July 13, 2025 • 60 mins
In Discovering the Southwest of France: Tips and Tales for Travelers, host Annie Sargent talks with Catherine McMillan about her recent road trip through some of the most beautiful and underrated parts of France.
Catherine traveled by car and took her time exploring the Southwest of France. She shares her experience driving from Bordeaux to Arcachon, Cap Ferret, Bayonne, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Espelette, Sare, Lacanau, and more. Her trip focused on slower travel, scenic drives, good food, and authentic experiences. Annie and Catherine talk about why the Southwest stands out from other parts of France. They share practical tips on navigating small towns, finding great local markets, and making the most of regional specialties.
If you’re curious about the Basque Country, the Dordogne, or other places tourists sometimes miss, this episode is for you. They also talk about local museums, seasonal travel advice, and why renting a car can be the best way to explore rural France.
This episode is full of smart advice and personal stories to help you plan your own French road trip.
Subscribe to the Join Us in France Travel Podcast for weekly episodes about travel tips, cultural insights, and unforgettable destinations in France. Whether you're planning your first visit or your tenth, Annie helps you travel smarter and deeper in France.
Table of Contents for this Episode
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
This is Join Us in France, episode554, cinq cent cinquante-quatre.
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 withCatherine McMillan about her incredible
(00:36):
journey through the Southwest of Francewhere I live and where I was born.
Discover hidden gems from medievalvillages and picturesque landscapes to
local artisans and unique museums.
Tune in to learn tips,tales, and inspirations for
your next French adventure.
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support
(00:59):
of lovely humans like you.
You book itinerary consults, takemy VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun
in my electric car, or come to thebootcamp, or even slip me a few euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
Want to keep me going and skip the ads?
There's a link for that in the show notes.
(01:19):
And head to joinusinfrance.com/boutiqueto purchase any of my services.
For the magazine part of the podcastafter my chat with Catherine today, I'll
discuss the July 14th fireworks in Paris.
I'll be in Carcassonne personally, butthey put on a great show in Paris as well.
I'll also mention the Bayeux Tapestry,which is going on loan to England in
(01:43):
September, and I'll also discuss theeye-popping popularity of Notre-Dame
de Paris, the cathedral in Paris.
If you want all the links andthe full episode transcripts, go
to joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
And if you'd like a handy summary ofthe conversation with all the useful
(02:03):
links, subscribe to the newsletterat joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
It's the best way to stay in the loop.
Catherine McMillan, andwelcome to Join Us in France.
(02:25):
Bonjour, Annie.
Comment allez-vous?
I'm very good, thank you.
I'm just very excited to be able totalk about the amazing trip we've had.
Yes, yes.
So tell us a little bit about yourself,introduce yourself, and tell us about
your trip, when you took it, whoyou were with, all that good stuff.
Okay.
My husband retired a few months ago, andwe decided to celebrate with a big trip.
(02:48):
I'm from France, I was born andraised in France, but I've lived in
the US for a number of decades now.
Obviously, I've had an opportunityto go back to France either
every year or every other year.
My husband is from England,so we also went to England.
And I felt that just didnot know France well enough.
I knew the areas where I grew up andwhere we had a second home, but I really
(03:11):
didn't know this amazing country thatI was reading about on your Facebook
group and hearing about on the podcast.
And I don't know if I had FOMO,but I really wanted to see more
of it while we still could, andso we took that opportunity.
We also had the opportunity to haveour son over, and it was great.
He's 26.
It was great to be able to show hima part of France that he didn't know.
(03:35):
We tended to vacation in the samearea because the family was in,
mostly in one location, so...
Yeah, that's how it works, yeah.
Yeah.
So, we decided to go.
As you know, we initially had wanted tostay for a year, and then a few months,
and then we had a consultation with you.
And I really should have started bysaying that, I should acknowledge
(03:57):
that our trip would've been completelydifferent and definitely less
gratifying if it hadn't been for you.
For the itinerary consultation,the huge document that you shared,
the opportunity to ask questionsthrough the Facebook group.
Really, we're so thankful to you,to Elyse, with whom we had a tour,
and to all the people who answeredour questions and who participate
(04:20):
in the group, so thank you.
Thank you very much forsaying those kind words.
It's very natural for me, I mean,that's how I felt when I moved home
from France, from the US, sorry.
Home for me is also France, and I livedin the US for 16 years, but before that
I had lived in the UK for two, and whenI came home, I felt like we had to.
(04:42):
But I felt like I didn'tknow my own country.
Like, I felt like a dum-dum.
And so, I mean, it's really funny.
You can speak the languageperfectly, but there's a lot
you missed in those 18 years.
And so I really wanted to rediscovermy own country, and that's one of the
(05:03):
reasons why I started the podcast.
And so that's one of the strongimpetus behind the podcast, is help
others discover France as well.
So thank you for those kind words.
It works very well.
All right.
So, what were the dates of your trip?
We arrived in very earlySeptember of 2024, and we stayed
until the middle of December.
(05:25):
Out of that time, we spent twoweeks between England and Madrid.
And one week in Paris.
Otherwise, it was all what I callthe South West, which is, it's
a little bit, the South West+.
Yes.
Yes.
Where are you from originally?
I was born in Paris andraised in Nantes, mostly.
Grew up in Nantes.
So you probably have familyaround Nantes and Paris as well.
(05:48):
I have a ton of family inParis, less and less in Nantes.
And in fact, we did not go to Nantes.
I have a brother who lives there,and we invited him to come and
stay with us in the Pyrenees.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Did you rent a car?
We rented... Well, weactually leased a car.
And I read about that, through thepodcast, somebody had mentioned that.
The broker, I guess, is called Auto TT.
(06:09):
And you can rent through Renaultor through Citroen, and depends
on the length of time you want.
We ended up renting throughRenault, and for about three months.
It was so affordable, I would say.
The car is brand new,had 10 kilometers on.
It had, of course, a very up-to-dateGPS, you know, the cameras and so forth.
(06:31):
It was really a wonderful,a wonderful experience.
I mean, roadside assistance,which we didn't need, but
was included, was a factor.
Full insurance.
It was terrific experience, and ifyou stay longer than two weeks in
France, I would highly recommend it.
It was great.
Right.
So you called... What was the nameof the company you got it through?
(06:51):
The broker, and I don't know ifit's a broker that only works
with the US, I should say thatwe are based in California.
It's called Auto, or A-U-T-O
TT.
It's two Ts.
TT, two Ts?
Okay.
All right.
Oh, interesting.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yes, because I had heard of peopledoing that directly through Renault.
(07:12):
But why not?
It probably facilitated somethings to have a broker, so...
Yes.
Fantastic.
Okay.
So you picked up your car in what town?
We started our trip in Bordeaux.
For the first week, we did not use a car.
So at the end of our stay in Bordeaux, wegot a taxi to the airport, picked up our
car, which was a really fun experience.
Actually, the lady was fromIreland and extremely entertaining.
(07:35):
And we drove to the areaof Arcachon.... very close.
From there, after a few days inArcachon, we drove to Bayonne in the
Basque Country, and stayed there quitea while, I believe about 10 days, then
drove to the Central Pyrenees, droveback up to the, broadly the Périgord,
Dordogne area, and then came around tothe Rodez region and Albi, Toulouse,
(08:03):
and then back down to the Pyrenees.
The thinking there was that we wouldenjoy the last few days of warmth in
the Dordogne area, and then drive toMediterranean where it would be warmer.
That didn't work out at all,but that was the thinking.
Yeah, weather, huh?
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
All right, so tell meabout your favorite thing.
(08:24):
So you made me a list, and the firstthing you said is the experience
of walking through history.
I love that because I think that's exactlywhat travel does, travel to France anyway.
This was a very profoundexperience, really.
You walk in a tiny medieval village andyou see signs that this village has been
(08:47):
there for centuries, 700 years, 900 years.
And these are not plaques thatindicate, so-and-so lived here
or, this was the location of themint under King blah, blah, blah.
These are inscriptions, carvings intothe stone that date back to that time.
This is the beginning of feelinglike there have been thousands,
(09:10):
hundreds of thousands of people wholived in the places that we visit.
And then you go to a museum,everything you see, whether it's
art or historical artifacts,underscores what you see outside.
When you go to Béziers, you see all thesigns that there were massacres, and
from there you go to Toulouse, there'sa very big exhibit on the Cathars.
(09:34):
And then we found ourselves inthe Pays Cathare, the Cathar
country, where we visited, youknow, the ruins of a Cathar castle.
And it's just profoundly moving to seeall the people who lived here had been
subjected to this horrible crusade.
I found the fact that history was presentat every corner, of course it's true
(09:56):
of every country, but it's somethingthat is so revered, basically, in
France, that I found that very moving.
Right.
You also have to make the effortto learn about the history a little
bit, and if you listen to thepodcast, you will necessarily hear
about some history because we try toinject some of that into everything.
But it's true that putting thingsinto perspective, like, our timeline,
(10:20):
our lives are very brief, you know,very... like, so much has happened,
it makes you think about things, yeah.
So you visited some plus beauxvillages wherever you went.
What was that like?
What did you find?
I was going to count howmany villages we visited.
(10:42):
I think it was in the range of 35 intotal because, I think the Southwest is
the part of France that has the most.
And I will grant that they're notnecessarily all at the same level.
However, it gave us a frameworkfor, you know, to guide our travels.
Clearly, it's a marketing opportunityfor those villages, but it also speaks
(11:04):
to the pride that people have oftheir environment and their history.
And even if, though, there were notthat many flowers around because it
was, you know, a cold fall, well,at least where we were, everything
is... you know, people really payattention, they care about the place.
And it was again, it was very moving tosee that people in these villages of under
(11:28):
2,000 people, and sometimes with seven, Ithink one of the places we visit they have
seven people who live there year round.
They really... it matters to them.
Yeah.
You know, and seeing their villagescontinue to thrive, is important to
them, and I also found that quite moving.
Yeah.
So do you have, I don't know, ahandful that you can recommend?
(11:49):
Like, did you have a favoriteamong the 35 or so that you saw?
That's a very hard question.
Yeah.
I know.
Pujols.
Pujols was extraordinary.
But it's very well knownalready, I believe.
So that's in the Lot-et-Garonne,so not quite in the Périgord,
but on the outskirts.
The area's very beautiful, but we arrivedin Pujols or the area, the place where
(12:12):
we were staying that night was itselfbeautiful, but maybe two kilometers
from the actual village, which is on ahill, and there were not many businesses
open because it was off season.
There were couple of restaurants.
Their place is completely closed tocars, so you have to park on the outside.
And you climb up, you have thisgolden... golden lighting in the
(12:34):
village, and you really feel likeyou're walking into a postcard.
It looked absolutely fabulous.
The only life was, youknow, a couple of cats.
There are a lot of cats, I'venoticed, in the Southwest ... but
this sort of golden, golden lightingeverywhere on the yellow stone, the
ochre stone, it was just magical.
And the couple of places that wereopen, people were so friendly.
(12:56):
They were all local, butvery welcoming of us.
It's a beautiful, beautiful place.
We went back during the day,it was just as beautiful.
There's a place that I will neverforget, which is the Larressingle,
that's the little village that has,I think seven residents year round.
Yeah.
And as you know, I think you mighthave talked about it on the podcast.
(13:19):
Yeah, it's in the Gers.
That's right.
Oh, the Gers!
I listened to that podcast and thanksto you I visited, I think pretty much
all the areas that you mentioned.
There's a bookstore in La Ressingle,which will... I don't think
I will ever forget that spot.
It's housed in a, I don'tknow, 13 or 14th century house.
And on the second floor, there'sthat bookstore which makes you feel
(13:42):
like you just want to snuggle upinto the old armchairs that they have
and read, you know, the whole day.
The lady who was working at the storetold me she's actually a volunteer.
It's a nonprofit bookstore but they dohave a buyer who does a very good job
of... and of course, we bought some books.
And then you talk to this person and thenshe tells you about this other village,
(14:03):
and this other village, and this museum.
