Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Christmas in France, Family Travel
566 How to Plan a Memorable Family Trip to France with Heather Addison (Oct 5)
[00:00:16] Introduction
Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 566, cinq cent soixante-six.
Annie: 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.
[00:00:32] Today on the podcast
Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with Heather Addison who shares her experience of a multi-generational family trip to France.
Annie: The trip, spanning Paris and the South of France during Christmas holidays included nine family members exploring historic sites and savoring French culture. We discuss challenges and highlights of traveling with a large group, including transportation, dining, and holiday plans.
Annie: Tune in for a delightful and informative travel tale.
[00:01:05] Podcast supporters
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Annie: There’s a link for that in the show notes, and you’ll find everything that you can purchase from me at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
[00:01:32] Boot Camp 2026
Annie: If you’d like to find out more about the boot camp 2026 and really join us in France, browse to joinusinfrance.com/bootcamp2026. The dates for this boot camp are October 3rd until October 10th.
Annie: So that’ll be seven full days of hanging out with fellow Francophiles, visits of wonderful sites around Toulouse, and optional language classes.
Annie: And the boot camp is filling up fast this year. I think I’m up to 24 reservations, for an event that’s a year away. So, there’s a lot of interest and I’m really grateful for that.
[00:02:15] Magazine segment
Annie: for the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Heather today, I’ll share some personal updates because a lot has happened in the last few weeks. I’ll also explain why some of you couldn’t find my older episodes in Apple Podcasts and what you can do about that.
Annie: I know a lot of you listen to the podcast with pen and paper ready to take notes, but if you’re listening on the go and you want to look back on what was said, go to the episode page and that’s always the episode number, so like joinusinfrance.com/566, for this particular episode.
Annie: And you can also find the page that lists all the episodes by month at joinusinfrance.com/episode.
Annie: And if you’d like a handy summary of the conversation, again, with useful links, subscribe to the newsletter at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter. It is the best way to stay in the loop.
[00:03:26] Annie and Heather
Annie Sargent: Bonjour, Heather Addison, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Heather Addison: Bonjour, Annie. Thank you for having me.
Annie Sargent: Yes, wonderful to have you here.
[00:03:35] Family Trip Overview
Annie Sargent: You had a wonderful trip to France, it was a big group, it was a family celebration, I would like to hear all about it. So tell us how many people there were, when you came, and where you went.
Heather Addison: Perfect. Yeah, we traveled as a multi-generational family group. There were nine of us all together. It was my family of four, my brother’s family of four, and our mother.
Heather Addison: And it’s a group that we have traveled together in the past. We’ve done a number of trips now all together, so this certainly was not our first time doing it. And we had a really wonderful time.
Heather Addison: We traveled over the Christmas holiday, and we spread our vacation between Paris and the South of France, particularly Provence area, and just had a wonderful time.
Annie Sargent: Was it your first time in France?
Heather Addison: It was not my first time in France, I’ve been there a number of times now. I love France. I certainly haven’t been there, you know, a million times, but I think I’ve been there eight times at this point. It was the first time for my nephews to be there. I think they once flew through Paris but they’ve never been. My kids have been there, I think twice. My mother studied there in college and she has been there a number of times. So it was a good mix of, you know, how many times folks had been there.
Annie Sargent: Right. What was the age spread for your group?
Heather Addison: Our youngest was 18, that’s our son, and then our oldest was my mom, who’s 79. So we were everywhere in between.
Annie Sargent: Right. So your mom had studied in Aix-en-Provence, right?
Heather Addison: She did, yeah. She was there, I believe, in 1965, so it’s been quite a while. She has been back, but she spent a full year there her junior year abroad.
Annie Sargent: Did she remember any French from back then?
Heather Addison: Oh, yes. It was funny, leading up to the trip she would say, “You know, I think I’ve probably lost, you know, a lot of it,” but it all just came back the more days we were there.
Annie Sargent: That’s wonderful. Okay.
[00:05:38] Traveling with a Large Group
Annie Sargent: So, what was your favorite things to do in France as a group? Were there some things that were more difficult because there were so many of you? Yeah, explain a little bit about that.
Heather Addison: Yep, great question. The things that are the most difficult are, like if you’re in a city, getting around can be a little difficult. Not in a way that is a deal-breaker, just something you have to think about a little bit ahead of time. We actually did not use the metro this time. I love the Paris metro, but with a group that size it’s just not always the … It’s not even the most economical sometimes. Sometimes taking a cab is cheaper when you’ve got a number of people, depending on where you’re going. So making sure that you understand the distance of where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, some people walk faster than others, those types of things.
Heather Addison: We tend to walk almost everywhere that we can. That’s our first choice of how to get around, especially in a city like Paris which is so walkable. And if you’re in the center, which we were, you can really get to most places on foot.
[00:06:40] Navigating and Dining in France for Groups
Heather Addison: The other thing I think that is a big challenge with a large group is dining, especially in a city. And I think I’ve found, I would love to hear your thoughts on this too, but in France most restaurants really are small. So walking in without a reservation and asking for a table for nine is almost a, it’s not going to happen. Yeah, so that was the kind of thing that we had to have thought about ahead of time. We made a number of reservations even before we left. And I realize that might be hard if you’re very unfamiliar with where you are, but things like TripAdvisor, you know, really looking at where places are on Google Maps can really be helpful. And it really worked out well.
Heather Addison: And what we did was we made enough reservations ahead of time, especially for dinners, with the knowledge that if we had to when we got there, we could cancel it if we really found something different we wanted to do. In the end, we never canceled anything that we had made ahead of time. They all worked out really well.
Annie Sargent: Uh-huh. Yeah, I think it’s, use the apps, you know. It’s easier now because we have, you can book through Google a lot of the time. You can book through The Fork. TripAdvisor lets you book. I’ve used,what was this? ZenChef. I’m not sure if it’s still big, but it was big a few years back.
Annie Sargent: Use these methods, and there are some very small restaurants in France that only get reserved through a phone call, and you can do that too. I mean, they speak English, typically. You know, if you find a place you really want to try, call them.
Heather Addison: And actually I did have to do that for a number of places that were not, they didn’t have a reservation system online so I would make phone calls. I kind of had a time in the day when I’d, you know, make a note to myself, like, “Okay, it’s going to be dinner time now, give them a call.” And that worked out really well.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. So if you call right at noon, you know somebody’s going to be at the restaurant. Or at 7:00 PM it’s the beginning of the service so they have a little more time to talk, or at the very end of the service, or 2:00 PM or 9:00 PM. You know, that’s when you can typically get people on the phone.
