderful things.
Now, the question is, are you going to know about the places that you should go to, or… because there’s a lot of very small little places that only take half an hour, you know, but they might be the delight of your trip. I don’t know. Some people, they run into some store like Sennelier or Deyrolle or places like that.
And for years to come, they will talk about this store because it was such a enchanting place, but they only spent half an hour there. Whereas they spend five hours in the Louvre and they’re like, Oh, get me out of here, you know?
[00:25:12] Carol: Yes. Exactly! I mean often it’s the places that you really weren’t expecting, that are the places that really stay in your mind. Near the mosque and there’s a lovely little tea room…
[00:25:26] Annie: Yeah.
[00:25:26] Carol: It was just really delightful to come across that on a hot afternoon after walking through the gardens there, and then we crossed the road and we found that, and it was like a lovely little haven to just spend some time.
[00:25:40] Annie: Right. So that’s the Jardin des Plantes and the mosque, I’ve included that in my Latin Quarter Tour. And in the tour I suggest people stop and go enjoy some pastries at the mosque.
Well, I mean, it’s not, it’s a big building, part of it is religious, but the rest of it is gardens and the tea shop and things like that.
It’s delightful. And that whole area is wonderful. Like, you know, spending time at the Jardin des Plantes is never a bad idea.
[00:26:10] Carol: Totally agree.
[00:26:12] Annie: Yeah.
Summer Travels and the Tour de France
[00:26:13] Annie: So you tend to come in summer for France and winter for Australia. Why do you do that?
[00:26:20] Carol: Well, not that our winter is terrible but my husband Chris likes to particularly escape. And obviously, like the Tour de France is a big draw card which is drawn us to France many times, but even like last year, we hardly touched upon it to be honest, we saw it in the Pyrenees and we managed to see it in a lovely little village in the Burgundy area. But it’s just, I think it’s just lovely in the, particularly the early summer there, I think we’ve really loved it in June, and early July. Just, yeah, it gives us a reprieve from the colder weather here.
[00:27:00] Annie: Yeah.
[00:27:00] Carol: We can have two summers.
[00:27:02] Annie: Right. That’s right.
Yeah, andI mean, most years you can expect things to get pretty hot by the middle of July, some years it was very hot in May as well. It’s hard to know. And of course, what I consider very hot might not be the same as what you consider very hot because to me, as soon as you hit 30, it’s too hot.
[00:27:25] Carol: I think it is sometimes a bit more of a challenge. One of the things that we try to look for is air conditioning.
Because even if you have a pool on a property, it’s the sleeping at night that sometimes can be a little bit more challenging if you don’t have the air conditioning. Not always easy to find, so, and it won’t stop us from staying somewhere.
We haven’t actually done much traveling later in the year, like, say, in August. Yeah, because I believe it can get quite hot then.
[00:27:53] Annie: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s one of the advantages of picking hotels for people who are not here so long. Most hotels have air conditioning by now, and you can definitely pick hotels that have air conditioning, that’s one of the criteria that you find easily with hotels and not necessarily with apartments. Because even if they tell you they have air conditioning, maybe we still, we rented an Airbnb once where they had air conditioning, but it was in the kitchen area.
The bedrooms didn’t have AC. Well, but like you mentioned, that’s where you need it. You know, I mean, I don’t tend to sleep in my kitchen, so yeah…
[00:28:41] Carol: I understand.
Planning Your Tour de France Experience
[00:28:42] Annie: Can you share some tips about how to plan a trip? If you want to make your trip coincide with the Tour de France, how do you plan that? How do you select a place, and how do you arrange all of that?
[00:28:56] Carol: Okay, well, firstly, you obviously need to do a little bit of research about the Tour de France, look at their website and find the dates, look at a map, and try to plan out where you would maybe like to see it. So if you see it in the mountains, it’s quite often good because it’s a slower pace, than one of the flatter stages where it’s just racing through at a million miles an hour. Great experience, but you know, blink and you miss it, so it’s all the build up that goes with it as well.
But if it’s on a mountain stage and you can find a parking spot, or you’re going to have to walk a long way because we’ve done both of those, then you do get to experience a slower pace of the cyclists coming up. But you do experience, I guess a slower pace to the whole day.
Planning how to get there, you do need to do this a long way in advance usually, because accommodation can be limited, particularly in those rural areas.Everybody wants to stay there, particularly the cyclists you know, there’ll be a fair bit of competition.
So the dates are usually released, you know, in October and you really should jump onto it straight away and start looking at it then.