And just talking to people, I mean, itreally opens up so many opportunities
that you might not be aware of otherwise.
That was another huge asset.
You know, if you show up somewhere withopen ears, and you can talk to people,
it's much better than having a book.
I mean, you know, the guidebooksare great, but talk to people,
(14:25):
it's better, if you can.
Not everybody is up to it, butclearly you're French so that's fine.
Yes, I didn't have a language obstacle.
Yeah.
But it's very true, and peopleare just so happy to help.
We found that everywhere.
And you ask them, you know, thingsoutside of their... You know, I
wasn't asking about the books, it'slike what else should we visit?
(14:47):
And they're only too happy to tellyou, you know, because they're
proud of where they're from.
Another village, in fact, sherecommended was Fourcès, and I know
you talked about it on the podcast.
Again, another magical spot with, it'sa bastille town with this circular
plaza surrounded by, of course,stone arcades, and planted in the
(15:08):
middle with a lot of plane trees.
You have to park outside so you just walkinto this absolutely enchanting plaza.
Again, it's absolutely remarkable.
Yeah, yeah, those are beautiful placesand, you know, just go see them.
This is not the sort of place wherethere's a museum to visit or whatever.
(15:29):
It's just a place where you go, youlook, you walk, you have a meal perhaps
or a coffee or something, and you talkto people if that's something you enjoy
doing, and learn a little bit about thehistory and move on to the next place.
These are probably places whereyou spend two hours at most.
Yes, if that, if that, exactly.
(15:49):
I was occasionally posting pictures onthe Facebook group, there was somebody
who made a comment about, oh, the...we were seeing so many things in one
day, that would be exhausting to them.
But you have to realize they'revery close to each other.
Yeah.
A lot of them are very closeto each other and... or they're
grouped, and so it's not... it'sreally not very, very demanding.
(16:10):
Right.
It's easy to park, they're allvery small, you park typically
on the outside, walk around.
If the tourist office was open, we wouldgo in and they always had a walking map.
Yeah.
And that's what we did.
It's usually, you know, four orfive blocks in either direction,
there's really not much there.
And typically on the walking map theywill have like, "Number one is the
(16:31):
house of so-and-so," and, "Number twois the church of such and such," and...
That's right.
That really helps because it givesyou a little bit of context, you get
to see the important years when thisplace was developed and, yeah, it's
a very, Fourcès is a very... I mean,I like the Gers, it's a... Sometimes,
Elyse and I are still working out thedetails of the next bootcamp and we're
(16:55):
thinking, "Okay, do we take people to theGers?" It takes a while to drive there.
So for the afternoon it's kindof... from Toulouse it might be a
bit tight, but I would really liketo take more people to those areas
and just do three or four in a row.
They're very close, likeyou mentioned, so...
They're very close.
And there's a Musée du Foie Grasthere that we visited as well.
Aha.
(17:15):
Aha.
Which... A wonderful 'dégustation'.
Now you're talking.
Now, we didn't go to that one butwhen we went everything was closed.
Elyse and I have a knack... We're goingtomorrow to visit a couple of places and
we have a knack for showing up placesthat they're, "Ah, it's closed today. Oh
well." It's okay, we can always go back.
(17:36):
All right, so visiting and observingcraftsmen at work making knives,
making gloves, weaving Basque fabrics.
Tell us more.
Those are, again, experiences thatwe had that were completely free that
we didn't know we were going to do.
We ended up at a fantastic restaurantand I noticed and asked about the
(17:58):
knives that were at the restaurant.
And they said, "Oh, these are..." Becausethey looked like Laguiole knives, which
a lot of your listeners would know about.
They weren't.
They didn't have the B.
Yeah.
And so I asked about the knives and shesaid, "Oh, they're made right here." I
thought they were absolutely beautiful.
They're made right here in the village.
And this is a tiny, tiny villagein the Sauveterre-de-Rouergue.
(18:21):
And the knife place, the cutlery,I'm not sure how you call these
places, was open and the artisan wasat work and there were two of them.
There was one guy who wascurrently working on a blade.
And a lot of the notches typicallyon the top, the back of the blade
are the signature of the personwho is actually making the knife.
(18:43):
And the other person wasworking on the handle.
And it was a very small operation, buthad apparently very stellar reputation.
And another guy who walkedin as we were there was the
guy who provides the antlers.
And so we were able to talk to him,say, "How do you know that this
antler is going to be good?" You know.
(19:03):
"is it related to the age of theantler?" So, you know, and I realized
that because I'm French speaking,I can have these conversations that
are a little bit more in depth.
Right.
But it still speaks to the fact thatpeople want to talk about what they do,
it's very easy for them to share theirpassion, they're not trying to sell you,
we did buy a knife, but there are lots ofplaces where we weren't buying anything
(19:26):
and they just want to talk about it.
They're just so gratefulfor the questions.
Yeah.
In a place like that, you would wantto buy one because it's going to
remind you forever about this visit.
So of course you would buy one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
Exactly.
You went to Millau as well andyou watched people make gloves.
That's right.
So Millau is very well-known, probablyat least throughout Europe for
(19:50):
glove-making and we had decided to visit.
There were only two or threeplaces that we had found out about.
One was absolutely spectacular.
They had a little museum ofgloves, about glove-making.
The gloves are made on the top floor.
It was a modern building, but,you know, beautifully done as they
know how to balance modern and old.
(20:12):
The gloves were displayed inglass cases, but they were gloves
for... I mean, for the Oscars.
I mean, they were gloves that donot fit my lifestyle in California.
But they were absolutely...the workmanship was exquisite.
I could have tried them, but I didn'teven want to, you know, touch them.
They're just works of art.
My husband got sized for gloves, butwe decided this is definitely above
(20:35):
our lifestyle and our price range.
So we went to another one and thelady was actually on the sidewalk.
We walk and she follows us and I said,"I have some questions." And she just
said "your husband is an eight and ahalf, you're a seven and a half." That
was the first thing out of her mouth.
And so, we ended up staying.
She was absolutely right about the sizes.
(20:55):
The fact that people are so knowledgeable,we ended up practically, you know,
wanting to have dinner with her.
It was just, again, she just wantedto share everything, and was able
to customize, you know... "Oh, youlive in California," da, da, da, da.
You know, just customize our purchaseto what we wanted, to our lifestyle.
(21:16):
It was just another amazing experience.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
And then weaving Basque fabrics.
Okay, so Basque fabrics arevery, very famous in France.
They're very colorful and you can spotthem, like, if you have a throw or, I
don't know, pillows or something, theyreally shine and they're beautiful.
So tell me about this experience.
(21:37):
So that was an experience where wealso learned a lot and we were able
to, there's a store nearby in Carmel,California, that is called Jean de Luz
and the owner, or the person who startedthat business is I believe from Bayonne.
And so I already knew about the Basquefabrics, but I wanted to specifically,
of course, get some more there.
(21:58):
We ended up going to Ascain, there's aparticular store that we were interested
in visiting and they have an exhibit.
And this person, even though itwasn't officially a tour, she
did take us to the back and sheshowed us how everything operated.
Again, it's low season, there's notmany other people and she just goes
through the trouble of, you know, takingus back and showing us how everything
(22:21):
works and talking to us about theBasque fabrics and how the seven stripes
refer to the seven Basque provinces.
The width of the stripes referto, I forget the... I think the...
how prosperous the family is.
And something else thatis, identifies the village.
So it's like a tartan but Basque style.
Yes, exactly.
(22:41):
Yeah.
And originally for oxen, ofcourse, and not for people.
So yeah, it was just, again, anopportunity to learn a lot of facts
that you wouldn't otherwise knowabout, including if you're French.
Yeah.
In the Basque Country, I can't rememberwhich Plus Beaux Villages it's in,
but in one of the Plus Beaux Villagesof Basque Country, there is a place
(23:02):
where they make espadrille, the shoes.
And you can visit that, but Idon't remember what is called.
Yes, that's right.
So I think it's really veryomnipresent in Saint-Jean-de-Luz,
but I don't... remember either.
Right.
Right.
But I knew that I wasn'tgoing to buy espadrille.
I'm not quite comfortableenough for... but...
Yes, yes, it's very basic.
You have to be 18 to wearthose things, I think.
(23:24):
That's right.
It is very for young people.
All right, so let's see.
Next thing you list is exploringmany of the more unusual,
out-of-the-way, lesser-known museums.
So tell us about some of theweird museums you visited.
Lots of people like todo this, by the way.
It's a very common question thatpeople ask me is: 'Is there some
(23:46):
kind of fun museum in this area'?
A lot of places we found had theselittle out-of-the-way museums,
and sometimes it's because theyreally don't have that much else.
And for instance, when we were inthe Arcachon area, we were staying
in a tiny place called Gujan-Mestrasthat has, I believe, seven little
fishing areas, fishing ports.
(24:06):
And in one of them, there'sthis Museum of the Oyster.
The place, it's maybe two...has two rooms, but you can have
a really, really good visit.
And it's in French, but there'sa little movie, 15 minutes or so,
that has subtitles in English.
This was important for my husbandwho is not quite bilingual.
(24:27):
And you just learn so much.
Yeah.
The other things, I didn't evenknow that we ever grew tobacco.
I think it will not be news toeverybody, but it was news to me.
And in Bergerac, we found out inthe Musee du Tabac that they started
to grow tobacco especially, and todevelop it on a larger scale, when the
(24:49):
grapes were being attacked, had beenattacked and destroyed by phylloxera.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Phylloxera.
And then we took a tour on a boat, andthey were pointing out these very steep
roofs, in the Bergerac area that were usedalso to install racks where they could
dry the tobacco leaves, drape the tobaccoleaves over the racks and let them dry
(25:11):
because there was a lot of free flow ofair, but being protected from the rain.
All these little thingsthat you just learn so much.
Then I saw a museum, or we saw a museum,that you had talked about, the Musee de
la Mer in Sete where we saw the jousting.
There's an exhibit on jousting,which was just hysterical and
very, very fun to learn about.
(25:32):
The main part of the museumhas... I don't know... I don't
know how many models of boats.
It's a beautiful little place.
Again, it takes you maybe an hourto go through that, but, you know,
just some wonderful opportunities.
And it is true that most ofthese museums are in French.
Some places they can hand you a cardthat's been translated or something,
(25:52):
but these are best for people whospeak French or don't mind if they
don't understand everything, you know?
It's still worth looking at the displayseven if you don't read every word.
I mean, most museums we go to,we don't read everything, do we?
Right.
Right.
Right.
I did include in that list one thatis definitely in English as well
and has a, I think an audio guideeven, and it's not a small museum.
(26:15):
That's the Vézuna Museum.
I mentioned it because not manypeople go to Périgueux, including not
many French people go to Périgueux.
Yep.
It's a little bit of the sort ofstep-sister of the better-known
towns in the Périgord.
That museum, I thank youso much for that episode.
It was absolutely remarkable.
And again, it's so well done.
(26:36):
It's such a beautiful space.
This is a space, as a reminder,where you can walk over the
remains of a Roman villa.
But the architect has basically builtan umbrella over this Roman villa and
it's really exhibited beautifully.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a beautiful place.
And this one is modern and it hastranslations everywhere and audio guides
(26:58):
and everything else that you might want.
Let's see.
What else?
What else?
So this one I don't know anything about.
You visited the furnished homeof La Maison Forte de Reignac.
It's embedded in the rock?
Yes.
I don't know anything about this.
This is a place that isan absolute must-see.
If you do nothing else around Sarlat, youhave to see the Maison Forte de Reignac.
(27:20):
And in fact, I have to give credit tomy husband after I complained bitterly
that I was doing all the planning.
He said, "How about thisplace?" It was such a win.
An absolutely extraordinary place.
There's also very easy parking.
It's just a few minutes, a few kilometersfrom Sarlat, and it's a place that has
been used for...... I forget how manyyears, 20,000 years, has been occupied for
(27:44):
20,000 years, initially as a prehistoric,you know, a prehistoric lodging, you
know, the troglodyte, I guess, lodging.