Annie Sargent: There are plenty of restaurants, the little restaurant right by Shakespeare and Company, they have tables in the back for, I saw big groups going in there, and you don’t see it, it’s just way back, you know?
Annie Sargent: That’s a good point. Do make reservations when you’re in a big group.
Heather Addison: Yeah. And it worked out, it worked out for us beautifully.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
[00:09:12] Exploring Aix-en-Provence
Annie Sargent: So when you were in Provence, I assume you had to have a car, right?
Heather Addison: When we were in Aix-en-Provence, we spent three days there, we did not have a car while we were there. We stayed in the center area again, and that was just very easy to get around. We did rent a car though, kind of on our transition day. So we, when we left Aix, we rented a car that morning. So we had a car for two days. That day and the next day, so that we could kind of poke around a little bit into areas that, you know, maybe the train wouldn’t get to, or that we couldn’t walk to.
Annie Sargent: Right, and you got like a big nine-person vehicle?
Heather Addison: We did. We rented a big Renault van. It was big and gray, and we named it Jean Reno after the famous French actor. We figured no one was going to mess with that vehicle on the road. It was too big.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. So nine-person van, including the driver, is the biggest vehicle you can rent in France. Yeah. And that you have to plan in advance, you know, you have to ask them.
Heather Addison: Absolutely. And in the past, we have rented two vehicles, and we were about to do that when this, we found this van on, you know, just one of the rental car sites. And price-wise it made sense. Another thing to think about if you are renting a car, it’s a thing to be aware of that trunk space is not the same, and for nine people, but that van was plenty big. We were able to get everything in.
Annie Sargent: So nine carry-ons and nine backpacks or something is what you had?
Heather Addison: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Annie Sargent: That’s a pretty good van.
Heather Addison: Yeah. It was.
Annie Sargent: Jean Reno, bravo!
Heather Addison: It was perfect.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. That’s great.
[00:10:52] Christmas in Aix-en-Provence: Plan Ahead!
Annie Sargent: When I asked you what you enjoyed most, you really enjoyed Aix-en-Provence quite a bit, which is wonderful, but I want you to explain, because you were there around Christmas, and New Year’s as a matter of fact. So I want you to explain what the holidays plan was for you guys.
Heather Addison: Sure. Well, honestly, thank you to you, because I had heard a podcast that you and Elyse had done where you were talking about Christmas in different areas. And I made a big mental note, you guys had mentioned that in the South of France, not much is open on Christmas day, which, you know, where I live, that’s exactly the same, so I certainly don’t expect that everywhere you go.
Heather Addison: But, you know, in a place like Paris, there would’ve been things to do, but we knew we were going to be in Aix, so that made me start looking around and trying to figure out what we could do while we were there.
Heather Addison: It actually also caused us to change a hotel reservation. We had originally been at one that was a little more of a, you know, kind of quintessentially charming, tiny, you know, little, almost like an inn, in the United States we’d call it. And then we switched over to a hotel called the Hotel Acquabella, which is a little larger, and it was more modern, which is not the kind of place I would’ve chosen on its own, but it was still in the absolutely in the old part of Aix, so very easy to get around.
Heather Addison: And what was so wonderful about it, is it’s built atop the ruins of a Roman bath, which … And the Roman bath was built there because there’s a hot spring. And so the hotel itself uses the hot spring and has a lovely spa area that’s free for guests. …
Annie Sargent: Nice.
Heather Addison: Yeah, it was, it was so fun. So they’ve got a big whirlpool, and a steam room, and a sauna, and these funny, they call them experience showers, where you go in and press a button on the wall and it plays like bird song in the background.And heated lounge chairs that you can just sit on with a book. And that was open for guests on Christmas day.
Heather Addison: So we knew ahead of time that we were going to just, we said we were going to live like the Romans on Christmas day and just hang out in this, you know, in this fun area. Also, we had actually taken the TGV down from Paris on the 24th, we got to Aix I think around 1:00 PM. So we kind of first on our list was we found a grocery store so we could get picnic supplies for the next day, so that we knew we’d have lunch. And so on Christmas day, that is what we did. We woke up late, we had a very modest little Christmas celebration, you know, among the nine of us and had our picnic, just bread and cheese and sausage and chocolate. I mean, who could ask for more? That’s heaven. And then we just spent the day frankly just kind of lounging around in this really fun spa area. And the hotel itself was very reasonably priced. I mean, it was just a great way to be able to spend that day.
Heather Addison: We did go out to dinner that night. We had reserved, at a Moroccan restaurant that night called La Menara, which was really fun and delicious. That day was just so relaxing, and it was great.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. So yes, Mex- not Mexican, sorry, we don’t have Mexican restaurants. Moroccan restaurants, Chinese places, you know, they’re sometimes open on Christmas Day. You just need to do a little bit … Again, use the apps to take a look at what’s available where you are, you know.And all it takes is a little planning, but if you are going to be outside of Paris or Strasbourg, but even in Strasbourg on Christmas Day per se, things are closed. They’re done with the markets, you know. They want to have their own Christmas now. So yeah. So, you do need to plan a little bit what you’re going to be.
[00:14:47] New Year’s Eve on a Barge Cruise (Péniche)
Annie Sargent: And then, for New Year’s Eve, you were on a cruise, weren’t you?
Heather Addison: Yeah, we were on a CroisiEurope. In the US we would call it a barge. In France, I believe you call it a péniche.
Annie Sargent: Péniche, yeah.
Heather Addison: So a small, a much smaller boat. It had a total of 22 passengers and four crew members aboard. It was our group of nine, and then there were, I believe, seven French folks and four Belgians. So the other folks were all native French speakers. Our group, amongst us, we have enough French that we can be friendly and polite basically.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Heather Addison: And the other group as well, or the other two groups, were the same. I mean, we all … it was so wonderful. Everyone got along so well. Everyone was so welcoming, and we just had a wonderful time.
Annie Sargent: So this was a four-night cruise?
Heather Addison: Yes. So it was a little bit on the shorter side, a four-night cruise, and it was, I would say up the Rhône. So the boat itself started down in Aigues-Mortes, and then we traveled up toward… our final stop was Avignon, and it just kind of goes back and forth on that route.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And how did you make your way to Aigues-Mortes? Did you take the train down?
Heather Addison: We actually… So, the boat picked us up by bus in Avignon and then brought us down to Aigues-Mortes. So we actually had, when we rented that van, we picked it up in Aix but dropped it off in Avignon.
Annie Sargent: Okay.
Heather Addison: So it allowed us to kind of make this … We made a little triangle trip.
Annie Sargent: Right. Right, so because I don’t … I think Aigues-Mortes has a train station, but that’s just from memory. I might be wrong.