[00:30:15] Annie: Yeah. Right. Because typically, if you can stay not too far from where the tour is going to be, I mean, you know which roads, because they’re going to be closed off to traffic.
[00:30:25] Carol: It can be a challenge if they start closing too many of the roads, because then you do have to prepare yourself to walk a long way.
[00:30:33] Annie: Yeah, right. Yes. So you walk, and there are people, I guess you could take your bikes to make it a little faster.
[00:30:40] Carol: You can definitely, if you’ve got bikes, you can definitely get through far more than you can if you’re taking a car, because they will block the roads.
[00:30:50] Annie: I don’t know, I’ve never seen a mountain stage, but around Toulouse, where I live, I’ve seen it come through a few times in villages around where I live, and whatever, and it’s not very difficult for us because it’s just two villages over. So I just get as close as I can, and then I park, and then I walk to the road where they’re going to be.
Now, the question is what time is it going to come through? That’s another question. You have to be kind of used to Tour de France stages and see, okay, they’re leaving from here, they’re likely to be in this village around this time, more or less.
[00:31:27] Carol: That’s true. And you can find more up to date information on their website, and sometimes locally, they’ll have some information that they’ll put out that, you know, they know exactly it’s going to come here at this time and here at that time. And you may have a couple of opportunities in that local area to see them.
So they’ll have the caravan coming through with all the different floats. So, you know, the merchandise that they’re throwing out. And then there’s usually a quite a bit of a pause between, and then the cyclists coming through.
And if it’s in a small area, like I said, we to a village in Burgundy, we did actually cycle from our accommodation to that.
So that was a bit of a buzz, because I’d never done that before. And it was a lovely little village and then there’s usually lots of activities going on, food and of course wine and you know, there was a little exhibition by the local kids and their bike club. And then we all sort of gathered for the caravan. And then that went through, and then we went back to what we were doing, and then we came again to see the cyclists. And then it was over and everybody just, you know, either left or keptenjoying the festivities. Whereas on a mountain, there’s a lot more involved because you’ve got to get there and, you know, getting on and off the mountain with, you know, a lot of people is, you know, a full day event really.
[00:32:53] Annie: Right. So in Burgundy, how long did you spend? Was it a half a day?
[00:32:58] Carol: Probably just a couple of hours of that and then it was off, and then we went again, yeah.
[00:33:03] Annie: Yeah, that’s how it is for us in not mountain stages. You just go and spend an hour, or two.
[00:33:09] Carol: Enjoy it, and then go home.
[00:33:10] Annie: You enjoy the atmosphere and, I mean, when they zoom past, it’s pretty fast. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you can go where there’s a bit of a curve or something, it might slow them down a bit.
But if you’re on a stretch of straight road, they go fast.
[00:33:28] Carol: They certainly do.
[00:33:29] Annie: Blink it, you miss it. They’re gone. Bullets. Very good.
French Travel Tips and Cultural Insights
[00:33:34] Annie: So what have you learned about France over all of these trips? Are there tips that you want to share with people? Things that always work in France, no matter where you are.
[00:33:45] Carol: Well, markets always work. Okay. So, yeah, top of the list. I think you need to really start to be observant of pleasantries.You know, a ‘Bonjour’ and a ‘Merci’ go a long way. Particularly when you’re entering small shops, to say hello and to thank them, even if you’re not buying anything, but just have that in that small interaction. I think also observant of maybe meal times, and restaurant times, again, particularly in smaller areas that, you know, you really need to be thinking about being there for 12 o’clock. If you haven’t made a reservation, particularly, you may not get a seat. You can’t arrive like, you know, in Australia and probably in the US and the UK, you know, lunch can just go on, and on, and you can just expect that service. You can’t expect that. You know, there are obviously places in bigger cities that you can, but smaller places, it’s quite limited.
So reservations can obviously be in your favor if that’s something that you really want to be at that restaurant, it’s worth doing it.
Other things, just that appreciation, I guess, of lovely bread at bakeries, which we don’t have that much here.
Getting Along in French
[00:35:09] Annie: Do you speak French?
[00:35:11] Carol: Un petit peu, Annie.
[00:35:14] Annie: Yeah.
[00:35:15] Carol: It’s never enough.
[00:35:17] Annie: So that hasn’t been a kind of a difficulty for you, you make do, right? Even though you don’t speak, I mean, you go to rural places and you don’t speak French. How does that work out?
[00:35:27] Carol: Usually absolutely fine. We just try and as I said, we always use a pleasantries. You know, we have our basic phrases, we come unstuck when it starts to become a conversation. If someone starts to think we can speak more than we can. But you know, we can get through with a bit of mime and, you know, I haven’t really resulted to the Google Translate backwards and forwards.