And over the centuries, acastle was built into it.
It was only destroyed, I believe,during the Wars of Religion, in
the 16th century and it was usedcontinuously during that time.
(28:07):
It's furnished, so depending on what,there are different levels in the rock.
So underground, you have an exhibit ofprehistoric art with the most exquisite
carvings, almost like scrimshaw, you know.
Again, so moving to me.
I can't... I mean, I can barelydoodle a shape of a house.
I'm terrible at art, but I can definitelyappreciate how exquisite everything was.
(28:30):
And then you go up and everylevel it goes up in sort of style.
It's furnished.
Furnished, I guess, I mean,the furnishings differ a little
bit from one room to another.
But there are a lot of fireplaces.
They have fires burningin the fireplaces...
Oh.
... which just gives it this wonderfulsmell, and there's some music or
(28:51):
some sounds that are being piped in.
It feels like it's a lived-in space.
You walk into this gorgeous living room,or I don't know what they would call
it, but the main room, during the 15ths,
14th centuries, furnished, beautifulfireplace and the ceiling is the rock.
(29:12):
Huh.
The ceiling and one of the walls isthe rock, so it's built into the rock.
It's absolutely extraordinary.
And it's a Maison forte, so theymust have used it as some sort of...
Fortress.
Yeah, it's a fortress, yeah.
Yes.
It was lived in, but it was also... ithad different purposes over the centuries.
Yeah.
But that's also where, I forgetwhich side took refuge, but it was
(29:34):
destroyed during the Wars of Religion.
And no one lives in there now.
Of course.
But it's really beautifully done.
Oh, very nice.
Very nice.
You loved the Pays Basque.
Do tell.
I did.
I did.
When you're in the US, I onlyever hear about the Basque Country
as being, you know, from Spain.
But of course, being French, Iknew that those three provinces
(29:57):
in France, quite very differentreally from the Spanish side.
We did go a little bit in Spain as well.
we were based in Bayonne.
We absolutely adored Bayonne.
Bayonne has, of course,incredible history.
The cathedral is anotherspace I will never forget.
It's absolutely glorious.
It's very tall.
(30:18):
The ceilings, there are individualsections of ceiling that are
painted red and green, so thecolors of the Basque flag.
The paintings are extraordinary.
There was also a mass that was beingsaid and by, I think there were nuns
on a side chapel, so they were singing.
It was another magical experience.
(30:38):
We actually went back several times,because the experience was so powerful.
It's a beautiful place.
Another incredible thing aboutBayonne was the Les Halles.
So for those, or for your listenerswho don't know, Les Halles are sort
of typically a covered market whereyou can buy fruit and vegetables.
But in many places, they also have sortof deli stands or, people who prepare
(31:00):
food and you can... sometimes, inNarbonne, we had, you know, a full meal.
But a lot of times, you can have, youknow, what would be equivalent of pintxos
or tapas and stand around a tall littletable, with a glass of wine and your
little snacks and you just chat with allthe people around you and it's so fun.
We went there a number of times.
(31:21):
It was just absolutely so fun.
If there's a Halle where you arestaying, and by the way, somebody ... I
was, doing an itinerary with somebodywho asked me, because I kept saying
Les Halles and she says, "Isn't it LesHalles?" I'm like, no, sweetheart." "No."
Yes, yes, yes.
That one, no.
Anyway, if there's a Hallein the area, you must go.
(31:44):
It's... they are fantastic.
In Toulouse, it's stillvery much selling food.
But in many places, they haveintegrated small restaurants and
small places where you can eat.
It's very fun.
And in Béziers, it's mostlyplaces where you can eat.
You can buy a few charcuterie,charcutier, boucher thing, but one
(32:04):
or two, you know, not a ton of them.
It doesn't matter where youare, if there is one, go.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Definitely second that opinion.
And of course, using Bayonne...so Bayonne itself is fantastic.
It has a beautiful Basque museum.
But it's also a great base toexplore the coast and to explore
the villages in the mountain.
So including where they make a lotof the Basque, you know, fabrics,
(32:25):
but also the Piment d'Espelette,this sort of red powder, which
originally I found out that originallythis red pepper came from Mexico.
The roads are absolutely beautiful,very well maintained, as they are
at, we found, in virtually all ofFrance, extremely well maintained.
So it's easy.
They may be narrow, but it's very easyto get around these small villages.
(32:48):
The tourist offices are sometimes,and in particular, in Espelette,
housed in the most incrediblespaces, in this case an old castle.
So you walk in, and on this flooryou have the tourist office, on
this other floor you have thatcity hall and the council chambers.
You open the doors and it's justsuch a wonderful experience.
(33:09):
We love the Basque Country.
We were in one particular village,we had lunch in a particular place.
The owner, eventually became quite chatty.
And I noticed that they hada court of jeu de paume-
Oh.
... indoor court.
I believe it may be theonly one that's left.
I forget what he told us exactly.
(33:29):
I asked if I could peek and whetherI was going to be hit because I
had seen the size of those balls.
And he... of course, he went and showedme around and explained the rules.
Told me that all these... you know, it'ssort of a version of pelote basque, and
that it was still very, very active.
He also explained that they werethe real Basques and the Basques
(33:52):
from the coast were not real Basquesbut they were their nice cousins.
Of course, they are.
Of course, they are.
I love that.
Yeah.
Yeah, Okay.
I have this question, I don'twant to forget this question
because this is important.
If you were to move back to France,would you move to the Basque Country?
(34:13):
Probably not, for one thing,I don't have any family there.
And I was told by someone whose wife isfrom that part of the Basque Country,
that people love you when you're atourist, and not necessarily for the
money, just because they know that you'releaving, and that they might not, might
not be as open if you were to move in.
Okay.
(34:33):
Because I think... I think there'sa feeling that all the people who
come from the outside, includingFrench people, dilute you know, a
little bit of the Basque culture.
The identity, yeah.
Interesting.
Well, that's how they kept theirlanguage separate, was by just not
mixing with the rest of the peoplearound them, so maybe... probably
(34:53):
there's a bit of that going on.
Huh.
You enjoyed the Aveyron area as well.
I did, and... but I don'twant to talk about it anymore.
You had a fabulous guest last,I think the most recent episode.
And he was incredible.
It made me want to go back, but also,it's like, "Shh, don't tell. It's so
beautiful. I kind of want to keep it."
(35:15):
Yeah, the Aveyron is amazing.
Except for Rodez, there's...and maybe, was it Castres?
Which we did not visit, but there'snot an amazing tourist infrastructure.
So I think it's far from becominglike a major tourist Mecca.
But if you stay in Rodez, which hadbeen your recommendation, that's
a really incredible, incredibleplace that you can visit all those
(35:36):
wonderful villages from, yes.
Did you mostly stay in Airbnbsor, hotels or how did you...?
We found our... we were lookingfor apartments, because we were
typically staying for more than...anywhere between 4 and 10 nights.
So hotels would be out of our price range.
So we booked through booking.com forthe most part, unless we had cause
(35:59):
to be somewhere for one night totwo nights because we had to catch
a plane or a train the next day.
Otherwise, we were staying for the mostpart in the center as much as possible.
So we had some criteria,which were important to us.
You know, there neededto be a washing machine.
Dryers would have been great, but that'ssomething that is still pretty rare.
(36:20):
Yeah.
And it was a rainy fall, soit would have been good, yeah.
It would have been good.
And we wanted to havesome cooking facilities.
Those were not even either.
Sometimes there was just a hot plate.
But as long as we could makecoffee, at least you're never
going to go hungry in France.
And that was about it.
And we needed to have, youknow, parking available.
(36:40):
We could walk, you know, withour luggage but not too far.
Overall, was that a good experiencedoing everything through Booking?
Yes, everything was great.
Everything came through, I would say wemade a mistake in Perigueux in particular.
I didn't ask... I hadn't askedabout parking, where the parking
was, and they didn't volunteerthat information, which I think was
(37:01):
probably a bit of a miss on both sides.
I did not realize and I was doingthe direction, my husband was
driving, and we found ourselvesdriving through a pedestrian area.
The shopkeepers were not enthralledwhen we were driving through
and snagging the clothes on theclothes racks outside the store.
It was just terrible.
You know, we were sort of hiding,I was calling the landlord and...
(37:25):
anyway, they had a hard time directingus to an actual parking garage.
So that's one thing I would recommendis definitely find out where you
can park before you get there.
Exactly.
When... if you'redriving...... due diligence.
Always decide I'm going to be parking,you know, instead of doing city center
of this town, just say "take me to thisparking lot," or underground parking,
(37:47):
if you're going to a small village,most of the time it's self-explanatory.
They will have a sign that says, "Parkover here." A tiny village, there's
no need to do research unless you'rein the Provence area, and then maybe.
But even there, they will direct you.
But if you're going to a city likePerigueux, Toulouse, Rodez, places
like that, you really need toknow where you're going to park.
(38:08):
So I would definitely... Or, andyou can ask your host as well.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah, they can tell you,you just need to ask.
Okay, we need to hurry it up becausewe've been talking a long time.
But I want to hear about yourhiking in the Hautes-Pyrénées.
You went to the Cirque deGavarnie, which I've been to as
well, and the Lac de Payolle.
I don't know that one.
Cirque de Gavarnie, well, you've beenthere, so it's absolutely beautiful.
(38:29):
It's this amphitheater of sheer rockface with waterfalls falling down.
There have been a ton of rain a few weeksbefore we arrived, therefore there were
places that were closed, hikes that wewanted to do that we couldn't do because
bridges had fallen through and, you know.
And you could see, in fact, even onthe walk to the Cirque de Gavarnie,
(38:50):
that the path was quite damaged fromthe floods that they had just had.
But it's a spectacular experience.
And you walked through the cows withcowbells, and it's just really fun.
And it's a fairly easy hike.
I mean, it's not very steep.
It's gentle, like, hill, quite easy to do.
(39:10):
This is a place where the people inToulouse take their young kids even.
You know, if you want to do ahike with young kids, it's fine.
They can handle it.
Yeah, so that's very easy.
If you're going to go beyond thehotel, you might want to have
better shoes with thicker soles.
It gets more rocky.
And maybe even hiking poles.
I mean, kids don't need thembut adults sometimes need them.
(39:31):
Other than that, yes, it'svery easy, it's pretty flat.
And then the Lac de Payolle?
Lac de Payolle Yes, it's an artificiallake, which is fed by three mountain
streams, so its people use it forfishing, but it's also known as
Little Canada because you have thebeautiful blue waters of the lake and
(39:52):
it's surrounded by these evergreens.
It's absolutely beautiful.
Beautiful spots.
Again, it's completely flatbecause you walk around the lake.
So it wasn't really hiking, but there'sa lot, I think, more hiking and uh, VTT
and, and, you know, other activities.
I'll remind everybody that to findgreat hikings, biking, all sorts of
(40:13):
physical activities, go to Komoot,K-O-M-O-O-T, and just enter the name
of the village and it will show you allsorts of things you can do in the area.
All right, you went to Notre-Dame,and that's the last thing
we're going to talk about.
Yeah.
Tell me about it.
So Notre-Dame, we had downloaded the app.
(40:34):
We knew that we were... We didn't planit but we found out that we were going
to be there when it reopened, and wewere unable to get tickets because we
were there the day after or we werethere in, at the time that it reopened.
But we just decided to line up andeven on sort of day two or three of
its reopening, we were able to getin after 35 minutes, spent mostly
chatting with everybody around us.
(40:55):
And it was again, a transformativeexperience because they had... And
we were raised Catholic but we're,you know, no longer practice.
But you find yourself in thisabsolutely stunning space.
By then, everybody had read about, youknow, the renovations and so forth.
They also had... They had just broughtback The Crown of Thorns, which
is rumored to be the true Crown ofThorns that King... I think it was
(41:19):
King Henry II, now I forget, who hadbought it from the Byzantine emperor.
And it had been the first thingthat they saved when the fire broke
out, that was the main concern.
So it had been housed at the Louvre.