Heather Addison: We didn’t see a ton of Aigues-Mortes. What we saw made me desperately want to go back because it is just beautiful and this little walled city with a… the tower out front. I mean, it’s just a beautiful town.
Heather Addison: We did a little tour the night we got there. Actually, our ship kind of activities person took a couple of us out, just walking at night through the town, which was really fun. And then the next day, we had a proper tour with a tour guide from the area who came to pick up our group and walk us through. But I would love to go back.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Aigues-Mortes is fantastic, especially if you go during one of their many celebrations. They have special weekends where they do kind of folksy celebrations, and it’s very fun.
Annie Sargent: And you’re in the Camargue so you can do other things, you know. You can go see the birds. You can go see the horses and the bulls and all of that.
Heather Addison: And we did see some of the horses while we were on the river. A couple of times they’d suddenly get very excited on the boat and start saying, you know, “Look out the windows. There are the horses.” And they were beautiful.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Did you see some pink flamingo?
Heather Addison: We did not, but I think it just was season. They talked to us a lot about them while we were in Aigues-Mortes, but I think they were not there or I don’t know what they do in the winter, but they were not there.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Well, they … A lot of them stay put, but they might not stay so close to the city. They might go a little further out, because I know when you take the train between … In the south, in that part of France, from the train you see a ton of flamingo. If you get off the freeway, you have to get off though because…
Heather Addison: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: … going very fast, yeah, you’re not going to see them.
[00:18:13] Pont du Gard Picnic
Annie Sargent: All right. So let’s see. You also enjoyed having a picnic at the Pont du Gard.
Heather Addison: Yes. So we have, within our crew, I would say everyone is very interested in the Romans, but we have a couple that are very interested. My nephews are, you know… since they were little boys, have really enjoyed that. In fact, my older nephew, one year, his birthday cake was the Pont du Gard.
Annie Sargent: Lovely.
Heather Addison: Yes. So this was a big deal, and that was a main, you know … kind of one of our main things that we wanted to make sure we were able to see. So it’s another reason why that rental van for the two days, I don’t know that there is a way to see the Pont du Gard without a vehicle.
Annie Sargent: From Avignon, there is a bus, but it only goes a couple times a day, and I’m not sure if it goes throughout the season. It might not be there in December. I’m not sure.
Heather Addison: Well… and it was simple. We stopped at a grocery store on our way over again, got some picnic supplies. The weather was just beautiful. You know, where we live, the wintertime is definitely not a time we could have any picnics because we’ve got, you know, feet of snow and very cold.
Annie Sargent: Where is home for you?
Heather Addison: We live very close to Lake Superior in Northern Michigan, so we’re way up there.
Annie Sargent: Okay, yeah. I get ya. Yeah.
Heather Addison: But that day, I think it was in the 50s, and it was just a clear blue day, sunshine, we had little… I always travel with these little, tiny, packable, frankly, picnic blankets, I’ve used them all over the place, but they pack up into almost the size of a deck of cards, and I have two of them. So we brought those along and we sat on the riverbank underneath the Pont du Gard, and again, just had this lovely picnic.
Heather Addison: It was… It’s one of those days, you know, kind of on every trip you have a couple of things that happen that you think, “Oh, I’ll remember this the rest of my life.” And that was definitely one of those things.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, the Pont du Gard is so peaceful, you know, it… the area is so easygoing, you can do quite a bit. If you want to go canoeing, again, probably not in December because French people don’t consider that lovely weather. We’re not from Lake Superior, you know?
Heather Addison: Right.
Annie Sargent: The French people were probably like, “Ooh, cold, cold.”
Heather Addison: We took our jackets off, it was that warm.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. But you can go canoeing, you can go on hikes, you can go on bike rides around there. You can spend a whole day exploring the area, and it’s just very, very… just lovely. It’s just… it feeds the soul is how I call it, you know? It gives you perspective into… like, people have been here this long.
Heather Addison: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And the way you describe it is… is absolutely right. It makes you feel small and big all at the same time.
Heather Addison: And it’s just a beautiful area. And even the driving, you know, to and from there, it’s just beautiful. You’re driving through little tiny villages, so it’s the kinds of places you don’t see if you’re only in the city or only on the train.
Annie Sargent: Fantastic.
[00:21:19] Seine River Dinner Cruise
Annie Sargent: So you also… Oh, you had a dinner on the Seine River on the Calife, which is a wonderful cruise boat that does nice dinners. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I haven’t had a dinner there. What was that like?
Heather Addison: Yes. And I would agree.So of the dinner cruises on the Seine, what we had heard ahead of time is that this is the one that really has kind of the food that you would actually remember, and I actually… I’m a proponent of dinner cruises, period.
Heather Addison: I think if you’re not in a place for very long and you’ve got to eat and you want to see things, go for it. But I know it’s a little controversial and people will say, “You’re in Paris, why would you eat so-so food on a boat when you could eat in a wonderful restaurant?”
Annie Sargent: If it makes you happy, you should do it.
Heather Addison: Yeah. We had… My husband and I had done that before, just on one of the, you know, very standard dinner cruise boats, and we thought it was fine. Again, it’s not food that you’re going to say, “Oh, that was amazing,” but the overall experience was so fun. But this time we thought, “Well, let’s kick it up a notch.” We heard about this other, you know, this other boat, and that food really was… I mean, it was… it was delicious, and very well thought out and everything was beautiful. And the boat itself is very lovely.
Annie Sargent: Mm-hmm.
Heather Addison: It’s an old wooden boat, so it just has this beautiful character, and it’s just gorgeous.
Annie Sargent: Right. And it docks very close between the Pont des Arts and the Pont Neuf.
Heather Addison: Exactly.
Annie Sargent: And so it’s very central, it’s easy to get to.
Heather Addison: The location was fantastic as far as getting on and off. And they all do a pretty similar thing where they go… You know, I think they go down toward the Statue of Liberty, and then they… Or what I would call the Statue of Liberty, and then they go back. They all seem to get down to the Eiffel Tower when the lights come on, which is… I mean, how can that not be fun? That’s wonderful.
Annie Sargent: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So the Statue of Liberty is on the Île aux Cygnes, it was actually a place where they… They built that to be able to dock boats.
Heather Addison: Okay.
Annie Sargent: And then they put a smallish Statue of Liberty on the tip.
Annie Sargent: And it’s a great place to go if you want to see French dogs. A lot of dogs get walked along that because it’s kind of a skinny, long thing, no cars. I mean, there might be some bikes, but it’s very safe. The few times I’ve taken my dog to Paris, that’s where I like to go walk her. Because I know it’s not going to be like, “What could happen?” Like, “Is a fish going to jump up at us or something?” You know?
