Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: Moving to France, Provence
[00:00:00]
Annie S: This is Join Us in France, episode 599, cinq cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf.
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: Buying an Apartment in Nice Sight Unseen and Getting a French Mortgage as Americans
Annie S: Today, I bring you a conversation with Antoine and Annie, a couple from Los Angeles who bought an apartment in Nice, France, sight unseen during the pandemic and never looked back.
We talked about navigating French real estate from across the Atlantic, what French banks actually care about, life split between LA and the Riviera, and why Nice keeps winning them over.
[00:01:00] Before we start, this show runs on listener support. If you want to work with me directly, I do itinerary consults, VoiceMap tours of Paris, and day trips around the southwest of France in my electric car.
Everything is at joinusinfrance.com/boutique, and if you shop on Amazon anyway, starting at joinusinfrance.com/amazon costs you nothing but helps the show.
Magazine segment
Annie S: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Antoine and Annie, I’ll discuss some thoughts about my recent car trip through France, starting in Toulouse and ending in Metz, and stopping in many cities and towns in between.
The question I’ll address is, how do you optimize your time when visiting France?
Meet Antoine and Annie
Annie S: Bonjour, Antoine and [00:02:00] Annie, and welcome to Join Us in France.
Antoine K: Bonjour.
Annie K: Hello, Annie. Thank you.
Annie S: Wonderful to have you. So we have been talking about doing this episode for a while because you have quite the story, okay? You bought an apartment in France, sight unseen. I love it. Let’s start with that. I don’t know which one of you should take that question.
Antoine K: I would. I would.
Why Nice Became the Dream
Antoine K: Yeah, so, we had this idea on our trip in 2019, which entailed going to Paris, Nice, and Greece. So we were in Paris first, and then five days later we went to Nice. We arrived in the afternoon. We were hungry. Remy, our son, a six-year-old at the time, starving. So went to this Italian restaurant, and we started talking. We’re Armenian by origin, so the owner was Armenian. We started chit-chatting. He said, "I live around the corner." We talked about real estate. I’m always [00:03:00] fascinated with that industry. One thing led to another. Long story short, coming back from that trip in 2019, we came up with this idea, "Huh, why not?" It’s doable. It’s feasible. We love Nice. Our trip to Nice was, first trip with Annie was in 2008.
So, the more we thought about it after that summer in 2019, the more it made sense.The location of the city, the proximity to the airport, which is a international airport. And we said, "Oh, it has the beaches. It has the nightlife. It has the shopping." The proximity to Italy. We would go to Italy, have dinner, and come back in one day. So the more we thought about it, we said, "We are doing this, absolutely. I don’t care how big or small the apartment is, we want pied-à-terre." Just something to, like a base city, basically, to explore the region, the country, and pretty much all Europe.
Annie S: Wonderful.
Antoine K: So that’s what we did and, you know, [00:04:00] we started the process. And then little hurdles, realizing navigating the real estate market in Europe, specifically France, it’s not as easy as we’re used to it in United States, not having the MLS system.
And so we ended up briefly messaging a few agencies, and some responded, some never did. It was very slow process, but we were determined to continue with the project and not give up at all.
Annie S: Right. And I should say that you’re not retired. You’re both still working.
Antoine K: Absolutely.
Annie K: Unfortunately.
Annie S: So you’re having to kind of split your time between the two countries, and we’ll get to that as well. But I want to hear more about this purchase.
So I’m not surprised at all that some agencies didn’t even respond, because in France, if you don’t walk into the agency and shake hands with people, a lot of them won’t take you seriously. Although in Nice, they should know by now that there are a lot of US people who want to buy [00:05:00] property in Nice of all places, of course. But who knows? So tell me a little bit more about that, the initial approach with the agencies, with the realtors.
Cold Emails to Agencies
Annie K: So what we did is we crafted, like an initial email, like a generic boilerplate email. Like, "Hello, we’re a couple from the United States. We’re looking to purchase a vacation home in Nice. This is the basic, you know, details of what we’re looking for. Please contact us so we can discuss moving forward."
Annie S: You had a budget in there.
Annie K: We had a budget in there. We will talk about how we ended up exceeding that budget ultimately.
Annie S: Surprise. It was more-
Annie K: Surprise, surprise
Annie S: … expensive than you thought. Yeah.
Annie K: Yeah.
Annie S: Yeah.
Annie K: Exactly. So I think, honey, we sent that out maybe to 10, 15 different agencies that were familiar to us.
Antoine K: Maybe. I forgot how many you did, because you sent out those emails.
There was one agency, I forgot the name now, maybe Annie will remember, that she [00:06:00] responded. It was a very professional lady. She responded.
Pandemic Pause and Persistence
Antoine K: We went back and forth up until March of 2020 when everybody knows what happened.
So we told her… Because initially our plan was that April of 2020, it would’ve been our 10th year anniversary of our wedding.
Said, "How wonderful would be if we find something, we fly in real quick, we see the apartment, and we maybe purchase it, and we celebrate our 10-year anniversary?" That would’ve been by April.
Annie K: Yes.
Antoine K: Well, yeah. Very wishful, very wishful thinking.
Annie K: Sure.
Antoine K: Yeah. So when March rolled in and the world shut down, I think Annie emailed her saying, you know, obviously things on the back burner, on hold. But we never gave up on the idea. That’s the thing. We never said, "You know what? Forget it." We said, "Just don’t show us anything right now because we’re not able to travel and see the apartment." Still, at [00:07:00] that point, we didn’t know that we were going to proceed buying something sight unseen.
Annie S: Right.
Choosing Carré d’Or Location
Antoine K: So, may rolled in, but all this, the last six, seven months, I’m scouring the market. I know all the websites. I know the city almost like the back of my hand. It was kind of… We narrowed it down to very, you know, neighborhood in Nice, which is Carré d’Or. You know, that’s like the heart of the city.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: Because we didn’t want to drive, because we could have bought something on the hills with a beautiful sea view and so forth, but then you’re forced to have a car.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: And you’re limited with the options of dining or shopping. So we knew for a fact we didn’t want to be by the hills. We wanted to be somewhere close to the beach and in the city center.
Annie S: Yeah, yeah.
Antoine K: Absolutely.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: So that’s what happened. In May we saw this apartment, which I have seen before for many months, since January, because that apartment was renovated and on the market in January of 2020.
Annie S: So you had seen it but online.
Antoine K: Online, online, [00:08:00] yes. In the beginning of the process, that apartment was outside our budget, and it was on the smaller side, square meter-wise, obviously. But it had two bedroom. You know, we wanted two bedroom ideally. We were okay with one bedroom, but ideally two, especially for my son. You know, we don’t want him to share, with the bed sizes being small and so forth.
So in May we saw it again. And there was another apartment came up right next to it for sale, one bedroom. Little bit smaller, obviously, because it’s one bedroom.