So they had just brought it backand it was open for everyone to see.
And it was guarded by people inlong white robes and red stripes,
(41:40):
and it was very formal and very,extremely moving, I would say.
Yeah, it's a great experience.
And by now... I was just there lastweek, so we're recording this in January.
It won't come out for several months,the security at Notre-Dame has improved
greatly because they have bought newkind of security portals, whatever
you call these things, and you canpretty much walk straight through.
(42:03):
There's no more stop, open yourbag, or anything like that.
If you have any sort of metal with you,you'll ding and then they will search you.
But most people walkthrough without any trouble.
So it's pretty fast, really.
It's worth going, I think.
All right, I ask these questions to allthe Americans so we'll ask you as well.
(42:24):
Did you learn anythingabout France on this trip?
And did you make any mistakes?
I learned everything about France.
I learned everythingbecause everything was new.
I hadn't been to any otherplaces except Bordeaux.
I hadn't been to any of those places.
The main lesson to me was that even thoughwe spent 15 or 16 weeks essentially in
(42:44):
one region, we never ran out of thingsto do, never ran out of things to see.
Where every day was different and tothink of, you know, just to remind
ourselves to be open to everything.
When you talk to people, it opensup so many new opportunities.
So that was really a good reminder.
It's easy for me to chat with people, butthen I, you really have to be deliberate
(43:08):
about it because it just opens up a wholeworld that is, you know, not necessarily
hidden, but not maybe as obviousas what you might see in the books.
And, you know, there are lotsof French people who welcome the
opportunity to practice their English.
And so if you are a chatty person, youalways start with Bonjour of course.
(43:29):
But besides that, you don'tneed to know that much French.
Most people will, they might suffer,you might have to suffer through
their English, but that's fine.
If you're the sort of person who isgood at engaging others in conversation,
which clearly you are, then itreally makes your trip much better.
And I'm also a chatty person.
(43:50):
I go somewhere and I'lltalk to whoever's there.
Like, it's not difficult.
You just...
No, no, because people want to talk.
They want to tell you.
Sure.
Yeah.
They want to talk.
So, did you make anymistakes on this trip?
Is there something that you didn't thinkwas any good that you are like, ah,
should, we shouldn't have done that?
Well, definitely the parking, notbeing as diligent as I should have
(44:12):
been in terms of asking about theparking was a bit of an issue.
And for us, three months endedup being a little bit long.
Not because we ever ran out of thingsto do, but because you start, you
know, missing your home or, it getsa bit much to, ugh, you know, I had
to plan on what day I was going todo the laundry because there was
no dryer, and the weather was cool.
(44:33):
It's all little practical things.
Having to relearn a space, having tofind out where the, you know, where
all the outlets are for all yourelectronic gear, and change that every
four days or however often you move.
That got a little bit...
Yeah, it's a challenge.
I would do it again in a heartbeat,however, although the next time might
(44:53):
not be three months also because youworry about your house, you know,
back home, your plants and so forth.
I think if you can do two months,that's probably the sweet spot
to visit a place if you...
I agree.
That's what we decided at the end.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Oh, phone access.
Well, we struggled and I wish, yeah,I wish that we had had your previous
guest on because we, we sort of muddledthrough and it didn't work great for us.
(45:18):
We ended up buying a monthlyplan from our American carrier.
It wasn't too bad.
I really wanted to have access.
I didn't want to be limitedto, yeah, we needed the GPS,
we needed, we just needed it.
So, we bit the bullet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you tried both Bouygues and Orange,but it wasn't, you didn't like it.
I don't know if we got the rightinformation, but they told me that,
(45:40):
you know, one was convinced that myphone, which is an iPhone, I don't
know, 14 I think, was convincedthat I could buy a physical card.
And I told him, no there's no physicalcard in this... And he sort of grabbed
the phone out of my hand and then sawthat there's no space for a physical card.
And they couldn't sell you amonthly or electronic, an e-card.
(46:02):
So, I don't know, it just became, Iwasn't sure even though we spoke the
same language, but I wasn't sure thatI was communicating properly and...
Yeah.
And sometimes the fact that youspeak the same language is a problem
because they assume that you are localwhen you're not, you're a visitor.
Like, you know?
There were times when we first movedback to France where I would ask
my husband to talk because he stillhad a bit of an accent in French.
(46:26):
And so people immediately recognizedhim as a visitor and that was fine.
Whereas if I spoke, they were like,"Well, why are you asking stupid questions
like that? You live here, don't you?"
That's right.
Yeah.
They make more of an effortfor, to explain to... Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
You talk about assuming that the trainsran the way I did when I lived there.
Uh-oh, you had a problem with the trains?
(46:48):
It wasn't a problem per se.
Operationally, they were very good.
And I didn't find themextremely expensive.
They were more expensive than theyhad been over time, but that was fine.
The issue that we had is thatthey're not on time anymore.
It used to be that the TGV was like, youknow, it left at the minute it said it was
going to leave, it arrived at the minute... and it's wasn't the case, you know?
(47:09):
In one case, of course, when our sonarrived, there was, you know, a lot of
snow in Paris, so he was delayed, butit was complicated for him to re-route.
He did re-route, but youknow, couldn't get reimbursed.
And then same with us when weleft, perfect weather, but they
had trouble connecting the trains,they had to find another driver.
So we were 35 minutes late, which,you know, those things did not
(47:31):
happen, but... Not terrible.
Not terrible.
We had the time, so...
All right.
Oh, so you didn't love Lourdes.
Yeah, most people don't actually.
Did not love Lourdes.
I had been there as a child sothat goes back quite a while.
And it was raining too so that didn'thelp but the sort of the religious part
is very crowded and, you know, movingif you're into that sort of thing.
(47:52):
The town itself is socommercialized, it's just horrible.
So did not, yeah, was not a fan.
Yeah.
No, no charm.
Lourdes is not a charmingtown, it just isn't.
It's a town where you go if youwant to participate in the religious
stuff, but that's about it.
The other thing you say is you wouldnot go back to the Champollion Museum in
Figeac because it was too kind of narrow.
(48:14):
It was very arcane.
And I do like sort ofout-of-the-way museum.
And we had a little back andforth with somebody on the
Facebook group who loved it.
And I thought she must be reallysmart because it was really hard
for me to understand most of that.
I learned more about Champollion himselfand less about the language because I
thought this is why I need a guided tour.
(48:35):
The knowledge was quite arcane.
There was a school group and Ithought I should tag along so that
teacher could teach me a few things.
So people told you not to go toVilleneuve-sur-Lot, but you went on two
different occasions and you liked it.
Oh, no, you were notcompletely comfortable.
No, we were not completely comfortable.
And I don't know what the, sort ofthe geography of Villeneuve-sur-Lot
(48:56):
but we had to find a big supermarketto try and find a printing shop.
We were definitely the outsidersand were looked at as outsiders.
It felt a little bit... I was, we werein no danger, I was not afraid but it
definitely felt like we didn't belong.
Haven't been to Villeneuve-sur-Lot.
I can't say much about it.
We heard from someone else who saidthat they were actually turned away
(49:20):
from a place by people there, so...
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Not okay.
You didn't like brasserie in largecities because they're all the same.
That's very true though.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That was quite disappointing.
I mean, you expect a brasserie tohave about the same menu, but now it
was menu that was expanded in a waybut was the same in every city and
it didn't feel like it had been madewith love just fresh and so forth.
(49:44):
And so, I felt generally, I liked to havethe, you know, certain dishes in that
region and sort of the French way andit, I don't want to have magret canard
in Brittany and crêpes in Provence or
those things.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
Oh, and the last thing is getused to single-gender toilets.
Yes.
We have them a lot now.
(50:05):
So there's one bathroom andit's whoever needs the bathroom.
Yes.
And I have to say, I was quite, youknow, a little bit nervous because
when I was growing up, toilets incafes were, you know, sometimes what
they used to call the Turkish toilets,and generally not the most hygienic.
Well, they might have beenhygenic but very dirty.
I was pleasantly surprisedfor the most part that in
(50:28):
establishments they were clean.
Sometimes the public toiletsin small villages and whatever,
clearly were not attended to in,you know, especially off season.
Yeah.
... you win some, you lose some.
Wonderful.
Okay.
You wrote some very nice notes, so Iwill put them out as guest notes so
people can look at many details thatyou share that are really interesting.
(50:51):
You recommend restaurants and things likethat that we didn't get to because we only
have, you know, a certain amount of time.
But thank you so much forsharing all of that, Catherine.
I love talking to you.
I'm sure people willlove listening to you.
And thank you so much forcoming on the podcast.
Thank you, Annie.
It was an absolute pleasure andI'm very happy to share my limited
(51:12):
knowledge of the Southwest.
Come back to France anytime.
I will do.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Merci beaucoup.
Au revoir.
Au revoir, Annie.
Au revoir.
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting this show.
(51:34):
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing so.
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
A special shout-out this week to mynew JOIN US in France champions, Larry
Rosenbloom, Annie Andrews, and Susan.
(51:54):
And thank you, Kitty Long, Rowena, andMike August for upgrading your pledges.
Would you join them, too?
You can do it for as little as $3 amonth, but if you can afford it, I
would love to have you pledge more so youcan have access to more of the rewards.
And to support Elyse, goto patreon.com/elysart.
(52:17):
This week, Elyse and I both publishedour casual convo for the month of July.
This is a chat we have.
It's usually half an hour to 45 minutesor something, where we just chitchat.
There's just no agenda.
We talk, chat about whatever comes intoour mind and we always get great feedback
about that from patrons, which is lovely.
Here's some VoiceMap reviewsof my Paris VoiceMap tours.
(52:40):
Somebody says, "I love all of Annie'stours in France, but this one is
the best." "I had to split it over afew days because of the length," Oh,
that's probably Latin Quarter then.
"And candidly, how distracted we gotwith all the great neighborhoods. Even
though I've been in the neighborhoodmany times and lived here for a bit,
I still learned so much. Thank you,Annie." Wow, that's wonderful to know.
(53:03):
Thank you.
VoiceMap is like taking a privatetour with a human guide who lets
you stop whenever you want, picksup again at your leisure, you start
at whatever time on whatever day.
It is very, very nice, and you cannotdo that with any live tour guides.
And podcast listeners get a big discountfor buying these tours from my website.
Now, it's best for me as well, I'mgoing to tell you, because I get to
(53:26):
keep more of the money you pay insteadof giving it to Apple or Google.
To use your tour code once you'vepurchased them on my website on
joinusinfrance.com/ boutique, taptour codes at the bottom right,
enter the code and download the tour.
You don't have to use your creditimmediately, it just sits in
your account until you're ready.
(53:46):
If you want to use it on adifferent device, you can log in
to your accounts from anywhere.
You can also listen in virtualplayback from anywhere you are.
It's perfect if Paris isnot in your immediate plans.
You can take me in yourpocket with VoiceMap.
If you're planning a trip to Franceand you want expert help, you can
hire me as your itinerary consultant.
It's kind of busy this season, but you canstill find a slot unless you're leaving
(54:11):
tomorrow and then I can't help you.
I usually have openingswithin a month or so.
But don't wait too much, and again,that's at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
And now let's talk aboutthe fireworks in Paris.
They're going to take place around theEiffel Tower starting at 11:00 PM on July
14th, which is tomorrow if you listen tothis episode as soon as it gets released.
(54:35):
Different cities hold fireworksand celebrations either
on July 13th or July 14th.
Wherever you are in France, ask whatis planned, as these events are always
wonderful, and it's warm in France thisweek, but it's not like canicule warm.
It's not like 35.
It's not 100 degrees.
(54:55):
It's 90s, but not 100, whichmakes a big difference.
The Bayeux Tapestry is going on loanto England in September while they
renovate the Bayeux Museum that has beenhousing this masterpiece for many years.
Emmanuel Macron announced it in a speechhe gave to Parliament in London this week.
You know, it's a big deal giving aspeech to Parliament, and so he wanted
(55:18):
to thank them with something thatthey have been asking for a long time,
which is loan us the Bayeux Tapestry.