[00:23:51] Montmartre and Dog Parks
Heather Addison: We are huge dog fans, everyone in our family, we all have dogs. The other place we were very surprised to see so many dogs, at the end of our trip, we stayed up in Montmartre, and there was this little dog park right by the Sacré-Coeur. That’s a million dollar view if they put an apartment building there, but here are all these cute little Parisian dogs playing in that park, it was a lot of fun.
Annie Sargent: They need a place to go.
Heather Addison: They do, just like the rest of us. And I’m glad there aren’t condos or apartments there. It was…
Annie Sargent: Yeah, that’s very good. All right.
[00:24:25] Details of the Four-Night Cruise
Annie Sargent: I realize we went a little fast perhaps on your four-night cruise. Do you want to say more about that? Like… What was the name of the boat? What company was it? Things like that.
Heather Addison: Sure. Yeah. So we sailed with Quasi Europe, and they have a few of the barges in their fleet. I think they’re more known for their large river boats. But we were on the Anne-Marie. I can’t remember if I said this already, but it holds a total… You could have 22 passengers on it. So it’s relatively small.
Heather Addison: The rooms themselves are very small, so it’s the only thing I would want people to really understand. They’re completely adequate for what you need. The space is very clever for how you can store things and unpack things. The shower was a good size, which I will say. For such a small space, the shower was a good size, if that’s a concern for anybody.
Annie Sargent: Was the toilet a separate area than the shower?
[00:25:20] Exploring the Boat’s Clever Design
Heather Addison: No, it’s all in the same room. You know, everything’s compact, but the bathroom, I was expecting it to be smaller, and I was expecting a very tiny shower stall. And it was maybe twice as big as I thought it might be, the shower stall.
Annie Sargent: So like compare it to a … Have you been on a big cruise ship, like a, I don’t know, Royal Caribbean or something like that?
Heather Addison: No.
Annie Sargent: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Heather Addison: Yeah. But it’s very clever space.
Annie Sargent: Okay.
Heather Addison: The boat is lovely. The rooms are in the lower level. There’s one, they call it an accessible room up on the upper level, and I think that’s true of all of their barges. I don’t really know if you really had mobility issues if that room … I mean, the only thing you’re saving yourself is the stairs going down, which would be something, but it’s not like it’s a huge room with, you know, big aisles around. I think what that one is is a double bed pushed against the wall, and that’s as big as that room is. So it’s just configured differently.
Annie Sargent: So perhaps four nights is good because it’s not super long.
[00:26:18] Relaxing Journey and Small Distances
Annie Sargent: Because these barges, they don’t go very fast, It’s like time slows way down once you’re on a boat, like that, yeah.
Heather Addison: Absolutely. It is so relaxing. To give an idea for the distance, they picked us up by bus in Avignon and bussed us down to Aigues-Mortes, which I think was an hour and a half, two hours’ drive. And that’s as far as we sailed in four days because we just reversed it, you know, on the boat. So it’s very small distances. It’s so relaxing, the boat… I certainly don’t want to make the boat sound negative by saying that the rooms are small. I just wanted to make sure that was understood.
Annie Sargent: That’s how they are, you know.
Heather Addison: But the boat itself, that experience is just … It’s so relaxing and lovely.
[00:27:04] Delicious Food on the Boat
Heather Addison: CroisiEurope really prides itself on its food, as they should. It’s delicious. The chef would come out with every meal and tell us what we were having. Breakfast is a buffet, kind of like you’d have in a hotel, but maybe a little more of a selection. And then lunch and dinner are seated, three courses and just absolutely delicious.
Annie Sargent: Fantastic. Yeah, it must be fun if you’re a chef, cooking for 22 guests, that’s fun. Cooking for 2,000 guests, that’s hard.
Heather Addison: And what’s amazing, if you’re lucky, they’ll give you a peek at their, you know, at the kind of behind the scenes area, and the kitchen that the chef cooks in is tiny. I mean, it’s amazing what he’s able to get out. But really delicious. Every day we were in a new place. Unlike a big cruise ship that would cruise at night or even when we’ve been on a riverboat before, those will cruise at night, this only ever cruises during the day. And part of your day then is also spent just on the river, just watching the river go by and relaxing, it’s just very, very lovely.
[00:28:13] Docking in Beautiful Cities
Annie Sargent: So did you dock in interesting places at night so you can go walk to, things to do and see?
Heather Addison: We did. Our first night we stopped in Arles, or the next day, I guess. The first night we were in Aigues-Mortes and then we stopped in Arles. And as a true bonus for us, where the boat docks is at the spot that van Gogh painted his “Starry Night Over the Rhone” from in Arles, which we had already made a point to see the day that we’d been in Arles on our little … When we were driving, we had stopped in Arles, without knowing that here we were just going to dock there for the whole night. So that was just a blast.
Heather Addison: These boats are small enough that they always dock right in the city center, so no matter where you are, you’re someplace that you’re going to be able to get out of the boat and walk right in. So we were in Arles. We stopped in Tarascon, Avignon. I think those were the three. Yeah. But just really lovely spots always, and they would have a local guide meet us and walk us in and kind of show us around.
Heather Addison: The one day we did not go with the local guide was the day we were in Arles, and the reason was we’d already been there, the day prior I think, on our own, we’d been there. And when we had gone, we had missed entrance into Les Alyscamps because we had gotten there 30 minutes too late, and we knew we wanted to see it still. So we skipped the tour with the guide and did our own thing and went right in. Yeah. Which was very easy to do.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. And the guiding was in French, I assume?
Heather Addison: Actually, no, it was in both languages.
Annie Sargent: Ah, okay.
Heather Addison: Every place we were, they would do it in both languages. And we speak enough French that we were usually able to follow what they were saying in French, but they would still do it in English, which was wonderful.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
[00:30:03] Memorable Dining Experience in Paris
Annie Sargent: Let’s go back to Paris. You mentioned a restaurant you really liked in Montmartre. Le Refuge des Fondues.
Heather Addison: Yes. This is such a fun place. That was our very last dinner, and it was kind of our, you know, hoorah to France celebration at the end. My husband and I had been to Le Refuge des Fondues back in 1998, when we were kind of first married and on that first trip you do where, I think we literally spent $50 a day, including our lodging, backpacking, you know, around Europe for a few weeks. And we remembered it fondly. And it’s still there. I would not say it’s a place that’s full of locals. It is definitely a place that is found by tourists. But you’re going to hear every language when you walk in there. It’s people from all over. It’s very tiny. It’s two long tables that go against the walls.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow.