FaceTime Tours and The Offer
Antoine K: So we contacted this agent, Keller Williams. Shout-out to Diran Doulakian, an Armenian agent, which we, I had discovered one morning and I shouted to Annie, "Come down, I found an Armenian agent we want to deal with." Just that connection alone is like, you know what, you know… And he ended up being from my, back home from my country. Okay, so we contacted him. He showed us an apartment or two via FaceTime.
Annie S: So, he would take his phone and FaceTime, show you the [00:09:00] apartment. Okay, okay.
Antoine K: Yes, yes. By then I know the streets. You know, we wanted streets with this, you know, sometimes the building could be beautiful, house mainly and/or, or art deco, but then if you go on the balcony or your window, you look right across, that building right across might not be the prettiest. So, we wanted, avoided those scenarios with narrow streets.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: So I told him about this apartment that I’ve seen, and then he said, "By the way, uh…" Simultaneously, the same apartment popped up with the same material and renovation with material used in both apartments.
So we realized, oh, this developer, or they call it marchand de biens, so they… This apartment, both of them, we have a theory. They used to be one apartment. They cut it in half, one about 50 square meter, the other one is 40 square meter. One is two bedroom, one is one bedroom, but obviously they purchased the same kitchen, same materials, and renovated both [00:10:00] apartments.
The one bedroom was more budget-friendly, and we were okay with it. He said, "I have the keys." We told him, "Let’s go see the one bedroom," of course via FaceTime. So one Monday morning, for us Monday morning in Los Angeles, and his afternoon in Nice, he said, "I have the keys for the one-bedroom apartment and the two-bedroom apartment, but let’s see the one-bedroom apartment."
Annie S: Okay.
Antoine K: He walks in. He showed us, FaceTime. Beautiful, renovated, furnished, of course. It’s very common in France to sell, especially the renovated apartments, to be furnished. I don’t know if there was an option not to buy the furniture, but obviously for us was much easier to buy it with the furniture.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: So we saw it. It’s like, it’s beautiful. It’s perfect. He said, "Do you guys want to see the two-bedroom apartment right next door?" It’s like, "Of course. Why not, since you’re there?" He goes in. 20 steps later, he showed us this two-bedroom apartment. It’s larger. The kitchen is much bigger, because the one bedroom [00:11:00] was more like a kitchenettes, versus, like, a half, almost a full-size refrigerator and the dishwasher and so forth.
So we said, "Diran, we love this apartment," but it was, like, listed little bit higher. What should we offer that it makes sense, not too offensive, and yet that’s a numbers we can work with?
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: So he gave us a number. We offered it that morning. An hour later he tells us, "Can we do a conference call?" Because I had left. Annie went to work. It was a Monday morning. I remember very well. I went to change my tires on the car. So, I was at the tire shop. We conference call. We pick up the phone. He goes, "Diran, félicitations." He accepted the offer.
Negotiating Terms and Acceptance
Annie S: I have to jump in here. In France, if you offer full price, it’s really rare for the person not to take your offer, okay? And as a matter of fact, most places in France, this is [00:12:00] not everywhere, but most of the places in France, if you offer full price, yeah, they’re committed to not reject you. Because you gave full price offer, they’re committed to not put, say, "Oh, this guy is giving me full price. Why don’t you give me more and then you can take it?" Once you’ve offered full price, you can be assured that they will… Unless you can’t come up with the money, of course. That’s a different matter. But if you offer full price and you have the money, you will get the place.
Antoine K: Actually, we offered less, obviously.
Annie S: Oh, you did?
Antoine K: Oh, of course, of course, and with a contingency.
Annie S: Well, it was during the pandemic.
Antoine K: Exactly. That worked for us because, you know, the developers, people in that business, you know, they don’t want to sit on the market with these properties, because they have money tied up. They have loans on it.
Annie S: And so much uncertainty, so much uncertainty. So yes, yes, it made sense, yes.
Antoine K: Yeah. In any normal market, he might have not accepted, or he would’ve counter-offered. But with our contingency, one of them was very [00:13:00] simple, that one of the, our bedroom, the master bedroom apartment, the balcony doors, it wasn’t double paned. Everything else was renovated. I don’t know, maybe he ran out of money. That one door was not double vitrage. So we said, "This is the number, plus, this has to be double paned." That’s why he agreed.
Annie S: Okay.
Antoine K: So the whole thing happened within two hours, he showed us the apartment, we made the offer, he accepted, we signed the contract. That was the story of how we signed.
Annie S: So you signed a contract, like, at a distance. They just emailed you some paperwork and you signed it.
Antoine K: Yes.
Annie K: Yeah, I was going to say, when we got that call, I think it was an hour later, the… And we weren’t together, we were in two different locations. The first thing that came to mind was, "Oh, my God, we offered too much money," because why else would they accept so quickly? But it’s too late, we’re in. Let’s see where this process takes us.
Annie S: You know, [00:14:00] honestly, in real estate, if you love a place enough to make an offer that quickly, then just… just pay the… pay the money. It’s worth it to you, and that’s all that matters.
Annie K: Absolutely.
Remote Closing and Loan Hunt
Annie K: I remember they emailed us the initial forms to make it official that we’re starting the process. And we did everything remotely, which of course wasn’t ideal. It’s not what people were used to, in France especially.
And I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s probably what caused it to take six months for the entire financing and escrow process. We weren’t physically able to travel to meet with any financial institutions. We had to have someone there, Jerome, I recall his name, advocating on our behalf and, you know, constantly requesting credit reports, tax records, employment pay stubs. Every day we were submitting information, which thankfully it was easy for us. We keep pretty [00:15:00] good records.
Annie S: This was probably a… a courtier, someone who looks for loans for people?
Antoine K: Yes, he’s a broker. Yes, loan broker. He, I mean, I remember he was saying, he mentioned it by passing, saying, he, I think he went to 11 banks with our dossier. Maybe 10 of them rejected us.
Annie S: Okay. Yeah, yeah. So what it is, is they have a meeting once, every couple of weeks, and they present dossier that day, and you have 10 bankers in the room or 20 bankers in the room, and they present quickly, and then the bankers say, "I’ll have this one," and the other one has this one.
Antoine K: Yeah.
Annie S: Whatever. And if you get rejected, then they have the obligation to ask another person. They have to have two rejections from different banks before they say, "Sorry, you can’t have the property." So it’s, it, there’s some, there’s a lot of rules like that.
Antoine K: Yeah, yeah. We don’t know, obviously, the details, but the hurdle was because we had to do it remotely.
Annie S: Exactly.
Antoine K: To get a loan remotely and [00:16:00] for a country like France or Europe in general, which they are more conservative, it’s a big deal. Like, who are these people? Like, who are, we never seen them. I mean, who are these people? We’re giving them money, and we don’t even, they’re not even here physically.
