August 17, 2025 • 53 mins
Family Travel to France: Paris, Provence, and a Trip of a Lifetime
Thinking about family travel to France? In this episode, host Annie Sargent talks with Lori Belinski about planning — and enjoying — a dream trip for six people, from grandparents to kids.
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They share the highlights of Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and hidden gems you might miss. Then they head south to Provence for lavender fields, hilltop villages, and unforgettable markets. Along the way, Lori reveals how they balanced everyone’s interests, managed transportation, and found great places to stay.
You’ll hear tips on traveling with a multi-generational group, making the most of your time in France, and avoiding common travel pitfalls. Whether you’re dreaming of Paris cafés or Provencal sunsets, this episode offers practical advice and inspiration.
Subscribe to the Join Us in France Travel Podcast so you don’t miss future episodes full of travel stories, tips, and cultural insights.
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(00:15):
This is Join Us in France, Episode 559.
Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Usin France is the podcast where we take
a conversational journey through thebeauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today, I bring you a conversation withLori Belinski about her unforgettable
three-week adventure across France with afamily of six, spanning three generations.
(00:40):
From Olympic events, yes, we'll neverstop talking about those Olympics, we're
so proud of them, to lavender fields inProvence, Lori shares practical tips,
heartwarming stories, and travel insights.
So you can listen in for inspiration,laughter, and advice for planning
your own family trip of a lifetime.
(01:01):
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support of
wonderful humans like you.
You book itinerary consults, takemy voice map tours, ride shotgun in
my electric car, or come to the bootcamp, or you slip me a few euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
If you want to keep me going andskip the ads, there's a link for
(01:21):
that in the show notes as well,head to joinusinfrance.com/boutique
to purchase any of my servicesor for more information.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Lori, I'll discuss La
Rentrée and the strangest associationsyou can sign up for in France.
(01:44):
If you want all the links, and thefull episode transcript, you'll
find everything on the page thatlists all of the episodes of the
podcast, joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
And if you'd like a handy dandysummary of our conversation with
all the links, subscribe to the
newsletter (02:03):
joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
It is the best way to stay in the loop.
Bonjour, Lori Belinskiand James McLaughlin, and
welcome to Join Us in France.
(02:23):
Bonjour, Annie.
Bonjour.
Thanks for having us.
Yes, wonderful to have you.
We are going to discuss awonderful trip you took.
You were all over France, really!
You had a wonderful trip with six people,so that's what I want to hear all about.
Tell me when you took this trip andwhere you went and who all was with you.
(02:45):
Yes, so, I'm Lori.
This is James, my husband, and we tooka just over three-week trip, around
the Olympics, with my entire family.
So it was my mom, my dad,and my brother, and then our
five-year-old daughter as well.
So it was three generations.
Wow, and did you go to the Olympics?
(03:05):
Was that the occasionor it just coincided?
Oh, no.
It was... we went to the Olympics.
All right.
What towns did you go to for the Olympics?
Oh, boy.
The Olympics was thesecond half of our trip.
So the first week was in the Southof France, so we could, do you want
to talk about the Olympics first?
Sure.
Briefly, because that's over and it'snot going to happen again for a while.
(03:26):
Right, right.
We picked our five events and thenafter picking the five events,
then we filled the rest of the timewith all the French things to see.
But we did see, our favorite wasprobably rugby, getting to see the
rugby sevens, all the different teams.
And then track and field.
I was a pole vaulter.
(03:46):
Um, so saut à la perche.
So this actually was myworld coming together.
That's where this trip came to be.
I'm a French teacherand I was a track coach.
So, getting to do all this in one shotwith my extended family was like a dream
come true and a trip of a lifetime.
Wonderful.
We started with rugby and thenwe did, we had track and field's
(04:07):
probably our second favorite.
We got to see women's pole vault.
We were right in front ofthe runway, it was fantastic.
Yeah.
Oh, we saw beach volleyball, so that wasthe whole reason really was to be in front
of the Eiffel Tower for beach volleyball.
And we got to see the Eiffel Towertwinkle while seeing beach volleyball.
It was a really cool experience,the way the French did that.
(04:29):
We saw opening ceremonies, which we gotsoaked at, but it was well worth it.
There's a really fun picture ofthe whole family, like just soaked
and just having a great time.
Completely soaked, yeah.
But big smiles.
And then, the last thing was the,we saw trampoline gymnastics.
(04:50):
Wow.
So we knew we couldn't get regulargymnastic in with everything, but we
wanted to see something different thatyou would only see at the Olympics,
so that was really interestingto see the trampoline gymnastics.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Was that it, James?
Did I get everything?
It sounds like it, which was plenty.
That there was a lot going on.
Yeah, yeah.
And the Olympics were wonderful.
(05:11):
The ambiance was great.
I mean, I assume you had a good time withthe ambiance, the public, and all of that.
Yes.
That was probably one of my favoritethings about it, and I think I wrote this
about what I learned about France, isthat the French can throw a big event.
Not only was it, like, well organized andwell run, it was just amazingly well done.
And also it was so fun to seehow happy the French were to
(05:34):
be hosting, the actual public.
They were so supportive of theirathletes, when their boat showed
up on the opening ceremonies, howexcited everybody was to see them.
It was just really fun to see that,especially as a French teacher.
Right, and so what, so tell me about yourFrench teaching, what level do you teach?
I'm currently teaching privately actually.
(05:54):
So I teach all ages, moreelementary right now.
I'm about to teach adults for the firsttime and I'm really excited about that.
I'm doing a community class in thearea, so I'm really excited to get
to see how it is to teach adults.
I know it's going to be a lot of fun.
But most of my career has been middleschool, little bit of high school, but
(06:15):
pretty much everybody, and a littlebit of teacher training as well.
Wonderful.
Okay.
So let's then talk about the places youvisited while you were in France and
some insights that you want to share.
Maybe James, can you tell us more or lessall the towns you went to and all that?
We started, we flew into the Southof France, we flew into Nice first.
(06:36):
And as Lori said, we spent about a weekthere, seeing all the major sights there.
One of the most fun things that I gotto do is I went fly fishing by myself.
l left the family in Nice and I wasable to book a fly fishing guide, about
two hours from Nice, on the VerdonRiver, which is a wild trout stream.
(06:58):
I'm a lifelong fly fisherman so Iwas able to book this crazy trip.
And not to get too in the weeds aboutit, it was an amazing experience
where I found myself in pristine partsof France, fishing for wild trout.
I just happened to make it happenin this crazy trip where we're, you
know, seeing the sights of Nice andgetting ready to go to the games in
(07:20):
Paris and then I'm on a trout stream.
It was a fantastic trip.
Yeah.
I must say, if you have a passionlike that and you can experience
it in a different country, itreally is wonderful, right?
I mean, if you like, like,I like to watch birds.
Well, if you do that abroad, you get toexperience it, and it's the same activity
(07:41):
just in a different way, isn't it?
And it's a wonderful thing to do.
Sort of a different facet.
And I learned so much from the Frenchguide, and just getting there was
like a kind of wild thing, in therental car driving on, I guess it
was Route D6 coming out of Nice.
And I had no idea, I'm just followingGoogle Maps and it was like the
(08:04):
windiest, most treacherous two-laneroad that was carved out of limestone,
getting back to this stream.
And bikers were everywhere and whatnormally would take me, I don't know,
half an hour took me two hours just goingreally slow and being super cautious.
And meanwhile, you're lookingout and the scenery is wild.
That's an excellent point ison French D roads, you're not
(08:26):
going to go bloody fast, okay?
Just, it's... You can't.
Even if it's not windy, there isgoing to be people in front of
you that are not going very fast.
There's going to be trucks,there's going to be bikes, there's
going to be all sorts of things.
Just plan on a lot of slow traffic.
Yeah.
I was happy to go slow.
There were some Frenchmenbehind me trying to get to work.
They were not so happy.
(08:47):
Oh, they're used to it.
Lots of bikes and lots of justbreathtaking scenery, so...
Well, that's wonderful.
Was that your first timedriving in France, James?
No.
We had been to France prior to this forone of Lori's French teaching groups.
We were in... Where were we, Lori?
We were in, oh gosh, Southwest.
It is... Oh, what's the name of it?
(09:09):
Oh, the Calanques.
Calanques.
Merci.
Yep.
We had drove.
And we were in La Ciotat.
Okay.
La Ciotat.
Okay.
Very nice.
All the names are startingto come back to me now.
Yeah.
And you can say them correctly.
That's great.
That's wonderful.
So do you also drive whenyou go to France, Lori, or
is James the driver usually?
(09:31):
The last time we switched back andforth, we shared driving when we
drove from Bordeaux to Les Calanques.
But this time it was all James.
This three weeks was Jamesas the pilot of our trip.
Well, and you had alarge vehicle, I suppose.
Right.
Yeah.
Large SUV slash like theFrench version of a minivan.
(09:53):
So what car was it?
Do you remember?
We started with a... I think it wasa three row, it was a three row SUV.
And I should have written allthis down, I don't recall.
My car is kind of on the larger side,so yeah, being there, driving there was
fine, felt comfortable most of the time.
(10:14):
And... I was able tohandle parking most times.
I don't think I had to do too much crazyparallel parking or, you know, other
side of the street wrong way parking.
We planned things kind of accordingly,to the point where I'm looking at Google
Maps, you know, zoomed way in like, "Okay,I can park right there and if that doesn't
work out, I'll go over here," you know?
Right.
(10:34):
So you had a plan.
Yeah.
There was lots of, like,navigating prior to.
Right.
Yeah.
And just real quick,the conference was Agen.
It's in Agen.
Agen.
Okay.
Okay.
Shout out to my teacher friends in Agen.
Yes.
Bonjour les professeursde Francais à Agen.
Going from Bordeaux to LaCiotat, that's a long way.
To Marseilles even.
That's a long drive.
(10:55):
But it's so nice to drive in France.
In France, it's so much better than here.
At least here... we're right outsidePhiladelphia, so we're kind of known for
some aggressive driving in the States.
And I just longed for being in France wheneverybody knew how you pass on the left
and then you get over, you get over again,and that's just... there's the rules
(11:15):
in France and everybody follows them.
So that's what's really niceabout driving in France.
Not everybody, but most people, yes.
More than here.
I've never driven around Philadelphia,but it's true that in some places in the
US, yeah, you feel like people are goingto push you right off the road, man.
Limited following of ruleson the major highways here,
(11:36):
specifically in Pennsylvania,maybe not specifically, but...
New Jersey.
... New Jersey, sure.
But in France, literally, people tendto follow the rules a little bit more.
There is less, you know, hanging out inthe left lane going 50 miles an hour when
you should be going 70 miles an hour.
For the most part, I felt safer inFrance sometimes, and definitely, the
(12:00):
quality of the roads, that's the onething, is when you're on the larger
roads, they're just, they're pristine.
The toll roads?!
Toll roads are very well kept.
It's sometimes not the wayhere in the States, right?
So...
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
What did you like best of this trip, andalso, what did you learn about France?
(12:22):
Perhaps you, Lori, whatdid you learn about France?
Because you've been many times,is there some stuff that you
enjoyed particularly much?