Heather Addison: And that’s it. In fact, it’s so small that if you’re sitting with your back against the wall, sometimes you actually have to just step over the table. There’s no other way to get to your seat.
Annie Sargent: Wow.
Heather Addison: And it’s a set menu. All it is, is… you get a welcome drink. They bring out a little plate of hors d’oeuvres, which are going to be things like little cornichon and some sausage and…
Annie Sargent: Olives perhaps, nuts.
Heather Addison: Yeah, some olives, yep. And then you either order meat fondue, which is going to be boiling oil. They bring out a pot of boiling oil and bring out some raw steak that you cook yourself, or cheese fondue. And you order it for two people. So you can’t order, you know, a one person for meat and a one person for cheese. You have to order for at least two people.
Heather Addison: Because we were a group of nine, we had a mix of everything. We had some meat fondue and some cheese fondue. It’s actually quite tasty, but you’re really there for the atmosphere. It’s just fun. The walls are… There’s no paint left. It’s all graffiti, so… And they bring out markers and you add yours to it. You get wine with your meal. It’s served in a baby bottle, in a biberon. And I think the story is, at least it’s because of how tight the quarters are and you’re reaching across the table all the time because it’s fondue that they had so many spills that they just gave up and all the drinks come out in baby bottles. It’s truly fun. It’s always booked, so you… That is definitely a place you absolutely have to book.
Heather Addison: We saw a number of people come to the door and walk in and, you know, say, “Oh, table for two, please.” And they’d get, you know, turned around and…
Annie Sargent: Sorry.
Heather Addison: They do two seatings a night, and that’s it. So it’s also not a, you know… You can’t pick your time. There’s, I think, a 7:00 PM time and a 9:00 PM time, and that’s it.
Annie Sargent: And they’re not open at lunch, perhaps?
Heather Addison: I don’t think so. No, I think it’s strictly dinner. But it’s a well-oiled machine and they know what they’re doing and they do it well. And I think it’s been open since the ’60s. So it’s been doing this one thing for a long time.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. It’s probably not super expensive per person.
Heather Addison: No, I mean… no, for Paris it’s not. I think it was 30 euros, which is kind of a lot when you’re nine people and you know, if you were feeding little kids. But for Paris, I think that’s pretty…
Annie Sargent: Yeah, that’s what I would have guessed for a thing like that, 30 euros. If you get some wine and some nibbles and… 30 euros seems fair.
Heather Addison: And it’s fun. I really would recommend it. It’s fun.
Annie Sargent: Well, it’s memorable, you know. It’s not something you do every day, so…
Annie Sargent: And you had been there when you were young ones. That’s great. That’s great.
[00:33:39] Galerie Dior: A Fashion Surprise
Annie Sargent: You went to the Galerie Dior. Tell me about that.
Heather Addison: I did, and this was a surprise. So our daughter is a costume design student at university, and we had a little free time on our second day in Paris, and she really wanted to go to some kind of a, either a costume exhibit or a clothing exhibit, and we kept looking. Ironically now, I believe the Louvre actually has a clothing exhibit on, but it wasn’t there when we were there.
Annie Sargent: And it’s probably not going to stay there forever. I don’t think it will be there forever at the Louvre. It’s a temporary kind of thing. Yeah, but it looks great.
Heather Addison: It does. And I, when I saw it hit my notification, I was like, “Oh, well, that would have been fun too.” There’s a museum that we would have liked to have gone to, but that particular day was the day it was closed for the week, you know, within the week. And so we thought, “Well, let’s try the Galerie Dior.” And I looked, and of course there were no tickets. You know, that is another place that is booked. I don’t even think there were tickets within the whole month. I think they were all booked. But we knew there was a standby line. So she and I got in a cab and went over there, stood in the line.
Heather Addison: I think we probably waited 40, 45 minutes. And then we got in, and boy, was that a surprise. It just was… It’s so beautifully put together. I am not a person that is interested in wearing very expensive clothing or anything like that. So that part of it was not something I was, you know, that I’m interested and I thought, why would I even be interested in this?”
Heather Addison: But in fact, it was fascinating, and I walked out of there… first of all, with so much respect for Christian Dior, but also, just seeing the care with which he put the clothing together. They have some of the mock-ups still there, which my daughter was so delighted by. She came around the corner, there’s one room that has all these mock-ups presented, and she said, “Oh, it’s just how I do mine.” And that was so neat for her to see, you know, these mock-up garments where people have written all over them and made notes right on the fabric. And it was really, really a special… I would go back and I would tell people to go. It’s that neat to see.
Annie Sargent: That’s great. You know, because I’m not either into clothes, typically, but I recognize that there’s a lot of work that goes into these things. They’re works of art, really. It’s an art making beautiful gowns and beautiful hats and gloves and shoes and whatever goes along with it.
Annie Sargent: Like, you can have the run of the mill everything, which is fine, that’s how I dress most days, but then when you see a truly spectacular gown, it’s like, “Wow, how do you make that?”
Heather Addison: Y- Absolutely. The gowns themselves, they’re also presented in just these really neat… They have them kind of grouped together in different, I guess, almost like themes, and then that room might have flowers hanging from the ceiling or… It’s hard to explain, but it’s not just a white room with mannequins with gowns on them. It’s presented so beautifully.
Heather Addison: And Monsieur Dior’s office is, I don’t know if it was reassembled, but they have it there, and that’s really neat to see.
Heather Addison: They also have the room that the models, it’s kind of below you, there’s a glass floor, and you can see the room that the models used to dress in, and they’ve got some video running at the same time showing that happening. Because the gallery is in the house where the shows used to take place. Maybe they still do, I’m not sure, in the shop adjacent.
Heather Addison: So it’s just, it’s very well put together and probably takes 45 minutes, an hour to get through, so it’s also not a huge time commitment, but I would say it’s well worth it.
Annie Sargent: Were there a lot of people in line that didn’t have a ticket already that got in? I mean, do you get the impression that it’s doable? Like, if you wait a while, you’ll get in?
Heather Addison: I do, and I’ve… You know, we were there at a pretty busy time, because it was holiday time. That day would have been December 22nd, so a pretty busy time in Paris. There were a number of people in that standby line, and we thought, you know… And we were kind of on the clock. We had to be back to get to dinner to get to our next thing, that maybe we wouldn’t make it, but it moved, and it’s… Now, again, if we’d been a group of nine, we would not have made it. So the difference was that it was just two of us.
Annie Sargent: Yes. So, one of the tours I’m considering writing for Paris is a fashion walk tour. I know exactly where people need to go to see all of these things, and a lot of them are kind of… you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, on Rue Montaigne.