Annie S: Right.
Antoine K: But it happened.
Annie S: Right now, of course, we’re far away from the pandemic. The fastest you can hope a process like this to take place, if everybody’s in France, is three months.
So six months you didn’t do poorly, actually, you know.
Antoine K: Actually, I think it was a little less. I was, I think we started in June, the official thing, but we closed December 8th. So almost, a little over five months, five to six months. Yeah.
Annie S: But they will ask you for a lot of paperwork, a lot of tax records. So Annie, are you the records person in your family?
Annie K: Yes. I’m the record keeper. I’m the record keeper, for sure. It was a nice distraction between working remotely during the pandemic and raising our son, who’s also learning remotely. It was a nice distraction to get these emails and have to [00:17:00] locate tax returns, credit reports, certain statements, and just to send it to him, just to see the process, you know, moving forward step by step. Every week we were getting closer.
Annie S: Right.
France vs US Buying Process
Annie S: So Annie, you’re a lawyer, but do you do real estate law in the US?
Annie K: I don’t do real estate law. I do primarily business litigation and employment at this point.
Annie S: Okay, okay. But you’re familiar with all the legalese. Is it that different in France than in the US?
Annie K: Aside from the major language barrier, probably not that different, no. And if I recall correctly, there’s something that’s similar to a right of first refusal of France or the government to…
Annie S: Right, the city
Annie K: … you know, place a bid on your, the city to say, "No, you know, Annie and Antoine can’t have that property. The city wants that property for themselves."
Annie S: Yeah.
Annie K: And I recall that took a little brief period of time, too.
Annie S: Right, and I was just discussing this today with a realtor, because we’re in the process as well of a thing, and she said, you know, "If [00:18:00] you just email the paperwork, they might take two months to respond.
But if I pick up the phone and I know the person at the city, at City Hall who does this, I will get a response in a week." So you know, you just, it’s a step you have to do it, and they almost never deny you the right to buy it, but it’s one of the steps, yes.
Antoine K: Interesting, yeah.
Annie S: So you found that there were similarities. I assume you’ve purchased property in the US as well?
Antoine K: Yes, but we don’t have the system here. Here, you can… no city or municipality will interject, or they don’t have the right of first refusal.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: Here you, you make an offer, you can buy a property, and you can close in 30 days. You can close escrow or get the keys in 30 days, sometimes even less.
Obviously, if there’s no contingency of a loan. But, France, it’s more paperwork-heavy. And yes, even if you probably pay cash, it’s going to take three months.
Annie S: Yeah, even a cash purchase would be three months. Did you get a loan on this, or were you going cash?
Antoine K: [00:19:00] Yes, yes, a loan. That’s why we had to deal with the courtier, with Jerome the broker, because we had… He had to shop around for us for a bank to loan us the remainder of, you know.
Annie S: And what percentage did you have to put down?
Antoine K: So that’s the thing. I always tell people, "You have to have a good 40% of the purchase price."
Annie S: Yes, as Americans specifically.
Antoine K: Yeah, yeah, 40%, but the loan terms are very favorable. So we have 20-year loan for 1.8% interest rates.
Annie S: Oh, wow.
Antoine K: That’s almost unheard of.
Annie S: Yeah, I mean, during the pandemic, interest rates went very low because of, you know, economy.
Antoine K: Yes, yes. So at the time, they told us it would’ve been between a point and a half and 2%. We said, "Of course, we don’t mind. Let it be two. Let it be three." Because, you know, obviously you know, we wanted to do it, and the loan amount is not big to make a big difference. But yes, they came back with 1.8%.
No one would object to [00:20:00] that.
Annie S: Right. Right.
Antoine K: But nowadays, it’s different. Now in France it’s 4%, which is still better than the US.
Annie S: Well, it’s three and a half, actually, where I am, yeah.
Antoine K: Okay, great.
Annie S: You can hope for three and a half maybe.
Antoine K: Yes, yes.
Annie S: As we record this, we’re recording this in February 2026, so it changes, but yeah.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
Annie S: All right, excellent.
Notaire Power of Attorney
Annie S: You got yourself a loan, you got yourself the house, the apartment eventually. You never saw it. You signed… So your notaire, I assume, had the, you had given the notaire the right to sign for you.
Antoine K: The power of attorney, yeah.
Annie S: Yeah, power of attorney, yeah. You know, in France, we’re very procedural, which is can be annoying to people, but it’s also really good because we know this is how these things work. And during the pandemic, notaire were starting to do everything via video conferencing.
Antoine K: Remotely, yeah.
Annie S: Remotely, and [00:21:00] for several years that’s what they did. And if you close on a house today, and you have your own notaire, and the seller has their own notaire, probably both notaire won’t be in the room with you. One is going to… You’re going to be invited to, into the office of one of them, and then the other one is going to be video conferencing in.
But all the signatures, all of that has been kind of made online.And it’s to the point where they really want people to sign online now.
Antoine K: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s catching on in France. Certainly things changed since COVID. I do not mind the process at all. I know it’s lengthy, so you cannot be hurried to purchase anything or any process in Europe, especially France. It always protects the consumer or the buyer. That’s why I do not mind it.
Annie S: Right. Right.
Antoine K: As simple as that.
Annie S: And there were, I’m sure there were some misunderstandings at time, because everybody was speaking… how good is your French? I don’t know. Were you doing [00:22:00] all this in French or in English?
Antoine K: I’ve been learning, all my life pretty much. I understand almost 100%, but you know, speaking, you need to practice, and it’s hard to practice in French in Los Angeles with almost no one.
I try. I stand in front of the mirror sometimes and talk to myself, but that’s, doesn’t go too far.
Annie S: Our mortgage broker spoke English, and I think Didon found him and recommended him as our broker because he spoke fairly good English. Enough to get us by between that and Google Translate and Antoine, I think we were okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Trusting a Sight Unseen Purchase
Annie S: The trust, though. Tell me about the… Did, do you not never have trust issues, Annie?
Annie K: Especially as the world is falling apart, and we don’t know what’s going to happen between that process and visiting for the first time and, you know, the years that passed. Yeah, no, I think this helped me get over any trust issues I had, this whole [00:23:00] process.
Antoine K: Something funny. So our real estate agent was very nervous when we met him first time, that January of 2021. I told him, "Didon, I brought two gifts for you. One is a very cheap gift, and one is an expensive gift. If we like the place, you’re going to get the expensive gift. Otherwise, you’re…" So, he believed it, so he was very nervous when we first met him because he goes, "I’ve done something similar before, like people bought, like from different parts of Europe. But at some point during the process, they came and saw the apartment. But you guys did it from A to Z, and I picked up the keys, and you’ve never seen it in person."