It's really, gosh, it was sohard to narrow things down
about what we liked the most.
Of course, the Olympics, you know,all those experience was amazing, but
after that, I think probably our tripto Provence and the lavender fields.
(12:46):
Oh, you went with Jean-Francois.
Yes, we went with Jean-Francois.
Yes.
Ah.
So, I purged your podcastfor these four things.
I've got two guides from yourpodcast and a photographer.
Nice.
Nice.
They were all fantastic.
And our experience withJean-Francois was absolutely amazing.
I had a chat with him a few weeks ago.
(13:06):
Next time I publish somethingwith him, it'll be about Corsica.
Because he also does Corsica.
But this is Jean-Francois Sénéchal.
I don't remember what episode itwas, but it was a long time ago.
Yes, early on.
Lori was scouring your podcast, literallylistening, and writing things down.
Yeah.
So years ago, I talked to him, and hestill emails me frequently saying, "Oh,
(13:29):
somebody booked with me through yourpodcast. Thank you so much." And this was
not like a financial arrangement at all.
I just thought he was a lovely person,and, you know, and obviously you did too.
That's great.
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
Totally agree.
He was so down to earth,and he was so invested.
It was the end of the lavender season, hehad his fields ready, there was a couple
(13:54):
that had already been harvested, and hewas like, "Okay, we're going to go to
the next one. We're going to make thishappen." And he found fantastic places,
and there's some really great picturesthat we sent to you, and we both saw
lavender fields and sunflower fields.
And we went to the city ofValensole, I think it is.
Yeah.
Valensole?
Mm-hmm.
Valensole.
Yeah, that's it.
(14:15):
Yeah.
Yep, and it was really pretty, a littletouristy trappy, but still worth seeing.
So he drove our van.
And that was the way we worked it out.
Which was a Peugeot 5008.
Yeah.
Peugeot 5008.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a three-row SUV.
Yeah.
And he took us, basically, when we drovehome, we drove, I think, the same route
(14:40):
that James drove when he went fly-fishing,and it was just beautiful, and having
him get to tell us everything, and showus the lakes, and we saw a walled city
really quick, and it was beautiful.
It was a great one day, like, whenI messaged him and said it was,
like, going to be one day, and not,like, staying over, he was like,
"That's a little cutting it close,but we'll make it happen," and
(15:00):
I was just- ... really thankful.
I kind of stayed in touch with him aswell, like he's a track and field person.
He was a hurdler and ahurdler coach, I believe.
Mm-hmm.
Or at least maybe just a hurdler.
Yeah.
So we bonded talking about that, andtalking about teaching and being obviously
very invested in Francophone culture andlanguage, and he was just a really great
(15:22):
person, and it was a great experience.
That's fantastic.
And I want to mention also the guide foryour fly-fishing was Guillaume Durand.
It's Riviera Fly-Fishing.
So I'll put a link in theshow notes for him as well.
Highly recommend, evenif you don't fly-fish.
He's so knowledgeable about notonly that river, but the surrounding
(15:45):
region, and he was telling me storiesabout, you know, taking families out.
So even if fly-fishing isn't yourthing, he'll get you on fish, as we
say, and he's just a super knowledgeableman, really, really nice guy.
Speaks English well, I assume?
Very well, written and spoken.
I mean, we had some, like,philosophical conversations on,
(16:05):
you know, stream side, about life.
So he's really, really nice guy.
Excellent.
Okay.
You spent a day at Monaco,but mostly at the aquarium.
I want to hear about thatbecause I love that place.
Oh, we got... It was amazing.
I think James being the fish person, willsupport this, but I think it was probably
(16:26):
the best aquarium that we've ever been to.
We've been to a bunch on theEast Coast that are, you know,
they claim to be, like, the bestand this was hands down amazing.
Yeah.
The quality of the fish,the quality of the coral.
I've had coral reef tanks in our housefor years, and I was blown away by the how
(16:46):
the life was just thriving in their tanks.
But they've got the Mediterraneanright there and they're obviously just
taking water right out of that and it'sessentially just a reef in the building.
It was outstanding.
And that was just the first floor.
There's the, all the different floors.
They had a virtual visit there,that was about the poles, about the
(17:08):
life on the North and South Pole.
Right.
Yeah.
And that was really cool.
It was a big room and it wasjust... You could, like, walk up and
touch things and interact with it.
And then there was a museumfloor, and on the very top was the
restaurant and a little playground.
And that was... Yeah, wespent most of the day.
Our five-year-old at that pointwhen it was lunchtime was like,
(17:29):
"Hey, playground." It was very hot.
Things were very hot up there.
But she loved it.
Yeah, that's the other thing that itwas definitely a hot time to be there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, but then you gotdrenched in Paris, so ha ha.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, we did.
But we did have, is that okayto talk about the houses?
Yeah.
Being six people, we had to be inhouses, and with a child, it just
(17:53):
didn't... It was not going to work tobe in, like, a tiny apartment in Paris,
so... In Nice, we were about 25 minuteson the tram from like, the old city.
And we had a house on the first floor ofan apartment building and we had a pool.
Oh.
Yes.
And it was clutch because there's no airconditioning, everybody just know that,
(18:16):
be prepared for no air conditioning.
No matter what they say, thereactually is no AC anywhere.
Yeah.
Yes.
Even if they tell you there is.
And that was a very big thing.
Well, the thing is sometimes theysay there's AC because there's one
room in the apartment that has AC.
Right.
Oh.
That only works when it feelslike it or something, you know?
(18:36):
Right.
But you have to understandFrench mentality.
If you have a pool, then obviously youdon't need AC, because you're going to go
dip in the pool and cool off in the pool.
Voila.
I was just going to say that.
And that's what we did.
And it was very... It was kind of strange.
It was a small pool and you look up andit's just all these apartment buildings
looking down at you with a pool.
(18:58):
We were basically on a stage.
We were like with something down.
Everyone's looking down at us like, "Oh,they're back and they're swimming." So...
Yeah.
But we don't care, and our five-year-oldsure did not care, you know?
Uh-huh.
And it was really nice.
We would eat dinner outthere, several nights.
And then we would... Everybody had adip in the pool before you went to bed
because that's how you cooled down beforeyou went to sleep, was having a pool.
(19:22):
Yeah.
Beach bod.
No body.
Beach bod.
It's okay.
Go to the pool.
Whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My father, who I have not seen ina pool in probably a decade was
in that pool I think every day.
Yeah.
He was, yeah.
Yeah, so tell me about yourfolks who went with you.
Are they as familiarwith France as you are?
(19:43):
Not at all.
My mom had visited me in France actuallywhen I was an English assistant.
I was an English assistantin France in like 2018.
Yeah.
Not 2018.
2008. I'm sorry.
2008.
Okay.
I'm like, "Wait a minute." Wait...No, it was longer than that.
And she came and visited me for acouple of weeks and I was in Normandy
(20:03):
and that was a really great experience.
She came and just, like, livedwith me for a couple of weeks.
So she's seen it, butdoesn't speak any French.
And then this was my dad'sfirst time basically out of the
country, besides, like, Cancun.
So this was a big deal for him.
My brother works for IKEA, so he'sbeen to Sweden a couple times.
(20:24):
But again, the longest time of being out.
And I think my mom wanted tostress that it's very helpful to
have somebody who speaks French.
That's endlessly helpful when you'regoing to be there for a long time.
But it was just... It wasjust so important to me.
Yeah.
So did you run in to any snags?
Like, were there health things?
Did you have to...
(20:45):
Oh, we did have some health things.
Yep.
I forgot about that.
Okay.
What happened?
My brother got a sty in his eye.
He thought it would go away and itdidn't and we wound up in Paris.
He did... I think he did, like avirtual call with a doctor, and then
we wound up getting a prescriptionthat sent to a pharmacy and that
(21:08):
was a whole experience getting that.
And you got some Maxidrol.
It was not helpful.
I don't know what it was.
No, it did not work.
I mean, he also needed to take care ofit quicker but it didn't go away for
a long time, even when he came home.
That was... But thatwas really, really it.
Do we have any other...
No, there was no otherhealth things that popped up.
(21:30):
It was just trying to get Ericsome attention because his eye
just was not getting better, so...
Yeah.
I mean, I think the service thathe got in France kind of, like,
held it off, and then he was ableto see someone when he was home.
But yeah, luckily, no othermajor incidents happened.
Okay.
Very good.
(21:50):
All right.
So, you went for a boat tour in Nice.
Was that like a city boat tour?
Was that a private boat tour?
Oh.
No, it was the city tour.
It was the one where you go to the marina.
Mm-hmm.
And you get on it.
And it was short, but it was beautiful.
That was what we did theday that James went fishing.
The rest of us went on the boat tour, andwe kind of wandered around the port area.
(22:15):
My dad is very interested in theworld wars, so we can talk about it.
We did a overnight stay in Normandyarea, so we can talk about that in a
little bit, but we also visited theMonument aux Morts at the Nice port.
Which was very beautiful, verymoving, seeing that like carved
into the side of the mountain there.
(22:36):
Yeah, all along the promenade,the beach front, there are many
monuments to different themes.
Nice does a very nice job with memorialsof different sorts, some of them quite
recent, as a matter of fact, becausethey had the guy with the crazy truck or
whatever it was, few years back, anyway.
Oh, your daughter liked thePromenade du Paillon in Nice?
(22:57):
Yes.
That was definitely a selling point.
So it's basically like a long playgroundof all like wooden things to climb on.
There was like, yeah, like awhale, you know, things like that.
Loved it, loved it.
You can climb on, onto things, andit's totally free, so it's a really
a nice... And it walks you fromthe beach front to the city center,
(23:21):
really, if you take it the whole way.
Yes.
We didn't do that whole,that whole long thing.
But it also it was very, very hot, andthere was a lot of sprinkling, like,
water and misters there, so that wasreally... That was great for her to get
to run around and not be overheated.
She really liked that.
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
Let's see.
(23:41):
Oh, you enjoyed drinkingMonacos with your mom.
That turned into the drink of the trip.
We were trying to get them everywhere.
So Monaco... Let me think, letme think if I can remember.
Monaco is orange juice with grenadine?
Yeah, and beer.
And beer.
Oh, beer, okay.
(24:02):
Very good.
Yeah.
Beer, a little bit oforange juice, and grenadine.
Yep.
Yeah, so it'd be like, whenI'm in Spain, I like to order,
oh, what do you call this?
A caña is a regular beer and a Claritais a beer with some sort of soda in
it, like, some 7-Up or something.
It just makes beer better.
I don't know.
(24:23):
Yeah, it was just refreshing.
It was just refreshing, and it was justworked out because it was, again, so hot.
All right.
So, now we're going to jump to later.
After the Olympics, you did a dogsled adventure in Fontainebleau.
It was called Evasion Canine.
I want to hear about that becauseI haven't heard about that very...
(24:43):
I think somebody else mentioned it,but I can't remember how long ago.
I think... Did I... I feel like Icouldn't find it on the podcast.
So it was Christian is hisname, Christian, also speaks
really good English, the owner.
And so yes, it is dog sledexperience in the summer.
So what it is, is that it's noton, it's not sleds, it's on wheels.