Annie Sargent: But, I don’t know, I feel like an imposter writing this, because… I mean, I have a lot of admiration for fashion, but I’m not a fashionista, you know? So I don’t know. Maybe I’ll do it someday.
Heather Addison: Oh, no, I think you should do it. I think it would be very fun… And again, this was a thing that just wasn’t really on my radar, and it turned out to be something that was a great experience. So I could see why people would enjoy it.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. And there’s other places you can go that are the original, you know, house where they did their original store in Paris.
Annie Sargent: So anyway, something that I’m considering of many things.
[00:38:47] Vintage Shopping in Montmartre
Annie Sargent: You went to a vintage store in Montmartre. So again, with your daughter, I suppose?
Heather Addison: You know, actually, not with her that day. So Montmartre was at the very end of our trip. We just spent two nights up there. After we got off the boat, we went back up to Paris. My daughter spent that entire day… we had two nights, but we really only had one full day, if that makes sense. And my daughter spent that entire day fabric shopping. So there’s… Montmartre is where the fabric district is in Paris.
Heather Addison: There’s a huge store called the Marche Saint Pierre. I think it’s five floors, just fabric from top to bottom, and then that whole street is full of them.
Heather Addison: So she went and did that. My mother and I were kind of walking around, and there’s this street called Rue des Martyrs that just… I mean, I would love just to walk up and down that street just to see all the different shops and… It’s just so unique and, you know, there’ll be one whole shop that’s just devoted to putting the gold, you know, the gilding on metal objects, for instance. So it’s very, very particular, very unique things.
Heather Addison: And I had read that there was a vintage store called Chine Machine at the top of that street, and I said, “Well, let’s just poke in there just to take a peek.” And it’s very small. There’s a very small men’s area downstairs. I had also told my nephews about it. One of my nephews really wanted to buy a suit in Paris, and he bought an Italian suit in Chine Machine for 30 euros.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow.
Heather Addison: Yeah, and he just was pleased as punch…. and then because I had my Dior experience, I actually found a little Dior pocket square, a men’s silk pocket square for seven euros, and now it’s tied to my purse. So that’s my little…
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow.
Heather Addison: … my little flair. So it’s a fun little store.
Annie Sargent: So “chiner” in French means to look at old things, used objects.
Annie Sargent: So Chinemachine Machine, that’s an interesting name for it. That’s fun. That’s fun.
Heather Addison: It was a fun little spot.
Annie Sargent: Let’s see. What else did you talk about? Oh, you went to the Palais Garnier obviously.
[00:40:53] Backstage Tour at Palais Garnier
Annie Sargent: Oh, and you had a private backstage tour? Wow.
Heather Addison: We did. This was a Christmas present for our kids. So there was one day in Paris at the beginning where we all kind of split up and did our own things, and then also the one day at the end where we split up and did our own things.
Heather Addison: Other than that, we did everything together, really, which worked very well. At the beginning, my brother’s family did a cooking tour with La Cuisine, sorry, not a cooking tour, a cooking class, with La Cuisine Paris, which they really enjoyed. And my mother did that with them.
Heather Addison: And my kids are huge Phantom of the Opera fans, and so we thought, “Well, we’ve got to do this.” You can book a private tour there and they can even kind of customize it to stress the Phantom of the Opera. You know, when Gaston Leroux wrote the book, this is the area he was talking about.
Heather Addison: It even include this subterranean lake, which… you know, my kids were just … And my kids aren’t young, they’re 18 and 22, but it was still, you know, just very, very exciting. Our guide did such a good job, and you do get to poke around these areas that are absolutely not something you’ll see, you know, on any of the public tours.
Heather Addison: I think the thing I thought was so neat, in the basement, they have these huge, the wooden gears that were original from when the opera house was, you know, before everything was automated.
Heather Addison: So, you know, they’d have I don’t know how many guys down there. When you had to move this door or this rope.
Heather Addison: And apparently, there was a pipe that used to connect, so the guy up top would holler down the, you know, “Okay, it’s time for the trapdoor,” or whatever.
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Heather Addison: And somebody would turn that gear. So those were really fascinating to see. But yeah, that was very, very fun. My son, he’s 18, he’s a great traveler, he’s, you know, a good sport, but he’s an 18-year-old and, you know, not much really impresses him, to be frank with you. You know what I mean? And he will say, “That was so amazing.” You know, he just absolutely loved that. And I don’t mean nothing impresses him, I just mean…
Annie Sargent: Sure, sure, but yeah, like most kids, he’s hard to please.
Heather Addison: Yeah. He likes being with his family and being with his cousins. It doesn’t really matter to him what he’s doing or seeing, you know? It’s all kind of the same.
Annie Sargent: That’s fantastic.
Heather Addison: Yeah, the Palais Garnier is a beautiful place, and especially if you have a daughter who’s interested in costumes and things. Like, there are some nice costumes too. I’m sure you saw them upstairs. We did, yeah. And then we did see an opera that same night. We had booked that ahead for the group, and that actually turned out to be a very unexpected funny experience. We had booked the opera because, again, we just thought, “Oh, what a great experience. We’ll get to actually see something staged there.” Also, it can be hard to see the auditorium, to see the Chagall ceiling is the thing I was the most looking forward to seeing, and oftentimes, it’s not open, you know, during the day.So we knew we were guaranteed to get in and see it. We frankly, we booked the opera before we booked the tour, so we didn’t know we’d have a chance to see it. And it was a Stravinsky opera called The Rake’s Progress that I’d never heard of, but we just thought, “Ah, we’re really going more for the experience, doesn’t matter.” And we all sat down, all nine of us ended up going. We sat down and it started and it was, you know, as you’d expect, but very quickly it just … People were naked and they were doing all kinds of things that you normally don’t see people do in public. It was a big, a big surprise. We got the giggles that we were all trying to be very quiet about and keep to ourselves at intermission.
Heather Addison: Basically, everybody came out at intermission and said to me, “Did you know that that was going to happen?” And I, “No, I did not know.”
Annie Sargent: Yeah, that got to be, like, with young kids, like, “Oh.”
Heather Addison: Oh, oh, hysterical. And I mean, it … The funny thing about it though is, you know, number one, we will never forget it. It’ll be a memory that will stay with us forever. And, you know, in some seriousness, I actually have realized that in the early days of opera, it did shock people and kind of scandalize them. Maybe just very appropriate that the Paris Opera got us.
Annie Sargent: Stravinsky had to be shocking.
Heather Addison: Yeah.
Annie Sargent: Very good. All right.