I think we were worried thatthey were never going to return
it, but now they will return it.
He must have assurances or he wouldn'thave done anything that stupid.
Oh wait, Macron doesstupid things at times.
Oh, well, we'll see.
So if you're going to Bayeux laterthis year, keep that in mind,
(55:39):
or perhaps go see it in London.
Since reopening in December,more than six million people
have visited Notre-Dame de Paris.
If this trend continues, thecathedral could become the most
visited monument in France.
"The emotion people felt during thefire is matched by the emotion they
feel now that Notre-Dame has reopened,"says Monseigneur Olivier Ribadeau
(56:04):
Dumas, director of the cathedral.
Between December 16th and June 30th,Notre-Dame welcomed over six million
visitors, averaging 35,000 per day.
If this pace holds, the cathedral couldsee around 12 million visitors in 2025.
This would place it ahead of theSacré-Cœur in Montmartre, ahead of the
(56:26):
Louvre, again, ahead of Versailles,and even ahead of the Eiffel
Tower in the numbers of visitors.
Before the fire of April 2019, Notre Damegot around 11 million visitors each year.
Although counting methodswere less precise back then.
But today, they kind of click every timesomebody walks through, so they do know.
(56:49):
And their director pointed out thatthis surge is probably not just a
temporary trend, visitor numbersare increasing by about 1,000
people per day each month so far.
So, if it's an extra 1,000 peopleper day since the reopening, then
probably it's going to peak in August.
(57:11):
You know, some of the people who'vebeen there recently said it was like
Sistine Chapel kind of level of busy.
It's going to get to the pointwhere it's too many, I think.
Anyway, in June, the cathedralspire regained one of its, of the
16 statues that once adorned itsbase, the base of the spire, that is.
(57:32):
And the tower visits willresume on September 20th.
So, you'll be able to go up to the roof.
And there's going to be a feefor that, and while there isn't
a fee to go into the cathedral.
Notre Dame reopened, of course, afterfive years of massive restoration
funded by the $846 million indonations from around the world.
(57:52):
They still have about $140 millionleft, but they say they need
another $140 million to completeeverything that they want to do.
And you don't have to pay thatkind of money to get my tour of the
Notre Dame Sainte-Chapelle, and theConciergerie, which will take you
around that monument, and explains manyof the things that you're looking at.
(58:16):
My thanks to Anne and ChristianCotovan, who edit the podcast
and produce the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast, anepisode with my friends Patricia
and Jennifer, about Chartres, thebeautiful, beautiful city of Chartres.
Thank you so much for listening andI hope you join me next time so we
(58:37):
can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
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, episode554, cinq cent cinquante-quatre.
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 withCatherine McMillan about her incredible
(00:36):
journey through the Southwest of Francewhere I live and where I was born.
Discover hidden gems from medievalvillages and picturesque landscapes to
local artisans and unique museums.
Tune in to learn tips,tales, and inspirations for
your next French adventure.
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support
(00:59):
of lovely humans like you.
You book itinerary consults, takemy VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun
in my electric car, or come to thebootcamp, or even slip me a few euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
Want to keep me going and skip the ads?
There's a link for that in the show notes.
(01:19):
And head to joinusinfrance.com/boutiqueto purchase any of my services.
For the magazine part of the podcastafter my chat with Catherine today, I'll
discuss the July 14th fireworks in Paris.
I'll be in Carcassonne personally, butthey put on a great show in Paris as well.
I'll also mention the Bayeux Tapestry,which is going on loan to England in
(01:43):
September, and I'll also discuss theeye-popping popularity of Notre-Dame
de Paris, the cathedral in Paris.
If you want all the links andthe full episode transcripts, go
to joinusinfrance.com/episodes.
And if you'd like a handy summary ofthe conversation with all the useful
(02:03):
links, subscribe to the newsletterat joinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
It's the best way to stay in the loop.
Catherine McMillan, andwelcome to Join Us in France.
(02:25):
Bonjour, Annie.
Comment allez-vous?
I'm very good, thank you.
I'm just very excited to be able totalk about the amazing trip we've had.
Yes, yes.
So tell us a little bit about yourself,introduce yourself, and tell us about
your trip, when you took it, whoyou were with, all that good stuff.
Okay.
My husband retired a few months ago, andwe decided to celebrate with a big trip.
(02:48):
I'm from France, I was born andraised in France, but I've lived in
the US for a number of decades now.
Obviously, I've had an opportunityto go back to France either
every year or every other year.
My husband is from England,so we also went to England.
And I felt that just didnot know France well enough.
I knew the areas where I grew up andwhere we had a second home, but I really
(03:11):
didn't know this amazing country thatI was reading about on your Facebook
group and hearing about on the podcast.
And I don't know if I had FOMO,but I really wanted to see more
of it while we still could, andso we took that opportunity.
We also had the opportunity to haveour son over, and it was great.
He's 26.
It was great to be able to show hima part of France that he didn't know.
(03:35):
We tended to vacation in the samearea because the family was in,
mostly in one location, so...
Yeah, that's how it works, yeah.
Yeah.
So, we decided to go.
As you know, we initially had wanted tostay for a year, and then a few months,
and then we had a consultation with you.
And I really should have started bysaying that, I should acknowledge
(03:57):
that our trip would've been completelydifferent and definitely less
gratifying if it hadn't been for you.
For the itinerary consultation,the huge document that you shared,
the opportunity to ask questionsthrough the Facebook group.
Really, we're so thankful to you,to Elyse, with whom we had a tour,
and to all the people who answeredour questions and who participate
(04:20):
in the group, so thank you.
Thank you very much forsaying those kind words.
It's very natural for me, I mean,that's how I felt when I moved home
from France, from the US, sorry.
Home for me is also France, and I livedin the US for 16 years, but before that
I had lived in the UK for two, and whenI came home, I felt like we had to.
(04:42):
But I felt like I didn'tknow my own country.
Like, I felt like a dum-dum.
And so, I mean, it's really funny.
You can speak the languageperfectly, but there's a lot
you missed in those 18 years.
And so I really wanted to rediscovermy own country, and that's one of the
(05:03):
reasons why I started the podcast.
And so that's one of the strongimpetus behind the podcast, is help
others discover France as well.
So thank you for those kind words.
It works very well.
All right.
So, what were the dates of your trip?
We arrived in very earlySeptember of 2024, and we stayed
until the middle of December.
(05:25):
Out of that time, we spent twoweeks between England and Madrid.
And one week in Paris.
Otherwise, it was all what I callthe South West, which is, it's
a little bit, the South West+.
Yes.
Yes.
Where are you from originally?
I was born in Paris andraised in Nantes, mostly.
Grew up in Nantes.
So you probably have familyaround Nantes and Paris as well.
(05:48):
I have a ton of family inParis, less and less in Nantes.
And in fact, we did not go to Nantes.
I have a brother who lives there,and we invited him to come and
stay with us in the Pyrenees.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Did you rent a car?
We rented... Well, weactually leased a car.
And I read about that, through thepodcast, somebody had mentioned that.
The broker, I guess, is called Auto TT.
(06:09):
And you can rent through Renaultor through Citroen, and depends
on the length of time you want.
We ended up renting throughRenault, and for about three months.
It was so affordable, I would say.
The car is brand new,had 10 kilometers on.
It had, of course, a very up-to-dateGPS, you know, the cameras and so forth.
(06:31):
It was really a wonderful,a wonderful experience.
I mean, roadside assistance,which we didn't need, but
was included, was a factor.
Full insurance.
It was terrific experience, and ifyou stay longer than two weeks in
France, I would highly recommend it.
It was great.
Right.
So you called... What was the nameof the company you got it through?
(06:51):
The broker, and I don't know ifit's a broker that only works
with the US, I should say thatwe are based in California.
It's called Auto, or A-U-T-O
TT.
It's two Ts.
TT, two Ts?
Okay.
All right.
Oh, interesting.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yes, because I had heard of peopledoing that directly through Renault.
(07:12):
But why not?
It probably facilitated somethings to have a broker, so...
Yes.
Fantastic.
Okay.
So you picked up your car in what town?
We started our trip in Bordeaux.
For the first week, we did not use a car.
So at the end of our stay in Bordeaux, wegot a taxi to the airport, picked up our
car, which was a really fun experience.
Actually, the lady was fromIreland and extremely entertaining.
(07:35):
And we drove to the areaof Arcachon.... very close.
From there, after a few days inArcachon, we drove to Bayonne in the
Basque Country, and stayed there quitea while, I believe about 10 days, then
drove to the Central Pyrenees, droveback up to the, broadly the Périgord,
Dordogne area, and then came around tothe Rodez region and Albi, Toulouse,
(08:03):
and then back down to the Pyrenees.
The thinking there was that we wouldenjoy the last few days of warmth in
the Dordogne area, and then drive toMediterranean where it would be warmer.
That didn't work out at all,but that was the thinking.
Yeah, weather, huh?
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
All right, so tell meabout your favorite thing.
(08:24):
So you made me a list, and the firstthing you said is the experience
of walking through history.
I love that because I think that's exactlywhat travel does, travel to France anyway.
This was a very profoundexperience, really.
You walk in a tiny medieval village andyou see signs that this village has been
(08:47):
there for centuries, 700 years, 900 years.
And these are not plaques thatindicate, so-and-so lived here
or, this was the location of themint under King blah, blah, blah.
These are inscriptions, carvings intothe stone that date back to that time.
This is the beginning of feelinglike there have been thousands,
(09:10):
hundreds of thousands of people wholived in the places that we visit.
And then you go to a museum,everything you see, whether it's
art or historical artifacts,underscores what you see outside.
When you go to Béziers, you see all thesigns that there were massacres, and
from there you go to Toulouse, there'sa very big exhibit on the Cathars.
(09:34):
And then we found ourselves inthe Pays Cathare, the Cathar
country, where we visited, youknow, the ruins of a Cathar castle.
And it's just profoundly moving to seeall the people who lived here had been
subjected to this horrible crusade.
I found the fact that history was presentat every corner, of course it's true
(09:56):
of every country, but it's somethingthat is so revered, basically, in
France, that I found that very moving.
Right.
You also have to make the effortto learn about the history a little
bit, and if you listen to thepodcast, you will necessarily hear
about some history because we try toinject some of that into everything.
But it's true that putting thingsinto perspective, like, our timeline,
(10:20):
our lives are very brief, you know,very... like, so much has happened,
it makes you think about things, yeah.
So you visited some plus beauxvillages wherever you went.
What was that like?
What did you find?
I was going to count howmany villages we visited.
(10:42):
I think it was in the range of 35 intotal because, I think the Southwest is
the part of France that has the most.
And I will grant that they're notnecessarily all at the same level.
However, it gave us a frameworkfor, you know, to guide our travels.
Clearly, it's a marketing opportunityfor those villages, but it also speaks
(11:04):
to the pride that people have oftheir environment and their history.
And even if, though, there were notthat many flowers around because it
was, you know, a cold fall, well,at least where we were, everything
is... you know, people really payattention, they care about the place.
And it was again, it was very moving tosee that people in these villages of under
(11:28):
2,000 people, and sometimes with seven, Ithink one of the places we visit they have
seven people who live there year round.
They really... it matters to them.
Yeah.
You know, and seeing their villagescontinue to thrive, is important to
them, and I also found that quite moving.
Yeah.
So do you have, I don't know, ahandful that you can recommend?
(11:49):
Like, did you have a favoriteamong the 35 or so that you saw?
That's a very hard question.
Yeah.
I know.
Pujols.
Pujols was extraordinary.
But it's very well knownalready, I believe.
So that's in the Lot-et-Garonne,so not quite in the Périgord,
but on the outskirts.
The area's very beautiful, but we arrivedin Pujols or the area, the place where
(12:12):
we were staying that night was itselfbeautiful, but maybe two kilometers
from the actual village, which is on ahill, and there were not many businesses
open because it was off season.
There were couple of restaurants.
Their place is completely closed tocars, so you have to park on the outside.