(25:09):
So it is a full dog sled,James, how many dogs was it?
16?
It was upwards of 16 dogs, yeah.
Thereabouts, yeah.
Yes.
And he's got this, like, crazycontraption of a, like what you sit in,
and it can fit three people plus him.
So me, James and my brotherwent, and it was crazy.
(25:30):
So actually, he almost canceledon us because it was so hot.
He's very, very cautiousabout the heat for the dogs.
It was really early.
We had to be there at 8:00 AM,like on the dot, had to be there.
And actually, he almost wouldhave canceled if we didn't have
like a miscommunication, ... ourphones weren't working.
It was strange.
But we got there and he's like, "It'sokay." Like, "We're going to just...
(25:52):
we'll do a tour around the forestand the dogs will get their break.
I'll stop when they need it.
And we'll do..." It was really quick.
It was probably like a 20minutes of the actual trip.
But it was... You were fine withthat because you were moving fast.
When Lori said tour, you weren'tlooking at anything but a blur of
bushes and branches flying by you.
(26:13):
It was exhilarating.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
It was high-energy kind of thing.
No, it was not a little sledride through the forest.
It was like, "Hold on tosomething. Here we go."
Yeah.
I forget how fast they went, butit was... It had to be like...
You could tell me anything.
You could tell me 30 miles anhour, I'd be like, "Yup." It
was really fast, and it was fun.
(26:35):
Like, you're taking these corners.
He, at one point, told us, who we were...we had Lori in the middle, Eric is on one
side, I'm on the other, and he said, "putyour wrist up, watch out for your face
because there's going to be branches onthis corner." And sure enough, we come
around and whack, and Eric gets hit,but he was laughing and, you know...
(26:57):
Everything worked out,but it was something else.
You have to be a little bitfearless to do this one.
A little fearless, it'snot for the faint of heart.
Yeah.
But if you're into, like, adventure,and dogs really, that was the big
thing, was learning about all thedogs, all the different dog breeds.
It wasn't just huskies.
Matter of fact, he was sayingthat he had, like, specific dog
(27:19):
breeds that he looked for that wereactually better for his purpose.
And he took time and kind of, like, talkedabout each dog, which was really fun.
Yeah, we got to know, like, the onethat's the leader and her personality.
And then at the end, he hadus take them off the harness.
And then they just, like, laid aroundand they like... it was really cool.
(27:39):
It was definitely different.
Can't do it if you had, like, anyinjuries, like back injuries or
anything, and he says that flat out.
But it's definitely somethingdifferent and adventurous.
And it was... so we were... ourhouse that we stayed in Paris was on
the last stop of the regional rail.
So probably, oh, was it, like, a40-minute ride into Paris or less?
(28:01):
It was about 40 minutes.
It was solid, yeah, 40 minutes.
And then from there, sowe drove to the dog sled.
It was probably a half-hour?
Longer than that.
No, it was, like, an hour and a half.
So it's mostly for people who have a car.
You couldn't do that without a car.
No, there is no way totake public transit there.
And that was something that we discovered,you know, we had a car in kind of
(28:24):
strange situation, but you couldn't dothe things that we did without a car.
The trip to the Provence fields,you couldn't do without a car.
Couldn't do it, right.
Fly fishing, couldn't do it.
Couldn't do the dog sleds without it.
Yeah, right.
And then we also drove to Normandy, so...
We should talk about Normandy, your visitthere and your dad wanting to see this.
(28:46):
How did that go?
All right.
So we were in the south of Francefor a week, and we flew from Nice
to Paris, landed in Orly, got thecar in Orly, drove to our new house.
The very next day, we drove to Normandy,which was how many hours, James?
We went to Bayeux.
We stayed four hours?
(29:08):
In my head, I was like, "Threehours," but I don't know.
Maybe it was three from Orly,yeah, if you were south of Paris.
Yeah, we were south, like, east ofParis, so that would make sense that it
was, like, three, maybe a little more.
It was probably two and a half, but therewas a lot of traffic just getting out
of Paris because of the game setting up.
There was a lot of traffic.
(29:28):
And we sat for probably half anhour, you know, just waiting.
So yeah, anyway.
Par for the course.
Yup.
So we went... I got my notes pulled up.
We went... I think this was based off of arecommendation somewhere in your podcast.
We went to Port-en-Bessin-Huppain?
Oosh.
(29:48):
Yep, yep.
Port-en-Bessin-Huppainor something like that.
Yes.
And I did some random researchon that town, and I found
this little, like, restaurant.
This is the only restaurant that Ilike... We weren't... That wasn't a big
focus of our trip, but this is the onlyone that I think I would recommend.
And it's small, and itwas called La Marina.
And it was a creperie/pizzeria, and wedrove straight to there first for dinner.
(30:13):
And, you know, my family, which isa little, like, more traditional,
just they got their pizzas, andI got, like, a Norman creperie.
It was, like, goat cheese and mushroomscrêpe, the buckwheat, you know?
And I was just, like... it took meback to when I lived there, and I was
so happy to have that with my cider.
(30:34):
And that just made me really happy.
The greatest fried fish I'veever had in my life there.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah?
Remember that?
It was... I don't know if it was codor what it was, but it was outstan-...
I mean, like, fish and chips, right?
You're right there.
So it was outstanding, yeah.
Very good.
Very good.
So that was a nice littlerandom stop for that.
(30:56):
And actually, that was lunch.
And we actually went back, and we went tothe Museum of the Battle of Normandy and
the British cemeteries that day in Bayeux.
and then our apartment was in the heartof Bayeux, so this is the only place
that we actually had a spot that wasright in the center of everything....
and it was just... It was so beautiful.
(31:18):
It was so cool.
The stone and being in thisapartment that was built into this,
you know, incredibly old building.
And then the next morning, we got up andwe took our daughter to a cool little
playground, while everybody else wasgetting moving, and that was really cool.
And we did the... We saw the cathedral,went to the Tapestry Museum, and
(31:39):
then I had looked ahead of timeat what cemeteries to look at.
Of course, we wanted to visit theAmerican cemetery, which we went
to at the very end of the day.
Colleville-sur-Mer?
The Colleville-sur-Mer, yep.
So we spent the majority ofthe day at Sainte-Mère-Église.
Sainte-Mère-Église, yes.
Yes, which is wherethe Airborne Museum is.
(31:59):
Yes.
And that was really cool.
And it's recently redone, right, James?
Just the last couple years?
At least two years maybe, butit seemed like it was brand-new.
Yeah.
It was very cool.
They had... The museum wasset up with different focuses,
like, propaganda about the war.
Our favorite part was probably theimportance of gliders, and they had a
big glider inside one of the buildings.
(32:21):
They are quiet, those things.
Yeah, and that's why, right?
And then we really, really quickwent to the American cemetery, did
a quick walk around, and then drovethree hours back to outside Paris.
Oh, wow, yeah, that was kind of a...
Lots of driving.
Yeah, lots of driving.
And was your dad happywith the experience?
(32:41):
Did he get what he was hoping for?
Oh, yes.
Absolutely.
Yes.
It's just getting to be there in, itjust reminded me of when we went...
so we went to Champagne regiontoo, and just getting to see the
buildings, and how the buildings hadthe bullet holes in them, and just
getting to be in where that happened.
(33:02):
That was what was most moving about it.
The day was definitely heavy.
Like, I remember feeling,driving back going like, "Wow,
that was a lot." Yes, heavy.
You know, it's a long day, and it'salso emotionally kind of draining.
And that's why I was kind ofhappy with it only being one day.
It was like, we just wanted to makesure it happened, but we didn't need
(33:26):
to, like, get too immersed in it.
So I'm looking at, if you feel likeyou made any mistakes on this trip,
and your answer is, it's hard toaccount for the level of stress
getting from one point to another.
Yeah, so talk about that a little bit.
So, when you are, you know, trying todo a trip of a lifetime still somewhat
(33:46):
on a budget, you wind up like... that'swhy we wound up outside of Paris.
Couldn't imagine how expensive it wouldbe to have a place for six people.
And I'm thinking of the one day thatwe had the photo shoot, so we did
a photo shoot with Gloria Villa.
So she was, I think it wassomeone who was on a honeymoon
recommended her in a podcast.
(34:08):
Yeah, and she's lovely.
Actually, I have to say, shout-outto... I haven't met her, but she was on
the Facebook group, and she was very,very careful about not trying to do
promote, promote, promote all the time.
She was very respectful, unlike mostpeople who offer services like that.
I just have to ban them because they...that's all they ever want to talk about.
(34:29):
So she was good about that.
Yeah.
She was super sweet.
She has a very interesting storyherself, about how she wound up in Paris
because she's originally from Colombia.
But the stress was getting fromour home all the way to Montmartre
by, like, 10:00 AM, I think it was.
And it was like, I think we were, like, ahalf-hour late, and it was not a big deal.
(34:51):
Like, nothing... Nowhere that we got...that we were late to wasn't an issue.
It was just the stress of being like,"We're going to be a little late.
We're going to be a little late."
And then a little late became,like, kind of a lot late sometimes.
But everything worked out always.
Yeah.
You know, when you're travelingwith a group and several
generations, and a five-year-oldand older people with your parents.
(35:14):
And Lori did a really good job oftrying to get people going early.
It... sometimes it just doesn't matter,when you're moving that many humans
from point A to point B, like we'resaying, you're going to hit snags.
And we're not talking aboutjust one form of transportation.
We're talking about, like, we hadto drive to the train station, park,
then get through the train stationwith the QR codes on your phones, and
(35:37):
then, like... I swear, every otherday, somebody's QR code wouldn't work.
That's a snag that we could definitelytalk about, is certain types of
phones with certain types of softwareas the operating system were not
jiving, with certain train stations.
So for trains or for RER, or for...?
It was for the RER, but itwas... But it would be both.
(35:59):
It would be RER and then going into Paris,and then it would be the metro in Paris.
But I think we would usually findit our first place, the first
place we would go to use it.
So this has changed by nowbecause now it's just one ticket.
There's no more zones.
Oh, really?
So long as you're in the Île deFrance, it's one price, one zone.
(36:25):
That would've been nice.
Yes, yes.
At the time of the games, but whatever.
Yes, Yes.
It wasn't ready.
But yeah, by now it's, it started inJanuary, so now you just get a train/RER
tickets for 2,50Euro each, and you cantake them anywhere in Île de France.
Okay.
(36:45):
And you can do the, like thepasses too, you buy the passes?
And you could do your Navigo Easy.
Yes.
That's what it was.
That's what it was.
Or, I mean, if you stay longer, you woulddo Navigo weekly or monthly or yearly.
But most people, Navigo Easy is enough.
And the beautiful thing about thatone is there's no photo, no signature.
(37:07):
It's one little card per person.
They, I think they cost 2,50 Euroto buy, and then you just put
tickets on there, and they can be...
Now, the difference is it used to bethat you had to have, you could use the
same tickets for the bus or the metro.
Now, that's not how it works.
Tram and bus is one sort of ticket,which are two euros a ticket, and
(37:31):
metro and RER are 2,50 a ticket.
Okay.
And they're different tickets.
Still a little complex.
Well, this is France.