[00:45:13] A Night at Chateau de Pondres
Annie Sargent: The last thing we’re going to mention, because we’ve been talking a while, is the night you spent at a castle, Chateau de Pondres.
Heather Addison: Yes. So that was down in the Provence area, I think it might be technically just outside of Provence. It was west of Arles, about an hour west of Arles. And we had told everybody it was a surprise that my mom and I had cooked up for the family. We had told everyone we were going to eat there, which is true. They have a lovely restaurant there, called Le Canope, and it’s a Michelin-listed restaurant. It does not have an Etoile, but it is listed in the guide.
Annie Sargent: Those are even better, I think.
Heather Addison: Yeah, I think so too. You get a good deal for them and you know it’s going to be delicious.
Annie Sargent: And it’s not going to be ostentatious, like it’s going to be, you know, nice food without all the theater around it.
Heather Addison: Absolutely. And their restaurant is in the old weapons room in the castle, so it’s this, you know, very tall, vaulted room, and just a really neat atmosphere.
Heather Addison: So my mom had on Christmas morning told everybody, here’s a gift I have for you, we’re going to eat this special dinner on the day that we’re driving.” And we had told everyone that we were just going to, you know, spend the night at a like an Ibis up in Avignon, when in fact we had actually booked rooms in the chateau for the night.
Annie Sargent: Very nice.
Heather Addison: So when we got there we said, “Oh, actually, grab your suitcases because we’re spending the night.” And it was just, it’s lovely, it was so fun. It really is, at least in December it was very reasonably priced. I don’t know what it, you know, what it might look like in the summertime. But very comparable to any hotel you’re going to stay in, very similar.
Annie Sargent: Fantastic.
Heather Addison: It was fun. And the kids were all in, they shared a suite together because it was cheaper, frankly, than getting two rooms that would’ve been required to get, you know, four kids in. And it was in the original keep of the castle way up top in the tower. So they just enjoyed it. Yeah. Very fun.
[00:47:16] Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Annie Sargent: All right. Heather, you are delightful. I’m so glad you came on the podcast to share all of this. This was fantastic.
Heather Addison: Thank you for having me.
Annie Sargent: You also wrote up a lot of other things about the restaurants you went to, the hotels you used. We haven’t had time to get to all of that. But I will make a special page with all of your recommendations, under the guest notes button, at the bottom of the page for the episode so that everybody can see all of the things you did.
Annie Sargent: Thank you so much, and happy next adventures wherever you’re going.
Heather Addison: Thank you for having me.
Heather Addison: Yes. I’m sure there’ll be something else.
Annie Sargent: Merci beaucoup, Heather.
Heather Addison: Merci, Annie.
Annie Sargent: Au revoir.
[00:48:03] Thank You Patrons
Annie: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
Annie: And a special shout-out this week to Virginie Robertson and Sam Sadler for increasing their pledge.
Annie: Would you join them too? You can do it for as little as $3 a month, but if you can afford it, I would love to have you pledge you more so you can have access to more of the rewards. Go to patreon.com/joinus. And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
Annie: This week, I published several things for my patrons.
Annie: I like to keep in touch, send them photos or short videos of what’s happening in my life and things like that. And it was wonderful to get a lot of feedback about the nationality, the French nationality ceremony that I’ll tell you about in just a second.
[00:49:04] VoiceMap Review
Annie: Somebody left this review of one of my VoiceMap tours this week.
Annie: This person wrote, “I listened to the tour in advance, and my wife and I took the tour when we stayed in the Latin Quarter last week. We had walked many of the same streets 25 years ago, on our first trip to Paris. This time, we observed many sights we either didn’t notice before or had no understanding or appreciation for.
Annie: Annie’s pleasant narration brought history alive at our own pace and convenience. As we observed large groups following leaders looking at the same sights, we were glad we were able to learn while avoiding a cattle call experience. The tour greatly enriched our ex- experience of the Latin Quarter.”
Annie: That’s very nice of you to say. Thank you. Yes, my tours do take you to a lot of the same sights. I just make sure that when I take you from point A to point B, I do it through the most interesting route.
Annie: About my Saint-Germain-des-Prés VoiceMap tour, ” Thank you, Annie, my first VoiceMap tour, and you have me hooked. My solo first time in Paris, and I actually like traveling with other people, so thank you for keeping me company.”
Annie: Well, that’s my pleasure, and I love to travel alone as well, and when I’m alone, I definitely want to have somebody I feel like I’m having a conversation with, and those VoiceMap tours are kind of like that.
Annie: They really are taking a private tour with a human guide who lets you stop whenever you want, picks up again at your leisure, or even goes to a different route, on a different point on the map, if you would like, and you cannot do that with a live tour guide.
[00:50:45] Discount for Podcast Listeners
Annie: Podcast listeners get a big discount for buying these tours from my website.
Annie: It’s best for me as well, because I get to keep more of what you pay instead of giving it to Apple or Google, and that would be at the boutique, joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
Annie: You can also hire me to be your itinerary consultant if you’re planning a trip to France and want expert help. I’ll be happy to do that.
Annie: I will improve your plan if you already have one or suggest one if you’re at a loss. And again, you could book that at the boutique, joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
[00:51:20] Podcast Episodes on Apple Podcast
Annie: Okay, let’s talk about why you can only find the last 300 episodes of the podcast again. So, when I was nearing 300 episodes many moons ago, just a reminder to the new listeners, this podcast has been going since 2014, I wasn’t publishing super regularly at first. It took me a couple of years to get there, but it’s been four times a month pretty much this whole time. And once I reached 300 episodes, there was a rule on Apple Podcasts, who is the biggest distributor of podcast content, and has been historically, they wanted to only keep 300 episodes in the RSS feed.
Annie: That’s a technical thing. That’s what makes the episodes appear in your Apple Podcasts or Pocket Casts or Spotify or whichever app you use to listen to this podcast.
Annie: So there was a limit of 300, and then they decided to go all the way up to 2,000, which was really cool. And so, for a while you could see all of my episodes in Apple Podcasts or wherever you happen to listen, because believe it or not, everybody else pings Apple Podcasts for the content.
Annie: So, once it’s on Apple Podcasts, they distribute it to everybody else. And so, there’s only one RSS feed for my show. Otherwise, it would be very, very confusing, so there’s just the one, and it goes to all these destinations, right? And since Apple Podcasts now, again, says only 300 episodes, well, guess what I had to do?
Annie: Last Sunday, my episode did not publish to Apple Podcasts as it has been for years, and several of you let me know that immediately, because you’re used to getting the episode on time. It’s always published at 6:00 PM on Sunday, France time, and this time, well, it wasn’t there.