And we told him, I mean, we would’ve loved to, but we couldn’t at the time. So yes, we loved the apartment. Like I said, I have done a lot of research and, I give this example to people, like, you know, a lot of foreign buyers, China or Russia or, I don’t know, many from different countries [00:24:00] buying in the US. This is the analogy.
Like, if you’re buying something in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica or, you know, those towns, I mean cities, or pockets or neighborhoods remotely, you should not doubt the neighborhood, because if it is there, that means it’s a A+ neighborhood.
Plus if the unit is renovated or the house is remodeled. So I, we had no concerns about the apartment itself, unless we see the picture and the apartment is not in the location which it discloses. So that’s not the case. So that’s why we trusted. It’s in the best part of Nice. It’s completely renovated. So that was never the concern.
Annie K: Yeah. Worst case we could always just sell it down the line. But I think we both felt that when we saw it in person, we loved it so much more than the photos and the videos that we had seen. We knew instantaneously we had made the right decision, and it felt like home [00:25:00] from that first day.
Annie S: Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s really great to hear.
Antoine K: Yeah. I encourage… I encourage people to do that. I know some people have a hard time buying a T-shirt online, let alone an apartment. But, I would, we would do it all over again. Absolutely.
Annie S: Wow. Seriously. I mean, people will do hours of reading up on toothbrushes.
Antoine K: Yeah.
Annie S: You know? Like-
Antoine K: Yeah.
Annie S: … I have to read 100 reviews about this toothbrush. Got to get the very best one, right? People ask me all the time, "What’s the best restaurant in Paris?" You know what? The best is… it’s… But especially a place to live, you have to, it just has to speak to you. It has to… The whole project has to make you, motivate you and make you happy, I think.
Antoine K: There’s a term for that, paralysis by analysis.
Annie S: Yes.
Antoine K: So the more you research, the more you don’t do something or you don’t purchase. So I believe in that.
Annie S: Yes.
Antoine K: You know, you do your [00:26:00] due diligence, don’t just jump on it, but you can’t just research for two years.
Annie S: Yeah. Once you’re familiar with the market and the sorts of properties that you might encounter, you might as well just jump in, right? I agree with that. Now, okay, we’ve discussed all this. It’s wonderful that it worked out for you. I’m so glad.
Living Between Two Countries
Annie S: But then now you spend time in both countries. What is it like? Because, I mean, you probably spend a long time in both countries, right?
Antoine K: I mean, mostly in the States.
Annie K: Yeah, because our son is in sixth grade now. He’s 11. He’ll be 12 in a couple weeks. So he goes to school full time. We do spend more time there in the summers.
For example, this summer, Remy and I will be there for about six to seven weeks. And Antoine’s job is less remote than mine, so he doesn’t have that privilege, but he’ll be joining us for about three, three and a half weeks.
Annie S: Nice.
Annie K: And then in the winters, about two weeks. And we always use it as a base, [00:27:00] and we’ll take day trips, little short trips that we’ll fly out to nearby countries, cities. And yeah, we spend most of our time in the US, for now at least.
Annie S: Yeah, yeah. Would you like to someday move there permanently?
Annie K: From your mouth to God’s ears, Annie.
Annie S: Yeah, yeah. I can see that.
Why Nice Has Everything
Annie S: I mean, Nice is a lovely place, right? It really has a lot going for it. It’s a city. It’s the what… the third-biggest city in France by now, I think.
Antoine K: I think so. After Marseille?
Annie S: Yes, after Marseille, and then Toulouse is number four.
Antoine K: Yeah.
Annie S: So it is a big city. This is not a quaint little, you know, fishing village or whatever. It is a big city, but it is so quaint. It is so friendly. People tend to take their time in Nice, doesn’t feel like big city like Paris.
Antoine K: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It has museums too. I think it has second-largest [00:28:00] number of museums after Paris.
Annie S: Oh, possibly. Possibly.
Antoine K: Yeah. So there is something for everyone. That’s what I would say. There is something for everyone. You want culture, you want museums, there’s the opera. We attended beautiful twoconcerts, January 1st. The opera house, they offer free concerts. You just line up in the morning, you get a ticket, and they open the doors. People rush.
Well, twice we had to sit on the balcony all the way on the top, but beautiful concert on January 1st in the morning.
Really, there’s nothing that you cannot find in a city like Nice. I always tell people, "Find me a sister city that matches what Nice offers." Some people think hard, they can’t really think about a sister city to a city like Nice.
Annie S: And then you have the Promenade des Paillou, I think it’s called, Promenade des Paillou the…
Antoine K: On the beach?
Annie K: The water park?
Annie S: Yeah.
Finding Promenade du Paillon
Annie S: The path all the way down to the beach.
Antoine K: No, Promenade des Anglais.
Annie S: Oh, no, no, [00:29:00] that’s along the beach.
Antoine K: Oh, okay.
Annie S: The one I’m thinking of is one that starts at the beach. It starts by the tourist office, and it goes all the way to the big plaza where your apartment is, I believe.
Annie K: Place Masséna. That’s the park with the water features and the playgrounds.
Annie S: Yes!
De Paillon. Paillon, okay.
Antoine K: Yeah, and there’s a cull de vert. There’s a water feature in the summer, like a splash pad, kids play. And wintertime, it’s beautiful because it’s decorated with lights and Christmas trees and so forth.
Why Nice Keeps Improving
Annie S: Nice is a really pleasant city. The public transportation system is really good in Nice.
Antoine K: Yeah. The mayor has done a good job, and there’s still a few more projects. That Promenade de Paillon, it’s extended all the way to the exhibition, the modern museum of art. They’re, like, renovating. That’s open by now, I believe. So there’s three to four big projects. By the airport, there’s a city… I forgot right now, but there’s always constant improvement happening in the city.
Annie S: Yeah. That’s wonderful. [00:30:00]
First Day Rituals in Nice
Annie S: So when you go, what do you like to do? So you’ve just arrived in, at your apartment in Nice, you’re going to be there for three weeks. What do you do?
Annie K: We go get our coffee. We get the milk. Remy needs his cereal.
Annie S: Yes.
Annie K: We need butter. Butter is an absolute priority. We stock up, we unpack, and we get ready for the adventure that awaits starting the next day.
Beach Clubs and Market Days
Annie K: It depends on if it’s summer or winter.
Annie S: Yeah.
Annie K: Remy’s absolute favorite thing to do in the summer is to go to the beach, and he prefers, you know, he has specific beach club preferences now.
Annie S: Aha.
Annie K: Narrowed over the years. Yeah, it’s Le Galet. Le Galet is the closest club.
Antoine K: Le Galet. Shout out to Le Galet.