Just throw it in there.
Yeah, right.
We cannot have it too easy.
It would not compute.
Give us something simple andwe'll make it complicated.
I'm trying to think of some of theplaces that, like things that we did
(37:52):
that I don't know are on the podcast.
You could talk about, well, sorry, Lori,with the games, and then speaking of the
RER stations, that how we found they,they had the little pop-up game site,
and then our daughter was playing withthat, and I thought that was so, so cool.
That was really fun.
That was something that the Frenchhad set up in the metros, how to
(38:14):
learn random, like really, likethe random things at the Olympics.
It was like badmintonand archery and handball.
So it was just like randomly in themetro, and we were like, "This is cool.
We'll never see this again. Let's stopand play this." And they spoke English.
And it was, yeah, that was really fun.
And so the kid could try handballor badminton or something, yeah.
(38:36):
And everyone won something.
They gave kids little giftsof, you know, whatever.
But I thought that was a great look.
The French were obviously focusedon getting kids actively involved
in what they were doing there.
So, you know, it was great.
And during the Paralympics, you couldtry Paralympic type of activities.
(38:57):
So you could try, racing on aParalympic racing wheelchair.
You could try the boccia thingies.
You could try all sorts of things,which I thought was really, really
cool because, you know, regularpeople could see how hard it is to
move a wheelchair for the Olympics.
It's not that easy at all.
(39:19):
So, yeah.
That's really cool.
We have one more shout-outto give to someone from your
group, that's David Blanc.
Yes.
He was on the podcast as well.
Yeah, and we did a morningtour with him in Paris.
So he took us all the way from LeMarais, is where we met him, and we went
all the way to the Luxembourg Gardens.
(39:41):
Wonderful.
It was very interesting to, it wasliterally, was it the day before
the opening ceremonies or the twodays before the opening ceremonies?
So it was like...
I think it was two days, yeah.
Yeah, so things were, like starting toclose, but there was like random ways
to get around, and he had worked thatout, and it was, it was fantastic.
He was great.
I highly recommend him.
(40:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There were some challengesgetting around, especially right
before the opening ceremonies.
They were paranoid.
After that, things relaxed a lot, but theywere very concerned, which is one of the
reasons why they pulled it off, is becausethey didn't leave anything to chance.
And they did it right,we felt completely safe.
That was one thing that we talkedabout, like, France versus here,
(40:24):
I don't know how safe I'd feel inthe US, but I feel great in Europe.
Yeah, well, that's a perceptionthing, but it's true though, just
not having guns everywhere helps.
Exactly.
Gendarme were everywhere, heavily armed.
Yeah, that's true.
The only people whohad guard was the army.
(40:44):
Yes.
Yeah.
And they have the big guns.
It's a different mentalitykind of approach.
I've been told a million times,you know, when you show up in
Paris and they see people witha machine gun, they are alarmed.
You never see that in America.
Well, don't tell me people inAmerica don't have machine guns.
I'd rather be able to see theperson with the gun and know
it's a person who's trained well.
(41:05):
That person is in uniform, it's different.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
But we certainly felt safe.
Do you remember?
Was that when we... Was that our flight?
Was that our flight when they stopped us?
There was some type of baggage leftby baggage claim, and gendarme saw us,
stopped us in our tracks and said, "Letus work this out." And we stood around
for about 10 minutes, maybe longer, but,and that was in... was that in Nice?
(41:30):
I think that was in Orly.
And it wasn't just the Frenchgendarmerie, it was also the
Italians, right, that were there?
Right, they had invited gendarmesfrom different countries.
Which was good because then you hadvisitors from all over the place,
and they could call on people fromdifferent nationalities to help.
That's one of the beauties of Europe, iswe have all these different... You know,
(41:51):
you go from one state to the other inthe US, it's not that different, right?
But in France, well, in Europe,you go from one state to the
other and it's vastly different.
It's a different country.
Yeah, it's a different country.
So, so I'm looking through your... Atthe end of your document I asked you,
you know, "Do you have any tips?" Andyou said, "The more research you can
do, the better," which clearly you aresomeone... I mean, you know a lot, but
(42:13):
you still did a lot of research, right?
Yes.
Absolutely.
I mean, this was probably two years inthe making to make this trip happen,
to do all of this in three weeksand not completely lose our minds.
And it's still, like you said,there's nothing that I regretted.
So, were there tools or apps orresources that helped the most?
(42:34):
Your podcast!
Thank you.
There's an app called Airalo, which washow we got our phones to work in France.
That was the SIM cards that we used.
So how'd you spell that?
A-I-R-A-L-O.
You can buy certain packagesand then it'll just... You
(42:54):
know, it's the virtual SIM.
Okay, so it's a virtual SIM.
Yeah, okay.
Right.
Super helpful, and we're, night priorto the trip, downloading this app,
going like, "Well, we'll see if itworks." And it worked very, very well.
Excellent.
Yeah, you pick which countryyou're going to and for how long,
and it was reasonably priced too.
It was not like $40 or something.
(43:17):
It was reasonably priced for a month.
Right, right.
Because some providers will chargeyou 10 bucks a day per phone.
That's craziness.
That's a lot, yeah.
So using a virtual SIM like thatis probably more cost-effective
if you can make it work.
And most of them work well.
But yeah, that one certainly workedwell, and that was something that
(43:38):
we were kind of hesitant about.
We didn't really know.
Because if your phone doesn't worknowadays, you're in serious trouble.
And I knew that I had tonavigate certain areas.
So, it was really good peace ofmind to land in France and be
like, "Oh, phone works. Cool."
Yeah.
You know?
Yes, yeah.
Oh, and you also listened tomy walking tours ahead of time.
Did you walk them or just listen to them?
(43:59):
Just listened to them.
Okay.
Because I mean, by the time youget there and you're with three
generations, I pick things out.
I think I sent you a picture of mydaughter, hanging on the foot of the man
coming out of the wall in Montmartre.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
So like, I knew of thingsto go see, from the tours.
It was just another source of information,and that's just where I was looking
(44:22):
for anything to pull from, but it was,yeah, your podcast and your walking
tours were a great jumping off point.
And then I found all those tour guides andthe photographer, and I just contacted all
those people and they were all wonderful.
You also did some research onYouTube, pretty extensively.
I mean, this trip, if I'm honest,this trip took over Lori's life
for a solid year and a half.
(44:43):
It wasn't that long.
Oh, no.
It was like two years almost.
Now, perhaps you enjoyed that, right?
I mean-
Exactly.
Oh, she loved it.
And I think YouTube isa good way to do this.
I mean, honestly, every now and then Ithink, "Oh, shit. Okay, I should do...
I should have a visual aspect to thepodcast. I should do..." But it's... Going
from a purely audio podcast to a videopodcast is a completely different thing,
(45:09):
and I'm not sure I'm cut out for it.
I will probably do things aboutdriving to places, especially
driving with an EV to places,because that's something I do anyway.
But producing a whole videopodcast is... but you can learn
a lot from them, you know?
But, I mean, Lori would be doing otherthings, kind of like listening actively
(45:31):
and then passively and then actively, andthat's perfect, you know, for podcasts.
And then she would hearsomething and write it down.
Right, right.
And I should mention that the showis transcribed, not all of the
episodes are transcribed, but allthe ones if they're two, three years
old, they're all transcribed, and soyou can search for specific terms.
If you hear about anactivity or something...
(45:52):
I think I did do that.
... it works pretty well.
I would love for thesearch to be even better.
I'm always looking for bettersearch solutions, but it
works pretty well for people.
So if that's something you'veheard on the podcast, you know,
go to the website and do a search.
All right, you guys, I thinkour time is up, but it's been
wonderful, talking to you both.
(46:13):
I love it when I haveenthusiastic travelers.
Young and enthusiastic, I love it.
Can't wait to get back.
We'll see when we can get back.
Very good.
Well, thank you very much, andkeep listening to the podcast.
Thanks so much, Annie.
Merci beaucoup.
Thank you, Annie.
Au revoir.
Merci.
(46:40):
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing that.
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
A special shout-out this week tomy new Join Us in France champions,
Terry McPherson and David Palachekwho renewed his membership.
Go to patreon.com/joinus and to supportElyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
(47:10):
My thanks to Carl Tiska for hisgenerous one-time donation using
any of the links on Join Us inFrance that say "Tip Your Guide."
Carl wrote, "Annie, I just made aone-time donation in appreciation of
how much your podcast helped me inpreparing for a multi-month trip to
France this past winter and spring.
(47:32):
I spent the first three and a halfmonths at a language school, that I
selected based on the show notes forepisode 288, the LSF in Montpellier.
During those three and a halfmonths, I traveled every weekend to
locations throughout the Southwestof France by train, and rental car.
(47:53):
I visited many sites from yourepisodes and other sites, locations,
and museum that you haven't covered."And of course there are always
places that we don't cover, wecannot be all encompassing, you know?
"Anyway, after finishing the languageschool, I walked the GR 145, Via
Francigena, across the NortheasternFrance, through Calais, Arras, Laon,
(48:17):
Reims, Clervaux, Langres, Besancon,Ornans, and a host of small towns and
villages before crossing to Switzerlandin late May. Along the way, I visited
many historic sites, museums, champagnecellars, and other attraction. Your
podcast greatly assisted me in planningand preparing for the trip, and I
(48:37):
continue to listen to the podcastfor future travel ideas and tips."
Well, thank you very much, Carl.
That's very good to know.
And always very nice to hear backfrom people who enjoy the podcast.
La Rentrée.
Well, when September rolls aroundin France, it's La Rentrée.
Kids go back to school.
Vacationers go back to work.
(48:58):
Shops, restaurants, offices,reopen after the August slowdown.
But there is another part of LaRentrée that's uniquely French, and
that's the Forum des Associations.
This is the annual sign-upfor clubs and associations.
We have 70,000 new clubs andassociations in France each year.
(49:21):
12 million people report thatthey volunteer for a club or
association in the country.
So, we have a ton of them.
If you've ever wanted to join somethingnew, this is the time that you can do it.
You'll see hundreds of options allin one place, sports clubs, cooking
groups, hiking associations, and somethat are frankly a little unexpected.
(49:43):
Here are some of myfavorite unexpected ones.
Les Amis du Clown.
This, yes, it's an actual clownassociation where members practice
their craft, put on shows, and sharethe joy of red nose and big shoes.
L'Association Francaise DesAmateurs D'orties, a group
devoted to stinging nettles.
(50:06):
They cook them, study them,and celebrate their uses.
Hmm.
Okay.
Club de Lancer de Camembert.
Now, that one is excellent, exactlywhat it sounds like, competitive
camembert cheese throwing.
Move over discus or frisbee, wehave the camembert in France.
(50:27):
Les Amis de la Guillotine.
That one is deadly serious.
This is historians dedicated topreserving the history of France's
most famous, infamous execution device.
La Confrerie du Boudin Noir, abrotherhood committed to promoting
the traditional black pudding sausage.
(50:47):
Some clubs are deeply rooted in localtraditions, others are just pure fun.
But together, they show that La Rentréeisn't just about returning to the daily
grind, it's about trying something new,sometimes something wonderfully odd.