And you climb up, you have thisgolden... golden lighting in the
(12:34):
village, and you really feel likeyou're walking into a postcard.
It looked absolutely fabulous.
The only life was, youknow, a couple of cats.
There are a lot of cats, I'venoticed, in the Southwest ... but
this sort of golden, golden lightingeverywhere on the yellow stone, the
ochre stone, it was just magical.
And the couple of places that wereopen, people were so friendly.
(12:56):
They were all local, butvery welcoming of us.
It's a beautiful, beautiful place.
We went back during the day,it was just as beautiful.
There's a place that I will neverforget, which is the Larressingle,
that's the little village that has,I think seven residents year round.
Yeah.
And as you know, I think you mighthave talked about it on the podcast.
(13:19):
Yeah, it's in the Gers.
That's right.
Oh, the Gers!
I listened to that podcast and thanksto you I visited, I think pretty much
all the areas that you mentioned.
There's a bookstore in La Ressingle,which will... I don't think
I will ever forget that spot.
It's housed in a, I don'tknow, 13 or 14th century house.
And on the second floor, there'sthat bookstore which makes you feel
(13:42):
like you just want to snuggle upinto the old armchairs that they have
and read, you know, the whole day.
The lady who was working at the storetold me she's actually a volunteer.
It's a nonprofit bookstore but they dohave a buyer who does a very good job
of... and of course, we bought some books.
And then you talk to this person and thenshe tells you about this other village,
(14:03):
and this other village, and this museum.
And just talking to people, I mean, itreally opens up so many opportunities
that you might not be aware of otherwise.
That was another huge asset.
You know, if you show up somewhere withopen ears, and you can talk to people,
it's much better than having a book.
I mean, you know, the guidebooksare great, but talk to people,
(14:25):
it's better, if you can.
Not everybody is up to it, butclearly you're French so that's fine.
Yes, I didn't have a language obstacle.
Yeah.
But it's very true, and peopleare just so happy to help.
We found that everywhere.
And you ask them, you know, thingsoutside of their... You know, I
wasn't asking about the books, it'slike what else should we visit?
(14:47):
And they're only too happy to tellyou, you know, because they're
proud of where they're from.
Another village, in fact, sherecommended was Fourcès, and I know
you talked about it on the podcast.
Again, another magical spot with, it'sa bastille town with this circular
plaza surrounded by, of course,stone arcades, and planted in the
(15:08):
middle with a lot of plane trees.
You have to park outside so you just walkinto this absolutely enchanting plaza.
Again, it's absolutely remarkable.
Yeah, yeah, those are beautiful placesand, you know, just go see them.
This is not the sort of place wherethere's a museum to visit or whatever.
(15:29):
It's just a place where you go, youlook, you walk, you have a meal perhaps
or a coffee or something, and you talkto people if that's something you enjoy
doing, and learn a little bit about thehistory and move on to the next place.
These are probably places whereyou spend two hours at most.
Yes, if that, if that, exactly.
(15:49):
I was occasionally posting pictures onthe Facebook group, there was somebody
who made a comment about, oh, the...we were seeing so many things in one
day, that would be exhausting to them.
But you have to realize they'revery close to each other.
Yeah.
A lot of them are very closeto each other and... or they're
grouped, and so it's not... it'sreally not very, very demanding.
(16:10):
Right.
It's easy to park, they're allvery small, you park typically
on the outside, walk around.
If the tourist office was open, we wouldgo in and they always had a walking map.
Yeah.
And that's what we did.
It's usually, you know, four orfive blocks in either direction,
there's really not much there.
And typically on the walking map theywill have like, "Number one is the
(16:31):
house of so-and-so," and, "Number twois the church of such and such," and...
That's right.
That really helps because it givesyou a little bit of context, you get
to see the important years when thisplace was developed and, yeah, it's
a very, Fourcès is a very... I mean,I like the Gers, it's a... Sometimes,
Elyse and I are still working out thedetails of the next bootcamp and we're
(16:55):
thinking, "Okay, do we take people to theGers?" It takes a while to drive there.
So for the afternoon it's kindof... from Toulouse it might be a
bit tight, but I would really liketo take more people to those areas
and just do three or four in a row.
They're very close, likeyou mentioned, so...
They're very close.
And there's a Musée du Foie Grasthere that we visited as well.
Aha.
(17:15):
Aha.
Which... A wonderful 'dégustation'.
Now you're talking.
Now, we didn't go to that one butwhen we went everything was closed.
Elyse and I have a knack... We're goingtomorrow to visit a couple of places and
we have a knack for showing up placesthat they're, "Ah, it's closed today. Oh
well." It's okay, we can always go back.
(17:36):
All right, so visiting and observingcraftsmen at work making knives,
making gloves, weaving Basque fabrics.
Tell us more.
Those are, again, experiences thatwe had that were completely free that
we didn't know we were going to do.
We ended up at a fantastic restaurantand I noticed and asked about the
(17:58):
knives that were at the restaurant.
And they said, "Oh, these are..." Becausethey looked like Laguiole knives, which
a lot of your listeners would know about.
They weren't.
They didn't have the B.
Yeah.
And so I asked about the knives and shesaid, "Oh, they're made right here." I
thought they were absolutely beautiful.
They're made right here in the village.
And this is a tiny, tiny villagein the Sauveterre-de-Rouergue.
(18:21):
And the knife place, the cutlery,I'm not sure how you call these
places, was open and the artisan wasat work and there were two of them.
There was one guy who wascurrently working on a blade.
And a lot of the notches typicallyon the top, the back of the blade
are the signature of the personwho is actually making the knife.
(18:43):
And the other person wasworking on the handle.
And it was a very small operation, buthad apparently very stellar reputation.
And another guy who walkedin as we were there was the
guy who provides the antlers.
And so we were able to talk to him,say, "How do you know that this
antler is going to be good?" You know.
(19:03):
"is it related to the age of theantler?" So, you know, and I realized
that because I'm French speaking,I can have these conversations that
are a little bit more in depth.
Right.
But it still speaks to the fact thatpeople want to talk about what they do,
it's very easy for them to share theirpassion, they're not trying to sell you,
we did buy a knife, but there are lots ofplaces where we weren't buying anything
(19:26):
and they just want to talk about it.
They're just so gratefulfor the questions.
Yeah.
In a place like that, you would wantto buy one because it's going to
remind you forever about this visit.
So of course you would buy one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
Exactly.
You went to Millau as well andyou watched people make gloves.
That's right.
So Millau is very well-known, probablyat least throughout Europe for
(19:50):
glove-making and we had decided to visit.
There were only two or threeplaces that we had found out about.
One was absolutely spectacular.
They had a little museum ofgloves, about glove-making.
The gloves are made on the top floor.
It was a modern building, but,you know, beautifully done as they
know how to balance modern and old.
(20:12):
The gloves were displayed inglass cases, but they were gloves
for... I mean, for the Oscars.
I mean, they were gloves that donot fit my lifestyle in California.
But they were absolutely...the workmanship was exquisite.
I could have tried them, but I didn'teven want to, you know, touch them.
They're just works of art.
My husband got sized for gloves, butwe decided this is definitely above
(20:35):
our lifestyle and our price range.
So we went to another one and thelady was actually on the sidewalk.
We walk and she follows us and I said,"I have some questions." And she just
said "your husband is an eight and ahalf, you're a seven and a half." That
was the first thing out of her mouth.
And so, we ended up staying.
She was absolutely right about the sizes.
(20:55):
The fact that people are so knowledgeable,we ended up practically, you know,
wanting to have dinner with her.
It was just, again, she just wantedto share everything, and was able
to customize, you know... "Oh, youlive in California," da, da, da, da.
You know, just customize our purchaseto what we wanted, to our lifestyle.
(21:16):
It was just another amazing experience.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
And then weaving Basque fabrics.
Okay, so Basque fabrics arevery, very famous in France.
They're very colorful and you can spotthem, like, if you have a throw or, I
don't know, pillows or something, theyreally shine and they're beautiful.
So tell me about this experience.
(21:37):
So that was an experience where wealso learned a lot and we were able
to, there's a store nearby in Carmel,California, that is called Jean de Luz
and the owner, or the person who startedthat business is I believe from Bayonne.
And so I already knew about the Basquefabrics, but I wanted to specifically,
of course, get some more there.
(21:58):
We ended up going to Ascain, there's aparticular store that we were interested
in visiting and they have an exhibit.
And this person, even though itwasn't officially a tour, she
did take us to the back and sheshowed us how everything operated.
Again, it's low season, there's notmany other people and she just goes
through the trouble of, you know, takingus back and showing us how everything
(22:21):
works and talking to us about theBasque fabrics and how the seven stripes
refer to the seven Basque provinces.
The width of the stripes referto, I forget the... I think the...
how prosperous the family is.
And something else thatis, identifies the village.
So it's like a tartan but Basque style.
Yes, exactly.
(22:41):
Yeah.
And originally for oxen, ofcourse, and not for people.
So yeah, it was just, again, anopportunity to learn a lot of facts
that you wouldn't otherwise knowabout, including if you're French.
Yeah.
In the Basque Country, I can't rememberwhich Plus Beaux Villages it's in,
but in one of the Plus Beaux Villagesof Basque Country, there is a place
(23:02):
where they make espadrille, the shoes.
And you can visit that, but Idon't remember what is called.
Yes, that's right.
So I think it's really veryomnipresent in Saint-Jean-de-Luz,
but I don't... remember either.
Right.
Right.
But I knew that I wasn'tgoing to buy espadrille.
I'm not quite comfortableenough for... but...
Yes, yes, it's very basic.
You have to be 18 to wearthose things, I think.
(23:24):
That's right.
It is very for young people.
All right, so let's see.
Next thing you list is exploringmany of the more unusual,
out-of-the-way, lesser-known museums.
So tell us about some of theweird museums you visited.
Lots of people like todo this, by the way.
It's a very common question thatpeople ask me is: 'Is there some
(23:46):
kind of fun museum in this area'?
A lot of places we found had theselittle out-of-the-way museums,
and sometimes it's because theyreally don't have that much else.
And for instance, when we were inthe Arcachon area, we were staying
in a tiny place called Gujan-Mestrasthat has, I believe, seven little
fishing areas, fishing ports.
(24:06):
And in one of them, there'sthis Museum of the Oyster.
The place, it's maybe two...has two rooms, but you can have
a really, really good visit.
And it's in French, but there'sa little movie, 15 minutes or so,
that has subtitles in English.
This was important for my husbandwho is not quite bilingual.
(24:27):
And you just learn so much.
Yeah.
The other things, I didn't evenknow that we ever grew tobacco.
I think it will not be news toeverybody, but it was news to me.
And in Bergerac, we found out inthe Musee du Tabac that they started
to grow tobacco especially, and todevelop it on a larger scale, when the
(24:49):
grapes were being attacked, had beenattacked and destroyed by phylloxera.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Phylloxera.
And then we took a tour on a boat, andthey were pointing out these very steep
roofs, in the Bergerac area that were usedalso to install racks where they could
dry the tobacco leaves, drape the tobaccoleaves over the racks and let them dry
(25:11):
because there was a lot of free flow ofair, but being protected from the rain.
All these little thingsthat you just learn so much.
Then I saw a museum, or we saw a museum,that you had talked about, the Musee de
la Mer in Sete where we saw the jousting.
There's an exhibit on jousting,which was just hysterical and
very, very fun to learn about.
(25:32):
The main part of the museumhas... I don't know... I don't
know how many models of boats.
It's a beautiful little place.
Again, it takes you maybe an hourto go through that, but, you know,
just some wonderful opportunities.
And it is true that most ofthese museums are in French.
Some places they can hand you a cardthat's been translated or something,
(25:52):
but these are best for people whospeak French or don't mind if they
don't understand everything, you know?
It's still worth looking at the displayseven if you don't read every word.
I mean, most museums we go to,we don't read everything, do we?
Right.
Right.
Right.
I did include in that list one thatis definitely in English as well
and has a, I think an audio guideeven, and it's not a small museum.