Annie K: We’ve made friends there over the years, and we’ve stayed in touch through different walks of life that people have moved on and are doing things now, but we’ve made some great friends. We love going to the farmers market. Remy will usually [00:31:00] take his scooter, we’ll walk, we pick up, you know, groceries for a day or two, which is very different from how we do things in America. We don’t go shopping for the week. It’s not
a thing, so we enjoy that process of just living day to day and slowing down, which is so different than what we’re used to.
Annie S: Yeah.
Europe vs US Lifestyle
Antoine K: I want to touch on something that we probably hear it every day, and everybody knows about it by now, the contrast with the lifestyle United States versus Europe.
So that’s what we crave, that’s what we enjoy, the sense of belonging to a community. We don’t know everybody in our neighborhood, obviously, or in the building for that matter.
Annie S: Right.
Antoine K: But you feel like you belong to a community. You live among people, amongst people, and I don’t know, this sense of community that lacks in United States unless you come from a small town. Los Angeles is not a small town. We drive [00:32:00] everywhere. Where we live, it’s kind of the suburbs. I mean, we know the neighbors on the right and on the left, but that’s about it. We can’t walk everywhere. So every trip we realize that, you know, it’s just, this is the life I would like to live. You cannot duplicate that in United States.
Just physically it’s not possible, and just completely different.
You can’t even compare. So that’s what we enjoy. We enjoy walking down, going to the… I do not miss driving in France. We drive. We rent cars for road trips. I love to drive. It’s not necessarily mostly highways. I love those back roads, you know, country roads. But I want to walk everywhere, the grocery, the baguette, the bakery, and walk to the beach. Our apartment, luckily it’s 200 mètres away from the beach. Five minute we walk.
That’s what we enjoy, and you don’t have… See, that’s the thing. There are a lot of free things that you would [00:33:00] enjoy, you do daily in Europe that you have to pay money. You can’t even do the same paying money in the United States.
But that’s what we associate. In United States, you have to buy your pleasure. You have to always spend money to do something fun, versus Europe, no. Just go downstairs, just have a drink, sit at a cafe and spend two hours. We don’t have that culture. You can’t go just for a drink in a restaurant in America.
Annie S: That’s true. And we do have a lot of free things, like the cities will organize a lot of things, and the bigger the city, the more possibilities you’re going to have. And just going back every day to the same grocery store, to the same baker, to the same butcher, you’re going to get to know people.
Antoine K: Yeah, absolutely.
Making Friends and Expat Groups
Annie S: Have you made friends or acquaintances at this point?
Antoine K: In Nice we have, definitely with Diran, the real estate agent, we became friends. They have three children. They mostly speak French. It’s hard for them to communicate with our [00:34:00] son, but you know, it’s getting a little bit better. We’ve met another American couple, moved six years ago. We try to see them every time. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t because we have other plans. You know, we’re traveling, we’re taking a road trip. But we have. With the amount of time we spend, we have enough friends to people we know that we can see every time we go and spend lunch or dinner with.
Annie S: Right.
Antoine K: And I can imagine that would grow the more time we spent there.
Annie K: I was going to just quickly mention on this last winter trip, we were having dinner at a restaurant in… What was the town?
Antoine K: Valbonne. Beautiful. Beautiful town
Annie K: And we walked out from the restaurant at the same time as a mother and daughter, and they were speaking English, we were speaking English, so we started talking to them. And it turns out they live there now mostly, but were from the same city in Los Angeles originally.
Annie S: Oh.
Annie K: Which was such a small world, so then they ended up inviting us to a WhatsApp expat [00:35:00] group of Americans and friends. So now we’re a part of this group, and we’re hoping to meet more people that way as well.
Annie S: I wonder if my friend, and fan of the podcast, Brian, is there. He lives in Valbonne, and as a matter of fact he invited me to go spend a few days at his guest house, which I’m going to do in March.
Antoine K: You should. You should.
Annie K: That’s amazing.
Antoine K: It’s a beautiful, beautiful town.
Annie S: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though there’s so much to see in that area.
Favorite Riviera Villages
Annie S: So if you were going to bring people over, like if you have visitors who come or family or whatever, where would you say they should go, Valbonne being one of them?
Antoine K: Mougins.
Annie S: Yes.
Antoine K: Mougins is beautiful. It’s very close, just north of Cannes.
Annie S: Yes.
Antoine K: I mean, people know Cannes, people know Saint-Tropez. These are, you know… but we love the villages. We love the villages, especially when we go in. It’s a different vibe. You go in the summer, it’s busier, but we always try to explore more towns, since there’s no beach option in the winter, so we explore more. So that’s where, we went to [00:36:00] Valbonne, it was probably early January.
Annie S: Mm-hmm.
Antoine K: It was still decorated with Christmas lights and stuff. Beautiful shops, small, like, you’re not going to see chain stores a lot, more like boutique privately owned shops. So, yes, those little towns are magical.
Annie S: Yeah.
Driving North and Parking Tips
Antoine K: But then now you need a car. See, that’s the thing. With people that don’t drive, they’re going to stay coastal. They can take the train from east to west along the coast, but that’s the thing. If you don’t drive, how can you explore those little mountaintop or hilltops or small villages? That’s what a lot of tourists… You can go to France or any country 100 times, but if you don’t drive, you’re not going to see 90% of the country.
Annie S: Right. Right. And around the French Riviera, really the train will take you just about anywhere along the coast.
Antoine K: Except north, yeah.
Annie S: Yeah. But if you want to go north and go into Provence, it’s per [00:37:00] se, then you need a car or you need a tour guide who will take you. For people who are listening to us who, you know, might just visit for a few weeks here and there, sometimes if you don’t want to drive yourself… but really the only difficulty with driving when you are in that part of the country is the parking. That’s the problem, is the parking. Because parking around the Riviera is, oh….
Antoine K: Yes. Yes. A small tip, usually we look for those structured parking.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: That’s easy, but like a town like Valbonne, for example, even in January when we went, we had to go around for a good 10, 15 minutes.
Annie S: Mm-hmm.
Antoine K: Imagine in the summer then. If in January when it felt like a ghost town, it took us 15 minutes to find a spot, we just had to wait for a lady to leave, so we parked in her spot. But yes, that is definitely a problem, but it shouldn’t deter people from renting a car and exploring.
Annie S: Right. Just take your time, you know. My husband [00:38:00] often complains that in France when they build a business, they don’t make them have enough parking. Well, I told him, "That’s, that’s why we’re France."
Antoine K: The infrastructure, it’s hundreds and thousands years old. How can you create another parking? Unless you start building vertically, which, you know, it’s not… You know, you can’t do that. That’s going to be an eyesore to build a parking on top, so you have to go underground, and again, that’s not an easy task, especially small villages.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: Nice we have. Nice, lot of the parkings, it’s easy, underground. But a town like Mougins or Valbonne, you’re going to see small, or church parking lots or just on the street.
That’s how it is.