So, if you're in France in September,head to your local Forum des Associations.
(51:10):
Who knows?
You might come home signed up forfencing lessons, a knitting group,
or a camembert throwing league.
My thanks to podcast editors,Anne and Christian Cotovan,
who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast, an episodeabout the fascinating world of Emile
(51:30):
Zola, one of France's most influentialwriters and social activists.
Bookworms and historians willreally like this episode.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time, so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
(51:51):
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
This is Join Us in France, Episode 559.
Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Usin France is the podcast where we take
a conversational journey through thebeauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today, I bring you a conversation withLori Belinski about her unforgettable
three-week adventure across France with afamily of six, spanning three generations.
(00:40):
From Olympic events, yes, we'll neverstop talking about those Olympics, we're
so proud of them, to lavender fields inProvence, Lori shares practical tips,
heartwarming stories, and travel insights.
So you can listen in for inspiration,laughter, and advice for planning
your own family trip of a lifetime.
(01:01):
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support of
wonderful humans like you.
You book itinerary consults, takemy voice map tours, ride shotgun in
my electric car, or come to the bootcamp, or you slip me a few euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
If you want to keep me going andskip the ads, there's a link for
(01:21):
that in the show notes as well,head to joinusinfrance.com/boutique
to purchase any of my servicesor for more information.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Lori, I'll discuss La
Rentrée and the strangest associationsyou can sign up for in France.
(01:44):
If you want all the links, and thefull episode transcript, you'll
find everything on the page thatlists all of the episodes of the
podcast, joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
And if you'd like a handy dandysummary of our conversation with
all the links, subscribe to the
newsletter (02:03):
joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
It is the best way to stay in the loop.
Bonjour, Lori Belinskiand James McLaughlin, and
welcome to Join Us in France.
(02:23):
Bonjour, Annie.
Bonjour.
Thanks for having us.
Yes, wonderful to have you.
We are going to discuss awonderful trip you took.
You were all over France, really!
You had a wonderful trip with six people,so that's what I want to hear all about.
Tell me when you took this trip andwhere you went and who all was with you.
(02:45):
Yes, so, I'm Lori.
This is James, my husband, and we tooka just over three-week trip, around
the Olympics, with my entire family.
So it was my mom, my dad,and my brother, and then our
five-year-old daughter as well.
So it was three generations.
Wow, and did you go to the Olympics?
(03:05):
Was that the occasionor it just coincided?
Oh, no.
It was... we went to the Olympics.
All right.
What towns did you go to for the Olympics?
Oh, boy.
The Olympics was thesecond half of our trip.
So the first week was in the Southof France, so we could, do you want
to talk about the Olympics first?
Sure.
Briefly, because that's over and it'snot going to happen again for a while.
(03:26):
Right, right.
We picked our five events and thenafter picking the five events,
then we filled the rest of the timewith all the French things to see.
But we did see, our favorite wasprobably rugby, getting to see the
rugby sevens, all the different teams.
And then track and field.
I was a pole vaulter.
(03:46):
Um, so saut à la perche.
So this actually was myworld coming together.
That's where this trip came to be.
I'm a French teacherand I was a track coach.
So, getting to do all this in one shotwith my extended family was like a dream
come true and a trip of a lifetime.
Wonderful.
We started with rugby and thenwe did, we had track and field's
(04:07):
probably our second favorite.
We got to see women's pole vault.
We were right in front ofthe runway, it was fantastic.
Yeah.
Oh, we saw beach volleyball, so that wasthe whole reason really was to be in front
of the Eiffel Tower for beach volleyball.
And we got to see the Eiffel Towertwinkle while seeing beach volleyball.
It was a really cool experience,the way the French did that.
(04:29):
We saw opening ceremonies, which we gotsoaked at, but it was well worth it.
There's a really fun picture ofthe whole family, like just soaked
and just having a great time.
Completely soaked, yeah.
But big smiles.
And then, the last thing was the,we saw trampoline gymnastics.
(04:50):
Wow.
So we knew we couldn't get regulargymnastic in with everything, but we
wanted to see something different thatyou would only see at the Olympics,
so that was really interestingto see the trampoline gymnastics.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Was that it, James?
Did I get everything?
It sounds like it, which was plenty.
That there was a lot going on.
Yeah, yeah.
And the Olympics were wonderful.
(05:11):
The ambiance was great.
I mean, I assume you had a good time withthe ambiance, the public, and all of that.
Yes.
That was probably one of my favoritethings about it, and I think I wrote this
about what I learned about France, isthat the French can throw a big event.
Not only was it, like, well organized andwell run, it was just amazingly well done.
And also it was so fun to seehow happy the French were to
(05:34):
be hosting, the actual public.
They were so supportive of theirathletes, when their boat showed
up on the opening ceremonies, howexcited everybody was to see them.
It was just really fun to see that,especially as a French teacher.
Right, and so what, so tell me about yourFrench teaching, what level do you teach?
I'm currently teaching privately actually.
(05:54):
So I teach all ages, moreelementary right now.
I'm about to teach adults for the firsttime and I'm really excited about that.
I'm doing a community class in thearea, so I'm really excited to get
to see how it is to teach adults.
I know it's going to be a lot of fun.
But most of my career has been middleschool, little bit of high school, but
(06:15):
pretty much everybody, and a littlebit of teacher training as well.
Wonderful.
Okay.
So let's then talk about the places youvisited while you were in France and
some insights that you want to share.
Maybe James, can you tell us more or lessall the towns you went to and all that?
We started, we flew into the Southof France, we flew into Nice first.
(06:36):
And as Lori said, we spent about a weekthere, seeing all the major sights there.
One of the most fun things that I gotto do is I went fly fishing by myself.
l left the family in Nice and I wasable to book a fly fishing guide, about
two hours from Nice, on the VerdonRiver, which is a wild trout stream.
(06:58):
I'm a lifelong fly fisherman so Iwas able to book this crazy trip.
And not to get too in the weeds aboutit, it was an amazing experience
where I found myself in pristine partsof France, fishing for wild trout.
I just happened to make it happenin this crazy trip where we're, you
know, seeing the sights of Nice andgetting ready to go to the games in
(07:20):
Paris and then I'm on a trout stream.
It was a fantastic trip.
Yeah.
I must say, if you have a passionlike that and you can experience
it in a different country, itreally is wonderful, right?
I mean, if you like, like,I like to watch birds.
Well, if you do that abroad, you get toexperience it, and it's the same activity
(07:41):
just in a different way, isn't it?
And it's a wonderful thing to do.
Sort of a different facet.
And I learned so much from the Frenchguide, and just getting there was
like a kind of wild thing, in therental car driving on, I guess it
was Route D6 coming out of Nice.
And I had no idea, I'm just followingGoogle Maps and it was like the
(08:04):
windiest, most treacherous two-laneroad that was carved out of limestone,
getting back to this stream.
And bikers were everywhere and whatnormally would take me, I don't know,
half an hour took me two hours just goingreally slow and being super cautious.
And meanwhile, you're lookingout and the scenery is wild.
That's an excellent point ison French D roads, you're not
(08:26):
going to go bloody fast, okay?
Just, it's... You can't.
Even if it's not windy, there isgoing to be people in front of
you that are not going very fast.
There's going to be trucks,there's going to be bikes, there's
going to be all sorts of things.
Just plan on a lot of slow traffic.
Yeah.
I was happy to go slow.
There were some Frenchmenbehind me trying to get to work.
They were not so happy.
(08:47):
Oh, they're used to it.
Lots of bikes and lots of justbreathtaking scenery, so...
Well, that's wonderful.
Was that your first timedriving in France, James?
No.
We had been to France prior to this forone of Lori's French teaching groups.
We were in... Where were we, Lori?
We were in, oh gosh, Southwest.
It is... Oh, what's the name of it?
(09:09):
Oh, the Calanques.
Calanques.
Merci.
Yep.
We had drove.
And we were in La Ciotat.
Okay.
La Ciotat.
Okay.
Very nice.
All the names are startingto come back to me now.
Yeah.
And you can say them correctly.
That's great.
That's wonderful.
So do you also drive whenyou go to France, Lori, or
is James the driver usually?
(09:31):
The last time we switched back andforth, we shared driving when we
drove from Bordeaux to Les Calanques.
But this time it was all James.
This three weeks was Jamesas the pilot of our trip.
Well, and you had alarge vehicle, I suppose.
Right.
Yeah.
Large SUV slash like theFrench version of a minivan.
(09:53):
So what car was it?
Do you remember?
We started with a... I think it wasa three row, it was a three row SUV.
And I should have written allthis down, I don't recall.
My car is kind of on the larger side,so yeah, being there, driving there was
fine, felt comfortable most of the time.
(10:14):
And... I was able tohandle parking most times.
I don't think I had to do too much crazyparallel parking or, you know, other
side of the street wrong way parking.
We planned things kind of accordingly,to the point where I'm looking at Google
Maps, you know, zoomed way in like, "Okay,I can park right there and if that doesn't
work out, I'll go over here," you know?
Right.
(10:34):
So you had a plan.
Yeah.
There was lots of, like,navigating prior to.
Right.
Yeah.
And just real quick,the conference was Agen.
It's in Agen.
Agen.
Okay.
Okay.
Shout out to my teacher friends in Agen.
Yes.
Bonjour les professeursde Francais à Agen.
Going from Bordeaux to LaCiotat, that's a long way.
To Marseilles even.
That's a long drive.
(10:55):
But it's so nice to drive in France.
In France, it's so much better than here.
At least here... we're right outsidePhiladelphia, so we're kind of known for
some aggressive driving in the States.
And I just longed for being in France wheneverybody knew how you pass on the left
and then you get over, you get over again,and that's just... there's the rules
(11:15):
in France and everybody follows them.
So that's what's really niceabout driving in France.
Not everybody, but most people, yes.
More than here.
I've never driven around Philadelphia,but it's true that in some places in the
US, yeah, you feel like people are goingto push you right off the road, man.
Limited following of ruleson the major highways here,
(11:36):
specifically in Pennsylvania,maybe not specifically, but...
New Jersey.
... New Jersey, sure.
But in France, literally, people tendto follow the rules a little bit more.
There is less, you know, hanging out inthe left lane going 50 miles an hour when
you should be going 70 miles an hour.
For the most part, I felt safer inFrance sometimes, and definitely, the
(12:00):
quality of the roads, that's the onething, is when you're on the larger
roads, they're just, they're pristine.
The toll roads?!
Toll roads are very well kept.
It's sometimes not the wayhere in the States, right?
So...
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
What did you like best of this trip, andalso, what did you learn about France?
(12:22):
Perhaps you, Lori, whatdid you learn about France?
Because you've been many times,is there some stuff that you
enjoyed particularly much?
It's really, gosh, it was sohard to narrow things down
about what we liked the most.
Of course, the Olympics, you know,all those experience was amazing, but
after that, I think probably our tripto Provence and the lavender fields.
(12:46):
Oh, you went with Jean-Francois.
Yes, we went with Jean-Francois.
Yes.
Ah.
So, I purged your podcastfor these four things.
I've got two guides from yourpodcast and a photographer.
Nice.
Nice.