(26:15):
That's the Vézuna Museum.
I mentioned it because not manypeople go to Périgueux, including not
many French people go to Périgueux.
Yep.
It's a little bit of the sort ofstep-sister of the better-known
towns in the Périgord.
That museum, I thank youso much for that episode.
It was absolutely remarkable.
And again, it's so well done.
(26:36):
It's such a beautiful space.
This is a space, as a reminder,where you can walk over the
remains of a Roman villa.
But the architect has basically builtan umbrella over this Roman villa and
it's really exhibited beautifully.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a beautiful place.
And this one is modern and it hastranslations everywhere and audio guides
(26:58):
and everything else that you might want.
Let's see.
What else?
What else?
So this one I don't know anything about.
You visited the furnished homeof La Maison Forte de Reignac.
It's embedded in the rock?
Yes.
I don't know anything about this.
This is a place that isan absolute must-see.
If you do nothing else around Sarlat, youhave to see the Maison Forte de Reignac.
(27:20):
And in fact, I have to give credit tomy husband after I complained bitterly
that I was doing all the planning.
He said, "How about thisplace?" It was such a win.
An absolutely extraordinary place.
There's also very easy parking.
It's just a few minutes, a few kilometersfrom Sarlat, and it's a place that has
been used for...... I forget how manyyears, 20,000 years, has been occupied for
(27:44):
20,000 years, initially as a prehistoric,you know, a prehistoric lodging, you
know, the troglodyte, I guess, lodging.
And over the centuries, acastle was built into it.
It was only destroyed, I believe,during the Wars of Religion, in
the 16th century and it was usedcontinuously during that time.
(28:07):
It's furnished, so depending on what,there are different levels in the rock.
So underground, you have an exhibit ofprehistoric art with the most exquisite
carvings, almost like scrimshaw, you know.
Again, so moving to me.
I can't... I mean, I can barelydoodle a shape of a house.
I'm terrible at art, but I can definitelyappreciate how exquisite everything was.
(28:30):
And then you go up and everylevel it goes up in sort of style.
It's furnished.
Furnished, I guess, I mean,the furnishings differ a little
bit from one room to another.
But there are a lot of fireplaces.
They have fires burningin the fireplaces...
Oh.
... which just gives it this wonderfulsmell, and there's some music or
(28:51):
some sounds that are being piped in.
It feels like it's a lived-in space.
You walk into this gorgeous living room,or I don't know what they would call
it, but the main room, during the 15ths,
14th centuries, furnished, beautifulfireplace and the ceiling is the rock.
(29:12):
Huh.
The ceiling and one of the walls isthe rock, so it's built into the rock.
It's absolutely extraordinary.
And it's a Maison forte, so theymust have used it as some sort of...
Fortress.
Yeah, it's a fortress, yeah.
Yes.
It was lived in, but it was also... ithad different purposes over the centuries.
Yeah.
But that's also where, I forgetwhich side took refuge, but it was
(29:34):
destroyed during the Wars of Religion.
And no one lives in there now.
Of course.
But it's really beautifully done.
Oh, very nice.
Very nice.
You loved the Pays Basque.
Do tell.
I did.
I did.
When you're in the US, I onlyever hear about the Basque Country
as being, you know, from Spain.
But of course, being French, Iknew that those three provinces
(29:57):
in France, quite very differentreally from the Spanish side.
We did go a little bit in Spain as well.
we were based in Bayonne.
We absolutely adored Bayonne.
Bayonne has, of course,incredible history.
The cathedral is anotherspace I will never forget.
It's absolutely glorious.
It's very tall.
(30:18):
The ceilings, there are individualsections of ceiling that are
painted red and green, so thecolors of the Basque flag.
The paintings are extraordinary.
There was also a mass that was beingsaid and by, I think there were nuns
on a side chapel, so they were singing.
It was another magical experience.
(30:38):
We actually went back several times,because the experience was so powerful.
It's a beautiful place.
Another incredible thing aboutBayonne was the Les Halles.
So for those, or for your listenerswho don't know, Les Halles are sort
of typically a covered market whereyou can buy fruit and vegetables.
But in many places, they also have sortof deli stands or, people who prepare
(31:00):
food and you can... sometimes, inNarbonne, we had, you know, a full meal.
But a lot of times, you can have, youknow, what would be equivalent of pintxos
or tapas and stand around a tall littletable, with a glass of wine and your
little snacks and you just chat with allthe people around you and it's so fun.
We went there a number of times.
(31:21):
It was just absolutely so fun.
If there's a Halle where you arestaying, and by the way, somebody ... I
was, doing an itinerary with somebodywho asked me, because I kept saying
Les Halles and she says, "Isn't it LesHalles?" I'm like, no, sweetheart." "No."
Yes, yes, yes.
That one, no.
Anyway, if there's a Hallein the area, you must go.
(31:44):
It's... they are fantastic.
In Toulouse, it's stillvery much selling food.
But in many places, they haveintegrated small restaurants and
small places where you can eat.
It's very fun.
And in Béziers, it's mostlyplaces where you can eat.
You can buy a few charcuterie,charcutier, boucher thing, but one
(32:04):
or two, you know, not a ton of them.
It doesn't matter where youare, if there is one, go.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Definitely second that opinion.
And of course, using Bayonne...so Bayonne itself is fantastic.
It has a beautiful Basque museum.
But it's also a great base toexplore the coast and to explore
the villages in the mountain.
So including where they make a lotof the Basque, you know, fabrics,
(32:25):
but also the Piment d'Espelette,this sort of red powder, which
originally I found out that originallythis red pepper came from Mexico.
The roads are absolutely beautiful,very well maintained, as they are
at, we found, in virtually all ofFrance, extremely well maintained.
So it's easy.
They may be narrow, but it's very easyto get around these small villages.
(32:48):
The tourist offices are sometimes,and in particular, in Espelette,
housed in the most incrediblespaces, in this case an old castle.
So you walk in, and on this flooryou have the tourist office, on
this other floor you have thatcity hall and the council chambers.
You open the doors and it's justsuch a wonderful experience.
(33:09):
We love the Basque Country.
We were in one particular village,we had lunch in a particular place.
The owner, eventually became quite chatty.
And I noticed that they hada court of jeu de paume-
Oh.
... indoor court.
I believe it may be theonly one that's left.
I forget what he told us exactly.
(33:29):
I asked if I could peek and whetherI was going to be hit because I
had seen the size of those balls.
And he... of course, he went and showedme around and explained the rules.
Told me that all these... you know, it'ssort of a version of pelote basque, and
that it was still very, very active.
He also explained that they werethe real Basques and the Basques
(33:52):
from the coast were not real Basquesbut they were their nice cousins.
Of course, they are.
Of course, they are.
I love that.
Yeah.
Yeah, Okay.
I have this question, I don'twant to forget this question
because this is important.
If you were to move back to France,would you move to the Basque Country?
(34:13):
Probably not, for one thing,I don't have any family there.
And I was told by someone whose wife isfrom that part of the Basque Country,
that people love you when you're atourist, and not necessarily for the
money, just because they know that you'releaving, and that they might not, might
not be as open if you were to move in.
Okay.
(34:33):
Because I think... I think there'sa feeling that all the people who
come from the outside, includingFrench people, dilute you know, a
little bit of the Basque culture.
The identity, yeah.
Interesting.
Well, that's how they kept theirlanguage separate, was by just not
mixing with the rest of the peoplearound them, so maybe... probably
(34:53):
there's a bit of that going on.
Huh.
You enjoyed the Aveyron area as well.
I did, and... but I don'twant to talk about it anymore.
You had a fabulous guest last,I think the most recent episode.
And he was incredible.
It made me want to go back, but also,it's like, "Shh, don't tell. It's so
beautiful. I kind of want to keep it."
(35:15):
Yeah, the Aveyron is amazing.
Except for Rodez, there's...and maybe, was it Castres?
Which we did not visit, but there'snot an amazing tourist infrastructure.
So I think it's far from becominglike a major tourist Mecca.
But if you stay in Rodez, which hadbeen your recommendation, that's
a really incredible, incredibleplace that you can visit all those
(35:36):
wonderful villages from, yes.
Did you mostly stay in Airbnbsor, hotels or how did you...?
We found our... we were lookingfor apartments, because we were
typically staying for more than...anywhere between 4 and 10 nights.
So hotels would be out of our price range.
So we booked through booking.com forthe most part, unless we had cause
(35:59):
to be somewhere for one night totwo nights because we had to catch
a plane or a train the next day.
Otherwise, we were staying for the mostpart in the center as much as possible.
So we had some criteria,which were important to us.
You know, there neededto be a washing machine.
Dryers would have been great, but that'ssomething that is still pretty rare.
(36:20):
Yeah.
And it was a rainy fall, soit would have been good, yeah.
It would have been good.
And we wanted to havesome cooking facilities.
Those were not even either.
Sometimes there was just a hot plate.
But as long as we could makecoffee, at least you're never
going to go hungry in France.
And that was about it.
And we needed to have, youknow, parking available.
(36:40):
We could walk, you know, withour luggage but not too far.
Overall, was that a good experiencedoing everything through Booking?
Yes, everything was great.
Everything came through, I would say wemade a mistake in Perigueux in particular.
I didn't ask... I hadn't askedabout parking, where the parking
was, and they didn't volunteerthat information, which I think was
(37:01):
probably a bit of a miss on both sides.
I did not realize and I was doingthe direction, my husband was
driving, and we found ourselvesdriving through a pedestrian area.
The shopkeepers were not enthralledwhen we were driving through
and snagging the clothes on theclothes racks outside the store.
It was just terrible.
You know, we were sort of hiding,I was calling the landlord and...
(37:25):
anyway, they had a hard time directingus to an actual parking garage.
So that's one thing I would recommendis definitely find out where you
can park before you get there.
Exactly.
When... if you'redriving...... due diligence.
Always decide I'm going to be parking,you know, instead of doing city center
of this town, just say "take me to thisparking lot," or underground parking,
(37:47):
if you're going to a small village,most of the time it's self-explanatory.
They will have a sign that says, "Parkover here." A tiny village, there's
no need to do research unless you'rein the Provence area, and then maybe.
But even there, they will direct you.
But if you're going to a city likePerigueux, Toulouse, Rodez, places
like that, you really need toknow where you're going to park.
(38:08):
So I would definitely... Or, andyou can ask your host as well.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah, they can tell you,you just need to ask.
Okay, we need to hurry it up becausewe've been talking a long time.
But I want to hear about yourhiking in the Hautes-Pyrénées.
You went to the Cirque deGavarnie, which I've been to as
well, and the Lac de Payolle.
I don't know that one.
Cirque de Gavarnie, well, you've beenthere, so it's absolutely beautiful.
(38:29):
It's this amphitheater of sheer rockface with waterfalls falling down.
There have been a ton of rain a few weeksbefore we arrived, therefore there were
places that were closed, hikes that wewanted to do that we couldn't do because
bridges had fallen through and, you know.
And you could see, in fact, even onthe walk to the Cirque de Gavarnie,
(38:50):
that the path was quite damaged fromthe floods that they had just had.
But it's a spectacular experience.
And you walked through the cows withcowbells, and it's just really fun.
And it's a fairly easy hike.
I mean, it's not very steep.
It's gentle, like, hill, quite easy to do.
(39:10):
This is a place where the people inToulouse take their young kids even.
You know, if you want to do ahike with young kids, it's fine.
They can handle it.
Yeah, so that's very easy.
If you're going to go beyond thehotel, you might want to have
better shoes with thicker soles.
It gets more rocky.
And maybe even hiking poles.
I mean, kids don't need thembut adults sometimes need them.
(39:31):
Other than that, yes, it'svery easy, it's pretty flat.
And then the Lac de Payolle?
Lac de Payolle Yes, it's an artificiallake, which is fed by three mountain
streams, so its people use it forfishing, but it's also known as
Little Canada because you have thebeautiful blue waters of the lake and
(39:52):
it's surrounded by these evergreens.
It's absolutely beautiful.