Annie S: Yeah.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
Buying Property Paperwork
Annie S: Annie, do you want to tell us, give us some tips for anybody who wants to buy property in France? Like what should they have lined up? What do you wish you had known before you did this?
Annie K: So in our case, because everything was [00:39:00] remote, I think I wish I had known how many years back we have to go in terms of collecting documents. But in terms of things that they’ll need, I would say, of course, tax returns, going back several years. I don’t recall exactly how many years, but it was at least four years. Credit reports. They needed pay stubs, W-2 forms. I think that that is the gist of what we had to collect. It was just going back many, many years.
Annie S: No bank information?
Annie K: I think they needed bank statements for all of our different bank accounts.
Annie S: Yeah.
Annie K: They needed to know what is our living situation now. Do we own? Do we rent? How much is the mortgage that we know? Just so they can figure out what is your debt-to-income ratio.
Annie S: Right. So loans you have on cars, loans you have on whatever, they wanted to know about this.
Annie K: They wanted to know about all of that, and they saw everything on the credit report. And then we had to, I recall, doing a, an ID verification. They had us [00:40:00] download a specific app. It was like a government app for them to confirm that we are who we say we are, holding up our passport, our driver’s license. That’s what I recall. Just, you know, maintain, maintain your records, have everything accessible to you digitally, even though they move a little bit slow.
As Americans, I know we tend to like to move a little bit faster, so I would always be in a rush to get them whatever it was they were asking for.
Annie S: Mm-hmm
Annie K: Because I knew it was going to take them time to go through it.
Annie S: Sometimes they won’t even give you an idea of when you’ll hear back, which makes people crazy. They say, you know, "Oh, it will be about two months." You’re like, "What do you mean two months?" Like, what? Will you give me… Like, every morning when I wake up, am I going to have a notification saying it’s in process, it’s in process. No, you won’t. You won’t.
Annie K: No. You will not. And the thing about this purchase is we hadn’t actually told anybody what we were doing, so this was, like, going to be a surprise for our family and [00:41:00] friends. So it was just… It was literally the two of us every day, just, "Is there an update? Check the email. Is there, do we need to give them anything else?" And there’s no one else to talk to.
Annie S: Yes. Yeah.
French Loans Income and Age
Antoine K: I want to make couple of points that could be helpful for listeners or whoever wants to, you know, do something similar, in general in Europe as well. France, at least the country France, or the bank, banking system, they don’t necessarily value cash in a bank account. So they want to see income, because if your income is a dollar a year and you have a million dollar in the bank sitting, that, you still won’t get a loan.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: Because that cash could be gone, could be not be yours, could be borrowed. So they need to see income versus how much money you have in the bank. That’s an important point.
Annie S: Also, your age. You’re young enough to borrow.
Antoine K: Exactly. That was my second point, because I had referred someone, one of my clients wanted to do something [00:42:00] similar, but they were a little older in age. So their loan, loan term was going to be shorter, hence the payments were going to be bigger, so they couldn’t. Because they’re not going to give a 60-year-old 20-year loan.
Annie S: No, they won’t. They might give you a 10-year loan if you’re in excellent health and you can prove it.
Antoine K: Exactly, exactly. So I’ve never… I think they do 15, 20, 25 max. I’m not sure about 25 either.
Annie S: It can happen. For young people, they can get a 25-year loan, yes.
Antoine K: Yes, exact- but there’s no definitely 30 or anything beyond that.
Annie S: No. No, no, no.
Antoine K: So that’s why you cannot be a 50 or, you can be 50, but your loan term is going to be shorter, so that means can you make these bigger payments? So my point is the sooner the better. Yeah, so at the time, I was 45, Annie was 39. They gave us 20-year loan, meaning I’ll be 65, Annie will be, you know, 59. [00:43:00] So those numbers are just perfect to get a 20-year loan. If we did it today, the loan term would’ve been only 15 years, so our payment would’ve been maybe 30, 40% more.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: Again, again, you can pay it. That’s wonderful, but that’s the thing. The more you delay it, the more hurdles you’ll have. The term will be shorter, or you might not even get a loan at all. So that’s an important point for people to know, the sooner you do it, the better, and that they need to see income. That’s more valuable to the French banking system and the government versus I have a million dollar in cash sitting in my bank account. That has no value.
Annie S: They don’t care. They don’t care. They don’t, they just don’t care. because like you said, it could be gone tomorrow. You could go nuts and buy a Ferrari.
Antoine K: Yeah, or go to Las Vegas, or it might not be yours all along.
Annie S: Exactly. No, yeah, no, yeah. They couldn’t care less about what you have.
If you have assets, if you have, like, I don’t know, if you own buildings and things-
Antoine K: No, of course. Of course, of course.
Annie S: …that’s another thing. But [00:44:00] cash, they don’t care.
Antoine K: Yeah. Absolutely.
Annie S: So yeah, that’s really a big difference between France and the US. Let’s see. What else? What did we not talk about? Are we missing anything? We’ve talked about all your emotional state. I can imagine that for you it’s hard to not be able to just go at the drop of a hat, you know? Like, because I know I have this apartment in Spain that I’ve been going to since I was a kid, and I can’t go right now because my old dog, Igor, can’t take the trip, so I really… You know, I’m like, "It’s okay. I don’t go for a year. It’s fine." But I’m itching. Like, I’m like, "Oh, I can’t wait. I can’t wait."
Annie K: We’re always itching.
Booking Flights Without Hacks
Annie S: Do you have tips for finding inexpensive flights? What do you do for, like… You do this often, so do you book, like, a year in advance, six months in advance? What do you do?
Annie K: I’m the designated flight booker of our family and the researcher. I think the 90 days-ish in advance is the sweet spot, maybe a little [00:45:00] bit earlier for summer trips. We typically end up booking through Air France most trips because we have, you know, status with the loyalty program and points and whatnot. I think typically even starting at Google Flights is a good place to see the lay of the land of all the options available to you, and then going directly to the airline website. I personally, I don’t recommend booking a year in advance because I feel the rates are not usually as favorable as a few months in advance.
Annie S: Mm, mm.
Annie K: And there’s no direct flight to Nice from Los Angeles at this time, so we end up connecting typically through Paris if we’re on Air France.
Annie S: Right. And do you find that the prices fluctuate a lot summer/winter, or is it like you have a set budget, like it’s about 1,500 per person or whatever?
Annie K: Summer is a little bit more expensive than winter. We’ve seen the prices, of course, inch up over the years. You know, especially COVID, 2020, ’21, ’22, the rates were pretty good, I would [00:46:00] say. They’ve gone up a little bit, but as you said, if you want to go, you’re going to pay whatever that rate is to go.