They were all fantastic.
And our experience withJean-Francois was absolutely amazing.
I had a chat with him a few weeks ago.
(13:06):
Next time I publish somethingwith him, it'll be about Corsica.
Because he also does Corsica.
But this is Jean-Francois Sénéchal.
I don't remember what episode itwas, but it was a long time ago.
Yes, early on.
Lori was scouring your podcast, literallylistening, and writing things down.
Yeah.
So years ago, I talked to him, and hestill emails me frequently saying, "Oh,
(13:29):
somebody booked with me through yourpodcast. Thank you so much." And this was
not like a financial arrangement at all.
I just thought he was a lovely person,and, you know, and obviously you did too.
That's great.
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
Totally agree.
He was so down to earth,and he was so invested.
It was the end of the lavender season, hehad his fields ready, there was a couple
(13:54):
that had already been harvested, and hewas like, "Okay, we're going to go to
the next one. We're going to make thishappen." And he found fantastic places,
and there's some really great picturesthat we sent to you, and we both saw
lavender fields and sunflower fields.
And we went to the city ofValensole, I think it is.
Yeah.
Valensole?
Mm-hmm.
Valensole.
Yeah, that's it.
(14:15):
Yeah.
Yep, and it was really pretty, a littletouristy trappy, but still worth seeing.
So he drove our van.
And that was the way we worked it out.
Which was a Peugeot 5008.
Yeah.
Peugeot 5008.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a three-row SUV.
Yeah.
And he took us, basically, when we drovehome, we drove, I think, the same route
(14:40):
that James drove when he went fly-fishing,and it was just beautiful, and having
him get to tell us everything, and showus the lakes, and we saw a walled city
really quick, and it was beautiful.
It was a great one day, like, whenI messaged him and said it was,
like, going to be one day, and not,like, staying over, he was like,
"That's a little cutting it close,but we'll make it happen," and
(15:00):
I was just- ... really thankful.
I kind of stayed in touch with him aswell, like he's a track and field person.
He was a hurdler and ahurdler coach, I believe.
Mm-hmm.
Or at least maybe just a hurdler.
Yeah.
So we bonded talking about that, andtalking about teaching and being obviously
very invested in Francophone culture andlanguage, and he was just a really great
(15:22):
person, and it was a great experience.
That's fantastic.
And I want to mention also the guide foryour fly-fishing was Guillaume Durand.
It's Riviera Fly-Fishing.
So I'll put a link in theshow notes for him as well.
Highly recommend, evenif you don't fly-fish.
He's so knowledgeable about notonly that river, but the surrounding
(15:45):
region, and he was telling me storiesabout, you know, taking families out.
So even if fly-fishing isn't yourthing, he'll get you on fish, as we
say, and he's just a super knowledgeableman, really, really nice guy.
Speaks English well, I assume?
Very well, written and spoken.
I mean, we had some, like,philosophical conversations on,
(16:05):
you know, stream side, about life.
So he's really, really nice guy.
Excellent.
Okay.
You spent a day at Monaco,but mostly at the aquarium.
I want to hear about thatbecause I love that place.
Oh, we got... It was amazing.
I think James being the fish person, willsupport this, but I think it was probably
(16:26):
the best aquarium that we've ever been to.
We've been to a bunch on theEast Coast that are, you know,
they claim to be, like, the bestand this was hands down amazing.
Yeah.
The quality of the fish,the quality of the coral.
I've had coral reef tanks in our housefor years, and I was blown away by the how
(16:46):
the life was just thriving in their tanks.
But they've got the Mediterraneanright there and they're obviously just
taking water right out of that and it'sessentially just a reef in the building.
It was outstanding.
And that was just the first floor.
There's the, all the different floors.
They had a virtual visit there,that was about the poles, about the
(17:08):
life on the North and South Pole.
Right.
Yeah.
And that was really cool.
It was a big room and it wasjust... You could, like, walk up and
touch things and interact with it.
And then there was a museumfloor, and on the very top was the
restaurant and a little playground.
And that was... Yeah, wespent most of the day.
Our five-year-old at that pointwhen it was lunchtime was like,
(17:29):
"Hey, playground." It was very hot.
Things were very hot up there.
But she loved it.
Yeah, that's the other thing that itwas definitely a hot time to be there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, but then you gotdrenched in Paris, so ha ha.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, we did.
But we did have, is that okayto talk about the houses?
Yeah.
Being six people, we had to be inhouses, and with a child, it just
(17:53):
didn't... It was not going to work tobe in, like, a tiny apartment in Paris,
so... In Nice, we were about 25 minuteson the tram from like, the old city.
And we had a house on the first floor ofan apartment building and we had a pool.
Oh.
Yes.
And it was clutch because there's no airconditioning, everybody just know that,
(18:16):
be prepared for no air conditioning.
No matter what they say, thereactually is no AC anywhere.
Yeah.
Yes.
Even if they tell you there is.
And that was a very big thing.
Well, the thing is sometimes theysay there's AC because there's one
room in the apartment that has AC.
Right.
Oh.
That only works when it feelslike it or something, you know?
(18:36):
Right.
But you have to understandFrench mentality.
If you have a pool, then obviously youdon't need AC, because you're going to go
dip in the pool and cool off in the pool.
Voila.
I was just going to say that.
And that's what we did.
And it was very... It was kind of strange.
It was a small pool and you look up andit's just all these apartment buildings
looking down at you with a pool.
(18:58):
We were basically on a stage.
We were like with something down.
Everyone's looking down at us like, "Oh,they're back and they're swimming." So...
Yeah.
But we don't care, and our five-year-oldsure did not care, you know?
Uh-huh.
And it was really nice.
We would eat dinner outthere, several nights.
And then we would... Everybody had adip in the pool before you went to bed
because that's how you cooled down beforeyou went to sleep, was having a pool.
(19:22):
Yeah.
Beach bod.
No body.
Beach bod.
It's okay.
Go to the pool.
Whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My father, who I have not seen ina pool in probably a decade was
in that pool I think every day.
Yeah.
He was, yeah.
Yeah, so tell me about yourfolks who went with you.
Are they as familiarwith France as you are?
(19:43):
Not at all.
My mom had visited me in France actuallywhen I was an English assistant.
I was an English assistantin France in like 2018.
Yeah.
Not 2018.
2008. I'm sorry.
2008.
Okay.
I'm like, "Wait a minute." Wait...No, it was longer than that.
And she came and visited me for acouple of weeks and I was in Normandy
(20:03):
and that was a really great experience.
She came and just, like, livedwith me for a couple of weeks.
So she's seen it, butdoesn't speak any French.
And then this was my dad'sfirst time basically out of the
country, besides, like, Cancun.
So this was a big deal for him.
My brother works for IKEA, so he'sbeen to Sweden a couple times.
(20:24):
But again, the longest time of being out.
And I think my mom wanted tostress that it's very helpful to
have somebody who speaks French.
That's endlessly helpful when you'regoing to be there for a long time.
But it was just... It wasjust so important to me.
Yeah.
So did you run in to any snags?
Like, were there health things?
Did you have to...
(20:45):
Oh, we did have some health things.
Yep.
I forgot about that.
Okay.
What happened?
My brother got a sty in his eye.
He thought it would go away and itdidn't and we wound up in Paris.
He did... I think he did, like avirtual call with a doctor, and then
we wound up getting a prescriptionthat sent to a pharmacy and that
(21:08):
was a whole experience getting that.
And you got some Maxidrol.
It was not helpful.
I don't know what it was.
No, it did not work.
I mean, he also needed to take care ofit quicker but it didn't go away for
a long time, even when he came home.
That was... But thatwas really, really it.
Do we have any other...
No, there was no otherhealth things that popped up.
(21:30):
It was just trying to get Ericsome attention because his eye
just was not getting better, so...
Yeah.
I mean, I think the service thathe got in France kind of, like,
held it off, and then he was ableto see someone when he was home.
But yeah, luckily, no othermajor incidents happened.
Okay.
Very good.
(21:50):
All right.
So, you went for a boat tour in Nice.
Was that like a city boat tour?
Was that a private boat tour?
Oh.
No, it was the city tour.
It was the one where you go to the marina.
Mm-hmm.
And you get on it.
And it was short, but it was beautiful.
That was what we did theday that James went fishing.
The rest of us went on the boat tour, andwe kind of wandered around the port area.
(22:15):
My dad is very interested in theworld wars, so we can talk about it.
We did a overnight stay in Normandyarea, so we can talk about that in a
little bit, but we also visited theMonument aux Morts at the Nice port.
Which was very beautiful, verymoving, seeing that like carved
into the side of the mountain there.
(22:36):
Yeah, all along the promenade,the beach front, there are many
monuments to different themes.
Nice does a very nice job with memorialsof different sorts, some of them quite
recent, as a matter of fact, becausethey had the guy with the crazy truck or
whatever it was, few years back, anyway.
Oh, your daughter liked thePromenade du Paillon in Nice?
(22:57):
Yes.
That was definitely a selling point.
So it's basically like a long playgroundof all like wooden things to climb on.
There was like, yeah, like awhale, you know, things like that.
Loved it, loved it.
You can climb on, onto things, andit's totally free, so it's a really
a nice... And it walks you fromthe beach front to the city center,
(23:21):
really, if you take it the whole way.
Yes.
We didn't do that whole,that whole long thing.
But it also it was very, very hot, andthere was a lot of sprinkling, like,
water and misters there, so that wasreally... That was great for her to get
to run around and not be overheated.
She really liked that.
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
Let's see.
(23:41):
Oh, you enjoyed drinkingMonacos with your mom.
That turned into the drink of the trip.
We were trying to get them everywhere.
So Monaco... Let me think, letme think if I can remember.
Monaco is orange juice with grenadine?
Yeah, and beer.
And beer.
Oh, beer, okay.
(24:02):
Very good.
Yeah.
Beer, a little bit oforange juice, and grenadine.
Yep.
Yeah, so it'd be like, whenI'm in Spain, I like to order,
oh, what do you call this?
A caña is a regular beer and a Claritais a beer with some sort of soda in
it, like, some 7-Up or something.
It just makes beer better.
I don't know.
(24:23):
Yeah, it was just refreshing.
It was just refreshing, and it was justworked out because it was, again, so hot.
All right.
So, now we're going to jump to later.
After the Olympics, you did a dogsled adventure in Fontainebleau.
It was called Evasion Canine.
I want to hear about that becauseI haven't heard about that very...
(24:43):
I think somebody else mentioned it,but I can't remember how long ago.
I think... Did I... I feel like Icouldn't find it on the podcast.
So it was Christian is hisname, Christian, also speaks
really good English, the owner.
And so yes, it is dog sledexperience in the summer.
So what it is, is that it's noton, it's not sleds, it's on wheels.
(25:09):
So it is a full dog sled,James, how many dogs was it?
16?
It was upwards of 16 dogs, yeah.
Thereabouts, yeah.
Yes.
And he's got this, like, crazycontraption of a, like what you sit in,
and it can fit three people plus him.
So me, James and my brotherwent, and it was crazy.
(25:30):
So actually, he almost canceledon us because it was so hot.
He's very, very cautiousabout the heat for the dogs.