Annie: And you wrote to me, and I wrote to the company that hosts the files and creates the RSS feed for me, they’re called Libsyn, and they told me, “Sorry, you have to go back to 300 episodes maximum.”
Annie: And so I am afraid that…There’s nothing I can do about that. Apple Podcasts is the biggest repository of podcast content and that’s what they’ve decided to do. Hopefully they’ll change their minds again.
Annie: So in the meantime, if you’re one of these wonderful people who listen from the beginning and want to catch up, you will have to browse to joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
Annie: And you can do that either from a tablet, or a laptop, or a phone, and there’s a player there and you can play the episode from there. I control my own website, right? So, all of my episodes are ready and available to download from my website. I cannot, unfortunately, decide what Apple Podcasts does.
Annie: So that explains why.
Annie: So just go to joinusinfrance.com/episodes and you can see all of them and just listen to however many you would like to. And to the people who do that, you have my admiration. I’m not sure I would have the patience to listen to myself all the way back years ago. I’m sure my voice has changed.
Annie: I think my voice changes all the time. Whenever I talk too much, I get these terrible, like, ugh, scratches in my throat.
[00:54:57] The Ceremony to become French Citizen
Annie: Anyway, second thing I wanted to discuss this time is the ceremony on the occasion of my husband’s becoming a French citizen.
Annie: He has wanted to do this for many years, but he really submitted the paperwork about a year ago or something, and it finally happened. We had a couple of occasions where it got stalled because he didn’t have the right paper for this or that. And of course, since he has a 10-year residency card, it wasn’t a big hurry or anything like that.
Annie: It wasn’t ever a big priority for him, but eventually we got it done and he had all the paperwork. He now has his voter card, he has his French passport, his French ID, and he now attended the ceremony with a lot of other new French people, that they held at the prefecture in Toulouse.
Annie: And so I did a bit of video and I shared that with my patrons this week.
Annie: It’s always fun to do little things like that, and I will do more and more video to share both with patrons and with YouTube, eventually.
Annie: I just need to get better at this. Not there quite yet to make it all the way public.
[00:56:03] Recent Day Trips
Annie: I also took two day trips in the last couple of weeks. One with Beth Hall and her family. We went to Albi and Cordes-Sur-Ciel. And Albi is beautiful. The basilica is amazing. The Toulouse-Lautrec Museum of Albi is also fantastic. It’s a World Heritage Site. The whole city center is a World Heritage Site.
Annie: And so it was my pleasure to take them there.
Annie: Cordes-Sur-Ciel was tricky because it’s so hilly and finding a place to park there is… I kind of avoided, you know, I kept going up and up and up through the narrow streets because I hoped that eventually I’d find a place to stop my car and we wouldn’t have to hoof it up quite as high.
Annie: I’m told that there is a shuttle. I need to find out where that shuttle is exactly next time I do a day trip to Cordes-Sur-Ciel. And the other day trip that I did was just yesterday and it was with Rae Ann and her sister Gail. And they wanted to go to Sarlat, in the Dordogne, and Lascaux, Lascaux IV.
Annie: Okay, that was a very long day trip but it was fantastic. They were enthralled with the experience and it was wonderful to get to take them there.
[00:57:17] Getting Rear-Ended
Annie: Unfortunately, one negative thing that happened is that I got rear-ended on my way there. We were approaching Sarlat and in a little town called Gourdon.
Annie: I was driving kind of slow because I don’t know the roads that well. And besides it’s in, within the city center so it’s, you’re limited to 30 kilometers an hour any way. But I got to a crosswalk and there was a woman who was waiting to cross and so I stopped for her to let her cross. And the guy behind me, who was a local, I only knew that later, wasn’t paying any attention to me.
Annie: He was looking at somebody who was walking on the sidewalk and he rear-ended me pretty hard. Thankfully my car is kind of heavy and also I had a tow ball on because I use that for bikes and I don’t remove it very often. Thank goodness I had it because he would have crushed my whole back of the car.
Annie: He crushed a lot as it is, he crushed like all the underside of the car is going to be replaced, probably the bumper. But it didn’t break the back up camera, cameras in my case. And so that’s good, I can still see what I’m doing when I’m parking or going backwards.
Annie: So, the whole experience was very civil. Nobody yelled at anybody. I was very shaken at first but I didn’t get mad at him. I mean, he was obviously in the wrong. Like if you rear end somebody, that’s it, you know? There’s no questions to be asked. We exchanged papers and took photos of the unfortunate cars.
Annie: His car is very bad. I don’t, I’m not sure this car is ever going to drive again because he was oozing a different green coolant and also some dark, it was an older car and it might be his last road trip that it took.
Annie: But, you know, it happens. We have this system in France where we have a blue kind of booklet that we both fill up and it describes, you draw a picture of what happened, you give the address, the time, the personal info for both drivers.
Annie: And so long as you agree on what happened, then you don’t need to do anything more. You don’t have to call the police or anything. You just do this description. You both sign it. We exchanged phone numbers. I was in a hurry to keep going as well because I had customers in the car and I wanted to get to Sarlat.
Annie: So we didn’t fill out the paperwork all the way. He called me later and we finished it up and my insurance is going to take over and it’s just one of those things. It’s not the end of the world. I was shaken for a bit, but then I recovered. Eventually, I recovered and thankfully Rae Ann and Gail were fine and it didn’t completely turn them off doing a day trip in France.
[01:00:12] Meeting Listeners in Person
Annie: And then, just today I had lunch with Terri, who was a boot camper in 2023 and her husband And I wanted to say, this week and last, several of you have asked me if I could go to, you know, coffee or lunch or dinner or whatever. And it’s always wonderful to be invited.
Annie: One person even invited me to go on their barge, on le boat, on the Canal du Midi and I was really looking forward to that, but unfortunately because of a lot of the things happening in my life, I just couldn’t make the five or six hours that would have taken. And when I can’t do it, it always makes me a little sad, but I hope you understand that if it’s a good day for me to do something, then I will, but if it’s not a good day, then I have to decline sadly because there are a lot of you and just one of me.
Annie: All right. So that’s my update for this time. My dogs are doing great. My husband and daughter are all doing great. And so, it’s good, it’s busy time, but it’s good.
Annie: My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan who produced the transcripts.
Annie: Next week on the podcast, an episode about “Tips for navigating Paris and dealing with surprises” with Brian Revel, who’s one of my oldest patrons, who’s been on the podcast before as a matter of fact. He’s very informative every time and I think you’ll enjoy the episode.
Annie: Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.
[01:01:43] Copyright
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 Page Guest NotesCategories: Christmas in France, Family Travel