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: It’s hard to find a workaround, like… or like a hack. There’s no hack. It’s just to get to Europe in the summer, unless you want to do seven stops, but it’s just not- Yeah. You do seven stops you’re not going to get to your destination, so.
Annie S: Not with your sanity, anyway.
Antoine K: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, unfortunately, we’re on the West Coast of the United States, things are definitely more expensive and cheaper. Because sometimes we used to see those like, oh, fly to London for $500, or fly to Spain for $400. That’s from the East Coast. That’s if you live in maybe New York, Florida, Boston. That would’ve been much better if we had lived on the East Coast. We would’ve gone for a three-day trip. I would’ve done, we would’ve done the long weekend, because it’s closer, the jet lag is less, and the prices are half the price almost. But from the West Coast [00:47:00] it’s just a different ballgame, yeah.
Annie S: It’s expensive. I mean, you do have French Bee, I guess. I’ve never flown French Bee. I don’t know what they’re like. But I guess sometimes maybe they’re a bit cheaper. I don’t know. You tell me.
Antoine K: We never tried it. No, I don’t…
Annie K: I’m a little scared. I’m a little hesitant to try a super budget for a long haul, because you never know. Maybe we will one day. I’ll report back to you if we do.
Annie S: I’ve had people who said it’s not bad. You know, it’s kind of tight. It’s tight.
Antoine K: I mean, we are adventurous, but not that adventurous.
Annie S: Yes.
Antoine K: It’s like bring, bring your own seat, you know? Or you gotta stand up for half the…
Annie S: You guys are great. I’m just stunned that you did this. Congratulations.
I mean, you’re putting down roots in France. And who knows? Someday it might lead to citizenship if you would like to go in that direction. Antoine is shaking his head yes.
Annie K: Absolutely, yes. That would be amazing. If [00:48:00] George Clooney can do it, so can we.
Annie S: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, you picked a lovely area.
To Rent or Keep It Private
Annie S: Like, you picked a beautiful part of France that has a lot… I mean, you don’t rent out your place, right? You’ve decided to just keep it to yourselves?
Antoine K: Yeah, we don’t. We don’t.
Annie K: We’re too OCD to rent it out to anyone. And I like the option of just knowing, even though it’s unlikely, if I want to go to the airport tomorrow to go to my apartment, I can.
I don’t have to clear my schedule. But I think even more so, things are slower, as we discussed, in France. If somebody’s renting it, something breaks, something needs to be repaired, I cannot call a repairperson to be there later today or tomorrow to make that repair. It’s typically going to take longer, and it’s just a hiccup that we don’t necessarily want to deal with from abroad.
Annie S: Right. So I’ve decided to go with Home Exchange, and I’ve done several episodes about Home Exchange already. It’s not perfect, but if you have a trusted cleaner, a trusted [00:49:00] cleaning person who can come check on things, and it can be done. And you do like… You know, I can open the door to my apartment remotely, and then once they’re in, there’s, they have keys that they can use, and then they leave the keys and shut the door and leave.
And then the cleaning lady goes to check if everything’s okay and will report. So that has worked well for me, but I can see why it’s not for everybody. It’s definitely not for everybody.
Antoine K: Yeah. I mean, in the beginning when we were researching, I talked to someone that lives there. They do property management. He pointed out couple of things that he said, "In the future, if you want to rent out your place, ideally it’s in a building that has an elevator." So that’s why we were adamant to have an elevator, not only for guests-
Annie S: Yeah.
Antoine K: … even for us. We’re on a second floor, but technically it’s a third floor, so it’s a three-story walk-up if you’re going to take the elevators.
And one summer actually, Annie arrived before me [00:50:00] and Remy, the elevator was out of service. They had to schlep all the luggages. It was not fun. And then the other tip he said, which we already knew, but again, it’s not very common, that you must have an AC, an air conditioning, in the unit.
Annie S: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Antoine K: So our unit, being completely renovated, it was… Actually, it’s a central AC system, which is great. Every room has it with two thermostat. But in the beginning it was an option, maybe we would rent it out. But after the first, second trip, it’s like, "No. No, this is our space, our sacred place. I want to keep it clean and tidy." I mean, family members is a different story. We trust them. But no strangers, at least definitely not for now.
Annie S: Right, right. Well, and also, the whole point of Home Exchange is to accrue points so you can go somewhere else, and if you always end up going there, what are you going to do with your points? You won’t find a way to use your points.
Antoine K: I see. I see, yeah.
Annie S: Yeah. I mean, for me it’s good because I accrue points and then I’m going to go spend a week in Lyon, I’m [00:51:00] going to go spend a week in Reims, I’m going to… You know, in Metz. Sorry, not Reims.
Antoine K: Yes, yes.
Annie S: I can because I have points, so now I’m to the point where I can just go, "Oh, I’ll go spend a week there." In the past I would have said, "Oh, I need to go visit this place, but it’s going to cost me a lot of money." And now I’m like, "Eh, I can just use my points."
Antoine K: Interesting.
Annie S: Yeah. But if you have, if the only place you ever go is there, well, you’re not going to use your points anywhere else.
Antoine K: Yeah, yeah. It might not make sense for us. Yeah.
Annie S: Wonderful. Well, Annie and Antoine, you have been a delight to talk to. I’m just stunned that you did this, man. You are unbelievable. It’s great. It’s amazing. I’m so glad for you, and I hope you continue to have such a deep love for the place, for the lifestyle, and all of that.
Antoine K: Yeah.
Living Two Lives Abroad
Antoine K: I want to mention one more thing. This last six years of our life, again, I tell everybody almost every day, "You know when they say you have one life to live?" I tell them, "No, you can live two lives." We’re living two [00:52:00] lives. We have another life there, and that life could only grow bigger, if we want it to or not, but we are living double lives.
Annie S: In the best way possible.
Antoine K: Yes, in a good way, obviously. Yeah. So I don’t know if that makes sense or it would resonate with some people, but yes, you can… When you have a property abroad or any other country, you can become a different person there, hopefully the better version of yourself over there.
Brings out things that you might not discover about yourself in your own country. That’s what we feel when we are in France. For my wife, especially when she’s in Paris, there’s a glow on her face.
Annie S: Paris and Nice.
Antoine K: That glow on her face, I would not see it in Los Angeles. I don’t know why. It really, the city, it has a big impact of making you who you are or who you were potentially meant to be.
Annie S: Yeah. And if it makes you happy, you know, you’ve only got one life. [00:53:00] If you have the money, if you can make the money, enjoy it.
Antoine K: Yeah, that’s what we do.
Annie S: That’s wonderful. Well, congratulations to both of you. Thank you for coming on the podcast.
Antoine K: Thank you, Annie. Thank you.
Annie S: Hopefully someday we’ll meet in Nice.
Antoine K: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Annie S: Merci beaucoup.
Antoine K: Merci a vous. Au revoir, bonne journée, au revoir.