It’s really been we’ll.. we’ll get through this.
And between us, you know, fluffing our way through it, and I find the French usually very quite accommodating.
[00:36:00] Annie: Yeah, so if you’re smiley and pleasant, and you’re making effort, you know, you’re like, oh, it’s obvious that you’re making an effort to understand, they love it.
[00:36:11] Carol: Never a problem.
[00:36:13] Annie: Yeah, the one thing people don’t like is demanding tourists. You know, if you show up and you throw a fit because you can’t get ice, as much ice as you’re used to at home,that’s not going to go well.
[00:36:26] Carol: I think you just have to, you know, you have to blend in to some degree, and just, you know, just remember where you are and that things are different, and that if you want what’s at home, then, well, you probably need just stay there, and not get out in the world as much.
[00:36:43] Annie: Yeah, and be curious, you know, and in France, if you want French people to be sweet to you, be kind to you, is ask them for help. Just say, oh, I need help with something, anything. I need help finding this, or I need help buying this, or whatever, and they will help you typically. That’s just how it goes.
Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations
[00:37:02] Carol: All right. Well, thank you so much. I think, anything else you want to bring up before we say goodbye? You’ve shared a lot of good stuff, and especially about the importance of just take it easy, like, you don’t try to rush through your vacation. Yes, and like, I know that’s, it can be a bit difficult coming from me who, you know, I’ve just had five weeks there, and obviously not everybody can do that, it depends where you’re coming from in the world, it could be a week or it could be two weeks. But yeah, I think it’s often better just to see fewer things and really appreciate them, than to try and cram in everything.
[00:37:40] Annie: Yeah, if you just have a week, spend it in one place. Decide, I have a week, I’m going to go spend a week in Normandy, or I’m going to go spend a week in the Dordogne, or I’m going to go spend a week in Provence, just spend that week there.
Don’t try to do, I want to do a bit of Paris, and I want to do a bit of Provence, and I want to be a bit of Normandy, that doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. You’ll make yourself miserable.
[00:38:06] Carol: I think that there, whilst there’s many beautiful different areas of France and obviously different climates and differentcountryside, I think ultimately you can enjoy yourself, and have that experience in a village in Normandy, and a village in Provence, or a village, you know, down in the Pyrenees. You don’t have to, you know, think that you have to go everywhere, you can experience those things in all parts of France.
And just enjoy it.
[00:38:39] Annie: Yeah. And the Pyrenees, typically the place where people spend the most time is going to be either the far west side, you know, the Basque country where there’s plenty to do. You could spend a whole week easily in the Basque country, and not see everything. And the other side around Perpignan and the Cathar country, all of that.
But then in between, those are not places where you probably want to spend a week, because there isn’t that much to do, unless you are going to be hiking and biking and enjoying nature. If that’s why you’re coming, then perfect. But if you’re coming to visit, because there are plenty of villages in the Pyrenees, but they’re not that quaint, most of them, you know.
[00:39:27] Carol: Quite rustic, really.
[00:39:29] Annie: They’re very rustic.
Yeah, they’re very rustic. Yeah.
[00:39:32] Carol: But yes, if you want a mixture of the towns that are going to offer you more culture, perhaps museums, art galleries, restaurants, and things like that, then yes, you probably need to base yourself, you know, either side, as you say, in that area, particularly, to get that mixture.
Yeah.
[00:39:53] Annie: Thank you so much, Carol, you’ve been a delight to talk to, and I recommend your website again, it’s frenchviews.com.au. Some very interestingblog posts there about different things that you’ve done, and you’ve done quite a bit, it’s impressive!
[00:40:07] Carol: Thank you very much, Annie. And thanks to everyone for listening.
[00:40:11] Annie: Merci beaucoup.
[00:40:12] Carol: Merci beaucoup.
[00:40:13] Annie: Au revoir.
Thank you, patrons!
[00:40:21] Annie: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing so. You can see them at Patreon.com/joinus.
A special shout out this week to my one new Join Us in France champion Sandra Klein, who joined at the Groupie du podcast tier.
Would you join her too? Lots of things for you to discover when you become a patron. And this week, since I’ve been in Paris, I have posted some videos and chatted with my patrons about some things that they can visit when they come to Paris.
And also my thanks to Jay Preston Turner for his one-time donation, using any green button on JoinUsinFrance.Com that says ‘Tip your guide’. Preston wrote: ‘Thank you for your lovely podcast. Also purchased three tours. Merci!’