It was really early.
We had to be there at 8:00 AM,like on the dot, had to be there.
And actually, he almost wouldhave canceled if we didn't have
like a miscommunication, ... ourphones weren't working.
It was strange.
But we got there and he's like, "It'sokay." Like, "We're going to just...
(25:52):
we'll do a tour around the forestand the dogs will get their break.
I'll stop when they need it.
And we'll do..." It was really quick.
It was probably like a 20minutes of the actual trip.
But it was... You were fine withthat because you were moving fast.
When Lori said tour, you weren'tlooking at anything but a blur of
bushes and branches flying by you.
(26:13):
It was exhilarating.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
It was high-energy kind of thing.
No, it was not a little sledride through the forest.
It was like, "Hold on tosomething. Here we go."
Yeah.
I forget how fast they went, butit was... It had to be like...
You could tell me anything.
You could tell me 30 miles anhour, I'd be like, "Yup." It
was really fast, and it was fun.
(26:35):
Like, you're taking these corners.
He, at one point, told us, who we were...we had Lori in the middle, Eric is on one
side, I'm on the other, and he said, "putyour wrist up, watch out for your face
because there's going to be branches onthis corner." And sure enough, we come
around and whack, and Eric gets hit,but he was laughing and, you know...
(26:57):
Everything worked out,but it was something else.
You have to be a little bitfearless to do this one.
A little fearless, it'snot for the faint of heart.
Yeah.
But if you're into, like, adventure,and dogs really, that was the big
thing, was learning about all thedogs, all the different dog breeds.
It wasn't just huskies.
Matter of fact, he was sayingthat he had, like, specific dog
(27:19):
breeds that he looked for that wereactually better for his purpose.
And he took time and kind of, like, talkedabout each dog, which was really fun.
Yeah, we got to know, like, the onethat's the leader and her personality.
And then at the end, he hadus take them off the harness.
And then they just, like, laid aroundand they like... it was really cool.
(27:39):
It was definitely different.
Can't do it if you had, like, anyinjuries, like back injuries or
anything, and he says that flat out.
But it's definitely somethingdifferent and adventurous.
And it was... so we were... ourhouse that we stayed in Paris was on
the last stop of the regional rail.
So probably, oh, was it, like, a40-minute ride into Paris or less?
(28:01):
It was about 40 minutes.
It was solid, yeah, 40 minutes.
And then from there, sowe drove to the dog sled.
It was probably a half-hour?
Longer than that.
No, it was, like, an hour and a half.
So it's mostly for people who have a car.
You couldn't do that without a car.
No, there is no way totake public transit there.
And that was something that we discovered,you know, we had a car in kind of
(28:24):
strange situation, but you couldn't dothe things that we did without a car.
The trip to the Provence fields,you couldn't do without a car.
Couldn't do it, right.
Fly fishing, couldn't do it.
Couldn't do the dog sleds without it.
Yeah, right.
And then we also drove to Normandy, so...
We should talk about Normandy, your visitthere and your dad wanting to see this.
(28:46):
How did that go?
All right.
So we were in the south of Francefor a week, and we flew from Nice
to Paris, landed in Orly, got thecar in Orly, drove to our new house.
The very next day, we drove to Normandy,which was how many hours, James?
We went to Bayeux.
We stayed four hours?
(29:08):
In my head, I was like, "Threehours," but I don't know.
Maybe it was three from Orly,yeah, if you were south of Paris.
Yeah, we were south, like, east ofParis, so that would make sense that it
was, like, three, maybe a little more.
It was probably two and a half, but therewas a lot of traffic just getting out
of Paris because of the game setting up.
There was a lot of traffic.
(29:28):
And we sat for probably half anhour, you know, just waiting.
So yeah, anyway.
Par for the course.
Yup.
So we went... I got my notes pulled up.
We went... I think this was based off of arecommendation somewhere in your podcast.
We went to Port-en-Bessin-Huppain?
Oosh.
(29:48):
Yep, yep.
Port-en-Bessin-Huppainor something like that.
Yes.
And I did some random researchon that town, and I found
this little, like, restaurant.
This is the only restaurant that Ilike... We weren't... That wasn't a big
focus of our trip, but this is the onlyone that I think I would recommend.
And it's small, and itwas called La Marina.
And it was a creperie/pizzeria, and wedrove straight to there first for dinner.
(30:13):
And, you know, my family, which isa little, like, more traditional,
just they got their pizzas, andI got, like, a Norman creperie.
It was, like, goat cheese and mushroomscrêpe, the buckwheat, you know?
And I was just, like... it took meback to when I lived there, and I was
so happy to have that with my cider.
(30:34):
And that just made me really happy.
The greatest fried fish I'veever had in my life there.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah?
Remember that?
It was... I don't know if it was codor what it was, but it was outstan-...
I mean, like, fish and chips, right?
You're right there.
So it was outstanding, yeah.
Very good.
Very good.
So that was a nice littlerandom stop for that.
(30:56):
And actually, that was lunch.
And we actually went back, and we went tothe Museum of the Battle of Normandy and
the British cemeteries that day in Bayeux.
and then our apartment was in the heartof Bayeux, so this is the only place
that we actually had a spot that wasright in the center of everything....
and it was just... It was so beautiful.
(31:18):
It was so cool.
The stone and being in thisapartment that was built into this,
you know, incredibly old building.
And then the next morning, we got up andwe took our daughter to a cool little
playground, while everybody else wasgetting moving, and that was really cool.
And we did the... We saw the cathedral,went to the Tapestry Museum, and
(31:39):
then I had looked ahead of timeat what cemeteries to look at.
Of course, we wanted to visit theAmerican cemetery, which we went
to at the very end of the day.
Colleville-sur-Mer?
The Colleville-sur-Mer, yep.
So we spent the majority ofthe day at Sainte-Mère-Église.
Sainte-Mère-Église, yes.
Yes, which is wherethe Airborne Museum is.
(31:59):
Yes.
And that was really cool.
And it's recently redone, right, James?
Just the last couple years?
At least two years maybe, butit seemed like it was brand-new.
Yeah.
It was very cool.
They had... The museum wasset up with different focuses,
like, propaganda about the war.
Our favorite part was probably theimportance of gliders, and they had a
big glider inside one of the buildings.
(32:21):
They are quiet, those things.
Yeah, and that's why, right?
And then we really, really quickwent to the American cemetery, did
a quick walk around, and then drovethree hours back to outside Paris.
Oh, wow, yeah, that was kind of a...
Lots of driving.
Yeah, lots of driving.
And was your dad happywith the experience?
(32:41):
Did he get what he was hoping for?
Oh, yes.
Absolutely.
Yes.
It's just getting to be there in, itjust reminded me of when we went...
so we went to Champagne regiontoo, and just getting to see the
buildings, and how the buildings hadthe bullet holes in them, and just
getting to be in where that happened.
(33:02):
That was what was most moving about it.
The day was definitely heavy.
Like, I remember feeling,driving back going like, "Wow,
that was a lot." Yes, heavy.
You know, it's a long day, and it'salso emotionally kind of draining.
And that's why I was kind ofhappy with it only being one day.
It was like, we just wanted to makesure it happened, but we didn't need
(33:26):
to, like, get too immersed in it.
So I'm looking at, if you feel likeyou made any mistakes on this trip,
and your answer is, it's hard toaccount for the level of stress
getting from one point to another.
Yeah, so talk about that a little bit.
So, when you are, you know, trying todo a trip of a lifetime still somewhat
(33:46):
on a budget, you wind up like... that'swhy we wound up outside of Paris.
Couldn't imagine how expensive it wouldbe to have a place for six people.
And I'm thinking of the one day thatwe had the photo shoot, so we did
a photo shoot with Gloria Villa.
So she was, I think it wassomeone who was on a honeymoon
recommended her in a podcast.
(34:08):
Yeah, and she's lovely.
Actually, I have to say, shout-outto... I haven't met her, but she was on
the Facebook group, and she was very,very careful about not trying to do
promote, promote, promote all the time.
She was very respectful, unlike mostpeople who offer services like that.
I just have to ban them because they...that's all they ever want to talk about.
(34:29):
So she was good about that.
Yeah.
She was super sweet.
She has a very interesting storyherself, about how she wound up in Paris
because she's originally from Colombia.
But the stress was getting fromour home all the way to Montmartre
by, like, 10:00 AM, I think it was.
And it was like, I think we were, like, ahalf-hour late, and it was not a big deal.
(34:51):
Like, nothing... Nowhere that we got...that we were late to wasn't an issue.
It was just the stress of being like,"We're going to be a little late.
We're going to be a little late."
And then a little late became,like, kind of a lot late sometimes.
But everything worked out always.
Yeah.
You know, when you're travelingwith a group and several
generations, and a five-year-oldand older people with your parents.
(35:14):
And Lori did a really good job oftrying to get people going early.
It... sometimes it just doesn't matter,when you're moving that many humans
from point A to point B, like we'resaying, you're going to hit snags.
And we're not talking aboutjust one form of transportation.
We're talking about, like, we hadto drive to the train station, park,
then get through the train stationwith the QR codes on your phones, and
(35:37):
then, like... I swear, every otherday, somebody's QR code wouldn't work.
That's a snag that we could definitelytalk about, is certain types of
phones with certain types of softwareas the operating system were not
jiving, with certain train stations.
So for trains or for RER, or for...?
It was for the RER, but itwas... But it would be both.
(35:59):
It would be RER and then going into Paris,and then it would be the metro in Paris.
But I think we would usually findit our first place, the first
place we would go to use it.
So this has changed by nowbecause now it's just one ticket.
There's no more zones.
Oh, really?
So long as you're in the Île deFrance, it's one price, one zone.
(36:25):
That would've been nice.
Yes, yes.
At the time of the games, but whatever.
Yes, Yes.
It wasn't ready.
But yeah, by now it's, it started inJanuary, so now you just get a train/RER
tickets for 2,50Euro each, and you cantake them anywhere in Île de France.
Okay.
(36:45):
And you can do the, like thepasses too, you buy the passes?
And you could do your Navigo Easy.
Yes.
That's what it was.
That's what it was.
Or, I mean, if you stay longer, you woulddo Navigo weekly or monthly or yearly.
But most people, Navigo Easy is enough.
And the beautiful thing about thatone is there's no photo, no signature.
(37:07):
It's one little card per person.
They, I think they cost 2,50 Euroto buy, and then you just put
tickets on there, and they can be...
Now, the difference is it used to bethat you had to have, you could use the
same tickets for the bus or the metro.
Now, that's not how it works.
Tram and bus is one sort of ticket,which are two euros a ticket, and
(37:31):
metro and RER are 2,50 a ticket.
Okay.
And they're different tickets.
Still a little complex.
Well, this is France.
Just throw it in there.
Yeah, right.
We cannot have it too easy.
It would not compute.
Give us something simple andwe'll make it complicated.
I'm trying to think of some of theplaces that, like things that we did
(37:52):
that I don't know are on the podcast.
You could talk about, well, sorry, Lori,with the games, and then speaking of the
RER stations, that how we found they,they had the little pop-up game site,
and then our daughter was playing withthat, and I thought that was so, so cool.