Patron Thanks And Perks
Annie S:
Thank you, patrons
Annie S: 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.
And a special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champions, Talin Janjic, Susan Z. Gamble, Craig Rutter, Don Gensler, and Sarah Longcore. It’s lovely to have all of you to thank after a couple of weeks with [00:54:00] new patrons announcement. And since I’ll be publishing an anniversary episode next week, it’ll be episode 600, I can’t even believe it myself, maybe you could show your appreciation by becoming a patron as well.
You can do it for as little as $3 a month, but if you can afford it, I would love to have you pledge more so you have access to more of the rewards. And I should say, if you join for a whole year up ahead, you get two months free as well.
And you know what occupied my mind a lot on this long drive? How do I make better rewards for my patrons?
I shared a couple of short videos, and I really need to get some training on how to do more visual content because it doesn’t come to me naturally. But I’m doing more already. Not enough, but it’s definitely going in the right direction. Go to patreon.com/joinus, and to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
Planning Around Closures
Annie S: Now, let’s chat about how to maximize your time [00:55:00] when visiting France. I had a comment on one of my VoiceMap tours that said, "Don’t start after 8:00 PM, almost everything was closed." And that is a very good point, and this is something you need to think about when doing anything in France. As the days get longer in the spring and summer, you might be tempted to plan your days making the most of the late hours.
And of course, you can do that, just realize that outside of regular business hours, you run the risk of stores and attractions being closed. It’s a bit of an obvious thing to mention, but I think my English-speaking friends are so used to things being open for long hours, and some of them never closing, never taking a day off in the week, that they don’t really think about it.
I just came back from a two-week trip through France, and I was trying to optimize my time as well. It’s frustrating that the most [00:56:00] useful hours in a medium tourist season, that is May, are between 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM. In high season, meaning June, July, and August, it’s usually 9:00 AM until 7:00 PM.
Only a few places close for lunch, but you can run into that in the more rural areas as well. Now, of course, every country has its regular business hours, and we know that, but sometimes it’s easy to ignore that when we try to pack too much in. So please check the websites before you go.
Ideal Daily Touring Rhythm
Annie S: Generally speaking, when touring France, which I just did for two weeks, I plan on a leisurely breakfast.
I plan to be at the door of the first place I want to visit right when they open. Then I have something quick for lunch, maybe at, if it’s a museum, maybe they have a museum restaurant or something nearby.
Annie S: [00:57:00] Then one more visit in the afternoon, and then for the later hours, a walk through the historical city center, which usually tends to stay open till 7:00 or something, or 8:00 sometimes.
If I’m driving to a different town for the night, which I did a lot on this trip, I often don’t get to my new hotel until 10:00 or 11:00 PM.
And the next morning, the alarm goes off at 7:00 AM, and I need to be out the door by 9:00 or 10:00 AM. It can be grueling, honestly.
How Long To Stay
Annie S: If I had the good sense to stay two nights minimum, that would be better. The trouble is some towns are not worth two nights. They really aren’t. And I don’t really know that there’s a good way to know that until you’ve been there.
For instance, the Baccarat Museum, a little southeast of Nancy in the town of Baccarat was fantastic. I was surprised how much I liked it. [00:58:00] But really there’s nothing else in that town. So for the afternoon I had to find other places to drive to, and I did. But determining how long to stay in each place is really important, and I think that’s a problem that needs to be solved in the travel industry because if you ask the tourist office, of course they’re going to tell you to stay for a week.
Like, duh. So you need to have a trustworthy source to tell you.
Trustworthy Travel Advice
Annie S: So maybe that’s when an itinerary consult is a good idea, or a good guidebook that gives you valid suggestions about how long to dedicate to each place. Those books are rare though because believe it or not, most people who write travel content have never visited the place in person, and they just go by what they’ve read or seen online.
It’s a lot more important to be a good writer than to be a knowledgeable local, for [00:59:00] most travel content unfortunately.
And with more and more AI travel content, good luck getting a realistic idea.
For a counter example, the town of Chalon-sur-Saône was delightful. It has one major attraction, the Niepce Photography Museum.
Nicéphore Niepce is considered one of the inventors of photography because he created the oldest surviving permanent photograph in the 1820s using a process called heliography. But besides that one attraction, the town itself is worth lingering for the rest of the day and spending an extra night. I didn’t know that until I went.
So, I couldn’t linger as long as I would have liked to, and my point is to visit all the places that I write about or talk about on the podcast, and I’m pretty open. When I haven’t been, I tell you, you know? But I rely [01:00:00] on other people who have been, and that’s why they come on the podcast, because they have visited these places.
But when I start working on my travel books with my author friend Brenda, I will definitely include that sort of on-the-ground intelligence to the book because it matters more than many of us realize.
Tickets Lines And Timing
Annie S: And to add one more layer of complexity, and please pay attention to this, for the more popular venues in Paris, you need to buy your tickets on their app or website a few days ahead, but not so soon that the tickets are not available for sale yet, and be in line 30 minutes before they open to get through security as well.
That’s normally not a problem, when you go to the Baccarat Museum, they’re going to look inside of your bag, but it’s, you know, there’s 10 people in line. It’s not that big of a deal.
Time Estimates For Visits
Annie S: Generally speaking, and this is very broadly, you need two hours for [01:01:00] most museums and for most castles. For a church, perhaps just one hour, unless you intend to also see the treasure, the crypt, or go up the tower.
If I go up the tower, I need three hours more.
Do I always go to those extra things? No. I often either run out of time or out of steam, but I really should.
VoiceMap Tours And Future Plans
Annie S: So maximizing your time when visiting France is not really easy to do, but it can be done, and that’s one of the reasons why I always look for a VoiceMap tour when I go somewhere. I know it’ll take me to the best of an area in the most efficient way, and I know you’re going to say, "Well, write more of them then," and I hope to, but it takes two to three weeks full time to write and record a VoiceMap tour, and that’s why they’re not available in [01:02:00] enough places.
I have put solving that problem on my agenda for the book project, which should get underway in the fall, but I think that’s, that would really help a lot of you have a better trip.
Newsletter Credits And Episode 600
Annie S: If you want a short recap of what came out this week in France, travel, the news, the new episodes, and what I’m paying attention to, sign up for my free weekly newsletter at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan, who produced the transcripts, and their daughter is getting married. Congratulations.
Next week on the podcast
Annie S: Next week is episode 600, and Elyse and I are marking it with someone worth 600 episodes, Coco Chanel. The real story, where she came from, what she invented, what she lied about her whole life, and what she did during the war that was kept secret for 50 years.
You will not [01:03:00] want to miss this one.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.
Copyright
Annie Sargent: The join us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2026 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Comments, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.[01:04:00] [01:05:00]
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Episode PageCategories: Moving to France, Provence