Well, thank you very much, Preston.
And about those tours, you know, on Facebook travel groups and in my own Join Us in France email, I read posts from people who sound very stressed because they’re going to Paris, they’re not sure what to do. Their husband, their kids, their friends, expect them to know what to do, sometimes because they were in Paris years ago, or sometimes because it was their idea to come to Paris. And I mean, these people did what they could, they’ve read all these things, they can’t remember much of it. The trip is next week, and they are overwhelmed.
If that’s you, get some VoiceMap tours! You want a food tour, you want to visit Notre Dame, you want to see all the cool stuff in Montmartre, get a bundle of my tours. You can take me in your pocket and I’ll whisper in your ear where you need to go next. I’ll also tell you what you’re looking at and why it’s so popular, and I’ll briefly give you the context and the historical significance of these wonderful places.
Travel should be fun and if you’ve got someone who knows Paris well, taking you around, it’s a lot easier.
One weekend with my sister-in-law in Paris
[00:42:23] Annie: This week my sister-in-law joined me in Paris for a few days. She was born in Paris, but moved away.
Moved around quite a bit as a kid. And settled in Touluse years ago. She studied architecture and she loves to watch the French History Channel. She’s been back to Paris a few times and enjoys it. And since I’m spending a couple of weeks in Paris writing my new VoiceMap tour, I’m calling it Gothic Jewels of Paris, Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle and the Conciergerie, she decided to come spend a weekend with me.
I asked her, well, what do you want to see? And she said, you decide! I don’t know, you decide! Oh, great! But you know, I can really do this.
So on day one, we only had a partial day that day, I took her to Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter, plus a nice dinner with a view of Notre Dame.
Not La Tour d’Argent, we don’t have that kind of budget, or time. On day two, we went to Le Marais, and we saw the best of the area, did some shopping. And day three, which was also a partial day, we went to the Opera area, the covered passages in Les Halles. She couldn’t believe how much she got to see in such a short time, because I knew exactly where to take her, so she could see the best of each neighborhood quickly.
Walking the Streets of Paris
[00:43:44] Annie: There are a lot of people who say in Paris, be a flanneur. Just walk without giving it another thought. They don’t realize that there are over 400 miles of streets in Paris proper.
So telling people that they should just walk is not very helpful. If you have the rest of your life, by all means, walk all the streets in Paris! Wonderful thing to do, indeed. But if you are only there for a few days, it’s best to know which streets to walk, and which ones to forget about for now. So here’s a great walk you can take in Paris. And of course my VoiceMap tours do similar things, but you can write it down and do it all by your lonesome. I’ll share the map and some more details with my lovely patrons, but I will tell you about it as well, so you can do it on your own. This walk starts at the top of Rue de Martyrs, so it would work very well walking down the hill after a visit to Montmartre. So Rue de Martyrs it’s a fabulous street full of mom and pop kind of stores, a lot of foods.
There’s a whole book written about this street, it’s called, The Only Street in Paris, by Elaine Sciolino. A great book that I read while back, but I remember it was a great book.
When you get to Notre Dame de Lorette, which is a church at the bottom of the hill, it’s an interesting church. Go in. And then you go left until you get to Rue Cadet, another wonderful commercial street.
I mean, it’s not full of high fashion, but it’s a great place where regular people go shopping. And at the bottom of Rue Cadet you’ll find a great store called À la Mère de Famille where they sell all sorts of sweet things, it’s a favorite of mine. Then you go to the Passage Verdeau and you can look at all the stores. I think the Verdeau is the one with all the stamp collector stuff.
Then you cross the street and go into Passage Jouffroy, and at the end of that one there’s a third passage de Panorama. So you have three of them right in a row. It’s very easy to find them.
Then you can set your GPS to the Sentier Metro Station. It’s a little bit on the oblique, it’s not quite straight down, and you can keep going down the hill to Rue Montorgueil and Les Halles.
And so that would make for a wonderful afternoon stroll in Paris. You’ll do a lot of shopping and you’ll have a fantastic time just looking at streets that are truly worth a look.
This week in Paris has been a lot of fun, but a lot of work. I can’t tell you, I am exhausted. When I go home, I’m going to have to just not do very much, and go back to watching some silly TV in the evenings. That would be very nice.
My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan who produce the audio and the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast
[00:46:46] Annie: Next week on the podcast, a trip report with Vanessa Christman. She will take us through a fascinating journey of memories, achievements, and much more.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir!
Copyright
[00:47:04] 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 PageCategories: Off the Beaten Track in France, Paris Walks