That was really fun.
That was something that the Frenchhad set up in the metros, how to
(38:14):
learn random, like really, likethe random things at the Olympics.
It was like badmintonand archery and handball.
So it was just like randomly in themetro, and we were like, "This is cool.
We'll never see this again. Let's stopand play this." And they spoke English.
And it was, yeah, that was really fun.
And so the kid could try handballor badminton or something, yeah.
(38:36):
And everyone won something.
They gave kids little giftsof, you know, whatever.
But I thought that was a great look.
The French were obviously focusedon getting kids actively involved
in what they were doing there.
So, you know, it was great.
And during the Paralympics, you couldtry Paralympic type of activities.
(38:57):
So you could try, racing on aParalympic racing wheelchair.
You could try the boccia thingies.
You could try all sorts of things,which I thought was really, really
cool because, you know, regularpeople could see how hard it is to
move a wheelchair for the Olympics.
It's not that easy at all.
(39:19):
So, yeah.
That's really cool.
We have one more shout-outto give to someone from your
group, that's David Blanc.
Yes.
He was on the podcast as well.
Yeah, and we did a morningtour with him in Paris.
So he took us all the way from LeMarais, is where we met him, and we went
all the way to the Luxembourg Gardens.
(39:41):
Wonderful.
It was very interesting to, it wasliterally, was it the day before
the opening ceremonies or the twodays before the opening ceremonies?
So it was like...
I think it was two days, yeah.
Yeah, so things were, like starting toclose, but there was like random ways
to get around, and he had worked thatout, and it was, it was fantastic.
He was great.
I highly recommend him.
(40:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There were some challengesgetting around, especially right
before the opening ceremonies.
They were paranoid.
After that, things relaxed a lot, but theywere very concerned, which is one of the
reasons why they pulled it off, is becausethey didn't leave anything to chance.
And they did it right,we felt completely safe.
That was one thing that we talkedabout, like, France versus here,
(40:24):
I don't know how safe I'd feel inthe US, but I feel great in Europe.
Yeah, well, that's a perceptionthing, but it's true though, just
not having guns everywhere helps.
Exactly.
Gendarme were everywhere, heavily armed.
Yeah, that's true.
The only people whohad guard was the army.
(40:44):
Yes.
Yeah.
And they have the big guns.
It's a different mentalitykind of approach.
I've been told a million times,you know, when you show up in
Paris and they see people witha machine gun, they are alarmed.
You never see that in America.
Well, don't tell me people inAmerica don't have machine guns.
I'd rather be able to see theperson with the gun and know
it's a person who's trained well.
(41:05):
That person is in uniform, it's different.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
But we certainly felt safe.
Do you remember?
Was that when we... Was that our flight?
Was that our flight when they stopped us?
There was some type of baggage leftby baggage claim, and gendarme saw us,
stopped us in our tracks and said, "Letus work this out." And we stood around
for about 10 minutes, maybe longer, but,and that was in... was that in Nice?
(41:30):
I think that was in Orly.
And it wasn't just the Frenchgendarmerie, it was also the
Italians, right, that were there?
Right, they had invited gendarmesfrom different countries.
Which was good because then you hadvisitors from all over the place,
and they could call on people fromdifferent nationalities to help.
That's one of the beauties of Europe, iswe have all these different... You know,
(41:51):
you go from one state to the other inthe US, it's not that different, right?
But in France, well, in Europe,you go from one state to the
other and it's vastly different.
It's a different country.
Yeah, it's a different country.
So, so I'm looking through your... Atthe end of your document I asked you,
you know, "Do you have any tips?" Andyou said, "The more research you can
do, the better," which clearly you aresomeone... I mean, you know a lot, but
(42:13):
you still did a lot of research, right?
Yes.
Absolutely.
I mean, this was probably two years inthe making to make this trip happen,
to do all of this in three weeksand not completely lose our minds.
And it's still, like you said,there's nothing that I regretted.
So, were there tools or apps orresources that helped the most?
(42:34):
Your podcast!
Thank you.
There's an app called Airalo, which washow we got our phones to work in France.
That was the SIM cards that we used.
So how'd you spell that?
A-I-R-A-L-O.
You can buy certain packagesand then it'll just... You
(42:54):
know, it's the virtual SIM.
Okay, so it's a virtual SIM.
Yeah, okay.
Right.
Super helpful, and we're, night priorto the trip, downloading this app,
going like, "Well, we'll see if itworks." And it worked very, very well.
Excellent.
Yeah, you pick which countryyou're going to and for how long,
and it was reasonably priced too.
It was not like $40 or something.
(43:17):
It was reasonably priced for a month.
Right, right.
Because some providers will chargeyou 10 bucks a day per phone.
That's craziness.
That's a lot, yeah.
So using a virtual SIM like thatis probably more cost-effective
if you can make it work.
And most of them work well.
But yeah, that one certainly workedwell, and that was something that
(43:38):
we were kind of hesitant about.
We didn't really know.
Because if your phone doesn't worknowadays, you're in serious trouble.
And I knew that I had tonavigate certain areas.
So, it was really good peace ofmind to land in France and be
like, "Oh, phone works. Cool."
Yeah.
You know?
Yes, yeah.
Oh, and you also listened tomy walking tours ahead of time.
Did you walk them or just listen to them?
(43:59):
Just listened to them.
Okay.
Because I mean, by the time youget there and you're with three
generations, I pick things out.
I think I sent you a picture of mydaughter, hanging on the foot of the man
coming out of the wall in Montmartre.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
So like, I knew of thingsto go see, from the tours.
It was just another source of information,and that's just where I was looking
(44:22):
for anything to pull from, but it was,yeah, your podcast and your walking
tours were a great jumping off point.
And then I found all those tour guides andthe photographer, and I just contacted all
those people and they were all wonderful.
You also did some research onYouTube, pretty extensively.
I mean, this trip, if I'm honest,this trip took over Lori's life
for a solid year and a half.
(44:43):
It wasn't that long.
Oh, no.
It was like two years almost.
Now, perhaps you enjoyed that, right?
I mean-
Exactly.
Oh, she loved it.
And I think YouTube isa good way to do this.
I mean, honestly, every now and then Ithink, "Oh, shit. Okay, I should do...
I should have a visual aspect to thepodcast. I should do..." But it's... Going
from a purely audio podcast to a videopodcast is a completely different thing,
(45:09):
and I'm not sure I'm cut out for it.
I will probably do things aboutdriving to places, especially
driving with an EV to places,because that's something I do anyway.
But producing a whole videopodcast is... but you can learn
a lot from them, you know?
But, I mean, Lori would be doing otherthings, kind of like listening actively
(45:31):
and then passively and then actively, andthat's perfect, you know, for podcasts.
And then she would hearsomething and write it down.
Right, right.
And I should mention that the showis transcribed, not all of the
episodes are transcribed, but allthe ones if they're two, three years
old, they're all transcribed, and soyou can search for specific terms.
If you hear about anactivity or something...
(45:52):
I think I did do that.
... it works pretty well.
I would love for thesearch to be even better.
I'm always looking for bettersearch solutions, but it
works pretty well for people.
So if that's something you'veheard on the podcast, you know,
go to the website and do a search.
All right, you guys, I thinkour time is up, but it's been
wonderful, talking to you both.
(46:13):
I love it when I haveenthusiastic travelers.
Young and enthusiastic, I love it.
Can't wait to get back.
We'll see when we can get back.
Very good.
Well, thank you very much, andkeep listening to the podcast.
Thanks so much, Annie.
Merci beaucoup.
Thank you, Annie.
Au revoir.
Merci.
(46:40):
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing that.
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
A special shout-out this week tomy new Join Us in France champions,
Terry McPherson and David Palachekwho renewed his membership.
Go to patreon.com/joinus and to supportElyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
(47:10):
My thanks to Carl Tiska for hisgenerous one-time donation using
any of the links on Join Us inFrance that say "Tip Your Guide."
Carl wrote, "Annie, I just made aone-time donation in appreciation of
how much your podcast helped me inpreparing for a multi-month trip to
France this past winter and spring.
(47:32):
I spent the first three and a halfmonths at a language school, that I
selected based on the show notes forepisode 288, the LSF in Montpellier.
During those three and a halfmonths, I traveled every weekend to
locations throughout the Southwestof France by train, and rental car.
(47:53):
I visited many sites from yourepisodes and other sites, locations,
and museum that you haven't covered."And of course there are always
places that we don't cover, wecannot be all encompassing, you know?
"Anyway, after finishing the languageschool, I walked the GR 145, Via
Francigena, across the NortheasternFrance, through Calais, Arras, Laon,
(48:17):
Reims, Clervaux, Langres, Besancon,Ornans, and a host of small towns and
villages before crossing to Switzerlandin late May. Along the way, I visited
many historic sites, museums, champagnecellars, and other attraction. Your
podcast greatly assisted me in planningand preparing for the trip, and I
(48:37):
continue to listen to the podcastfor future travel ideas and tips."
Well, thank you very much, Carl.
That's very good to know.
And always very nice to hear backfrom people who enjoy the podcast.
La Rentrée.
Well, when September rolls aroundin France, it's La Rentrée.
Kids go back to school.
Vacationers go back to work.
(48:58):
Shops, restaurants, offices,reopen after the August slowdown.
But there is another part of LaRentrée that's uniquely French, and
that's the Forum des Associations.
This is the annual sign-upfor clubs and associations.
We have 70,000 new clubs andassociations in France each year.
(49:21):
12 million people report thatthey volunteer for a club or
association in the country.
So, we have a ton of them.
If you've ever wanted to join somethingnew, this is the time that you can do it.
You'll see hundreds of options allin one place, sports clubs, cooking
groups, hiking associations, and somethat are frankly a little unexpected.
(49:43):
Here are some of myfavorite unexpected ones.
Les Amis du Clown.
This, yes, it's an actual clownassociation where members practice
their craft, put on shows, and sharethe joy of red nose and big shoes.
L'Association Francaise DesAmateurs D'orties, a group
devoted to stinging nettles.
(50:06):
They cook them, study them,and celebrate their uses.
Hmm.
Okay.
Club de Lancer de Camembert.
Now, that one is excellent, exactlywhat it sounds like, competitive
camembert cheese throwing.
Move over discus or frisbee, wehave the camembert in France.
(50:27):
Les Amis de la Guillotine.
That one is deadly serious.
This is historians dedicated topreserving the history of France's
most famous, infamous execution device.
La Confrerie du Boudin Noir, abrotherhood committed to promoting
the traditional black pudding sausage.
(50:47):
Some clubs are deeply rooted in localtraditions, others are just pure fun.
But together, they show that La Rentréeisn't just about returning to the daily
grind, it's about trying something new,sometimes something wonderfully odd.
So, if you're in France in September,head to your local Forum des Associations.
(51:10):
Who knows?
You might come home signed up forfencing lessons, a knitting group,
or a camembert throwing league.
My thanks to podcast editors,Anne and Christian Cotovan,
who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast, an episodeabout the fascinating world of Emile
(51:30):
Zola, one of France's most influentialwriters and social activists.
Bookworms and historians willreally like this episode.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time, so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
(51:51):
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
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