Beautiful spots.
Again, it's completely flatbecause you walk around the lake.
So it wasn't really hiking, but there'sa lot, I think, more hiking and uh, VTT
and, and, you know, other activities.
I'll remind everybody that to findgreat hikings, biking, all sorts of
(40:13):
physical activities, go to Komoot,K-O-M-O-O-T, and just enter the name
of the village and it will show you allsorts of things you can do in the area.
All right, you went to Notre-Dame,and that's the last thing
we're going to talk about.
Yeah.
Tell me about it.
So Notre-Dame, we had downloaded the app.
(40:34):
We knew that we were... We didn't planit but we found out that we were going
to be there when it reopened, and wewere unable to get tickets because we
were there the day after or we werethere in, at the time that it reopened.
But we just decided to line up andeven on sort of day two or three of
its reopening, we were able to getin after 35 minutes, spent mostly
chatting with everybody around us.
(40:55):
And it was again, a transformativeexperience because they had... And
we were raised Catholic but we're,you know, no longer practice.
But you find yourself in thisabsolutely stunning space.
By then, everybody had read about, youknow, the renovations and so forth.
They also had... They had just broughtback The Crown of Thorns, which
is rumored to be the true Crown ofThorns that King... I think it was
(41:19):
King Henry II, now I forget, who hadbought it from the Byzantine emperor.
And it had been the first thingthat they saved when the fire broke
out, that was the main concern.
So it had been housed at the Louvre.
So they had just brought it backand it was open for everyone to see.
And it was guarded by people inlong white robes and red stripes,
(41:40):
and it was very formal and very,extremely moving, I would say.
Yeah, it's a great experience.
And by now... I was just there lastweek, so we're recording this in January.
It won't come out for several months,the security at Notre-Dame has improved
greatly because they have bought newkind of security portals, whatever
you call these things, and you canpretty much walk straight through.
(42:03):
There's no more stop, open yourbag, or anything like that.
If you have any sort of metal with you,you'll ding and then they will search you.
But most people walkthrough without any trouble.
So it's pretty fast, really.
It's worth going, I think.
All right, I ask these questions to allthe Americans so we'll ask you as well.
(42:24):
Did you learn anythingabout France on this trip?
And did you make any mistakes?
I learned everything about France.
I learned everythingbecause everything was new.
I hadn't been to any otherplaces except Bordeaux.
I hadn't been to any of those places.
The main lesson to me was that even thoughwe spent 15 or 16 weeks essentially in
(42:44):
one region, we never ran out of thingsto do, never ran out of things to see.
Where every day was different and tothink of, you know, just to remind
ourselves to be open to everything.
When you talk to people, it opensup so many new opportunities.
So that was really a good reminder.
It's easy for me to chat with people, butthen I, you really have to be deliberate
(43:08):
about it because it just opens up a wholeworld that is, you know, not necessarily
hidden, but not maybe as obviousas what you might see in the books.
And, you know, there are lotsof French people who welcome the
opportunity to practice their English.
And so if you are a chatty person, youalways start with Bonjour of course.
(43:29):
But besides that, you don'tneed to know that much French.
Most people will, they might suffer,you might have to suffer through
their English, but that's fine.
If you're the sort of person who isgood at engaging others in conversation,
which clearly you are, then itreally makes your trip much better.
And I'm also a chatty person.
(43:50):
I go somewhere and I'lltalk to whoever's there.
Like, it's not difficult.
You just...
No, no, because people want to talk.
They want to tell you.
Sure.
Yeah.
They want to talk.
So, did you make anymistakes on this trip?
Is there something that you didn't thinkwas any good that you are like, ah,
should, we shouldn't have done that?
Well, definitely the parking, notbeing as diligent as I should have
(44:12):
been in terms of asking about theparking was a bit of an issue.
And for us, three months endedup being a little bit long.
Not because we ever ran out of thingsto do, but because you start, you
know, missing your home or, it getsa bit much to, ugh, you know, I had
to plan on what day I was going todo the laundry because there was
no dryer, and the weather was cool.
(44:33):
It's all little practical things.
Having to relearn a space, having tofind out where the, you know, where
all the outlets are for all yourelectronic gear, and change that every
four days or however often you move.
That got a little bit...
Yeah, it's a challenge.
I would do it again in a heartbeat,however, although the next time might
(44:53):
not be three months also because youworry about your house, you know,
back home, your plants and so forth.
I think if you can do two months,that's probably the sweet spot
to visit a place if you...
I agree.
That's what we decided at the end.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Oh, phone access.
Well, we struggled and I wish, yeah,I wish that we had had your previous
guest on because we, we sort of muddledthrough and it didn't work great for us.
(45:18):
We ended up buying a monthlyplan from our American carrier.
It wasn't too bad.
I really wanted to have access.
I didn't want to be limitedto, yeah, we needed the GPS,
we needed, we just needed it.
So, we bit the bullet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you tried both Bouygues and Orange,but it wasn't, you didn't like it.
I don't know if we got the rightinformation, but they told me that,
(45:40):
you know, one was convinced that myphone, which is an iPhone, I don't
know, 14 I think, was convincedthat I could buy a physical card.
And I told him, no there's no physicalcard in this... And he sort of grabbed
the phone out of my hand and then sawthat there's no space for a physical card.
And they couldn't sell you amonthly or electronic, an e-card.
(46:02):
So, I don't know, it just became, Iwasn't sure even though we spoke the
same language, but I wasn't sure thatI was communicating properly and...
Yeah.
And sometimes the fact that youspeak the same language is a problem
because they assume that you are localwhen you're not, you're a visitor.
Like, you know?
There were times when we first movedback to France where I would ask
my husband to talk because he stillhad a bit of an accent in French.
(46:26):
And so people immediately recognizedhim as a visitor and that was fine.
Whereas if I spoke, they were like,"Well, why are you asking stupid questions
like that? You live here, don't you?"
That's right.
Yeah.
They make more of an effortfor, to explain to... Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
You talk about assuming that the trainsran the way I did when I lived there.
Uh-oh, you had a problem with the trains?
(46:48):
It wasn't a problem per se.
Operationally, they were very good.
And I didn't find themextremely expensive.
They were more expensive than theyhad been over time, but that was fine.
The issue that we had is thatthey're not on time anymore.
It used to be that the TGV was like, youknow, it left at the minute it said it was
going to leave, it arrived at the minute... and it's wasn't the case, you know?
(47:09):
In one case, of course, when our sonarrived, there was, you know, a lot of
snow in Paris, so he was delayed, butit was complicated for him to re-route.
He did re-route, but youknow, couldn't get reimbursed.
And then same with us when weleft, perfect weather, but they
had trouble connecting the trains,they had to find another driver.
So we were 35 minutes late, which,you know, those things did not
(47:31):
happen, but... Not terrible.
Not terrible.
We had the time, so...
All right.
Oh, so you didn't love Lourdes.
Yeah, most people don't actually.
Did not love Lourdes.
I had been there as a child sothat goes back quite a while.
And it was raining too so that didn'thelp but the sort of the religious part
is very crowded and, you know, movingif you're into that sort of thing.
(47:52):
The town itself is socommercialized, it's just horrible.
So did not, yeah, was not a fan.
Yeah.
No, no charm.
Lourdes is not a charmingtown, it just isn't.
It's a town where you go if youwant to participate in the religious
stuff, but that's about it.
The other thing you say is you wouldnot go back to the Champollion Museum in
Figeac because it was too kind of narrow.
(48:14):
It was very arcane.
And I do like sort ofout-of-the-way museum.
And we had a little back andforth with somebody on the
Facebook group who loved it.
And I thought she must be reallysmart because it was really hard
for me to understand most of that.
I learned more about Champollion himselfand less about the language because I
thought this is why I need a guided tour.
(48:35):
The knowledge was quite arcane.
There was a school group and Ithought I should tag along so that
teacher could teach me a few things.
So people told you not to go toVilleneuve-sur-Lot, but you went on two
different occasions and you liked it.
Oh, no, you were notcompletely comfortable.
No, we were not completely comfortable.
And I don't know what the, sort ofthe geography of Villeneuve-sur-Lot
(48:56):
but we had to find a big supermarketto try and find a printing shop.
We were definitely the outsidersand were looked at as outsiders.
It felt a little bit... I was, we werein no danger, I was not afraid but it
definitely felt like we didn't belong.
Haven't been to Villeneuve-sur-Lot.
I can't say much about it.
We heard from someone else who saidthat they were actually turned away
(49:20):
from a place by people there, so...
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Not okay.
You didn't like brasserie in largecities because they're all the same.
That's very true though.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That was quite disappointing.
I mean, you expect a brasserie tohave about the same menu, but now it
was menu that was expanded in a waybut was the same in every city and
it didn't feel like it had been madewith love just fresh and so forth.
(49:44):
And so, I felt generally, I liked to havethe, you know, certain dishes in that
region and sort of the French way andit, I don't want to have magret canard
in Brittany and crêpes in Provence or
those things.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
Oh, and the last thing is getused to single-gender toilets.
Yes.
We have them a lot now.
(50:05):
So there's one bathroom andit's whoever needs the bathroom.
Yes.
And I have to say, I was quite, youknow, a little bit nervous because
when I was growing up, toilets incafes were, you know, sometimes what
they used to call the Turkish toilets,and generally not the most hygienic.
Well, they might have beenhygenic but very dirty.
I was pleasantly surprisedfor the most part that in
(50:28):
establishments they were clean.
Sometimes the public toiletsin small villages and whatever,
clearly were not attended to in,you know, especially off season.
Yeah.
... you win some, you lose some.
Wonderful.
Okay.
You wrote some very nice notes, so Iwill put them out as guest notes so
people can look at many details thatyou share that are really interesting.
(50:51):
You recommend restaurants and things likethat that we didn't get to because we only
have, you know, a certain amount of time.
But thank you so much forsharing all of that, Catherine.
I love talking to you.
I'm sure people willlove listening to you.
And thank you so much forcoming on the podcast.
Thank you, Annie.
It was an absolute pleasure andI'm very happy to share my limited
(51:12):
knowledge of the Southwest.
Come back to France anytime.
I will do.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Merci beaucoup.
Au revoir.
Au revoir, Annie.
Au revoir.
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting this show.
(51:34):
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing so.
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
A special shout-out this week to mynew JOIN US in France champions, Larry
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(51:54):
And thank you, Kitty Long, Rowena, andMike August for upgrading your pledges.
Would you join them, too?
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And to support Elyse, goto patreon.com/elysart.
(52:17):
This week, Elyse and I both publishedour casual convo for the month of July.
This is a chat we have.
It's usually half an hour to 45 minutesor something, where we just chitchat.
There's just no agenda.
We talk, chat about whatever comes intoour mind and we always get great feedback
about that from patrons, which is lovely.
Here's some VoiceMap reviewsof my Paris VoiceMap tours.
(52:40):
Somebody says, "I love all of Annie'stours in France, but this one is
the best." "I had to split it over afew days because of the length," Oh,
that's probably Latin Quarter then.
"And candidly, how distracted we gotwith all the great neighborhoods. Even
though I've been in the neighborhoodmany times and lived here for a bit,
I still learned so much. Thank you,Annie." Wow, that's wonderful to know.
(53:03):
Thank you.
VoiceMap is like taking a privatetour with a human guide who lets
you stop whenever you want, picksup again at your leisure, you start
at whatever time on whatever day.
It is very, very nice, and you cannotdo that with any live tour guides.
And podcast listeners get a big discountfor buying these tours from my website.
Now, it's best for me as well, I'mgoing to tell you, because I get to
(53:26):
keep more of the money you pay insteadof giving it to Apple or Google.
To use your tour code once you'vepurchased them on my website on
joinusinfrance.com/ boutique, taptour codes at the bottom right,
enter the code and download the tour.
You don't have to use your creditimmediately, it just sits in
your account until you're ready.
(53:46):
If you want to use it on adifferent device, you can log in
to your accounts from anywhere.
You can also listen in virtualplayback from anywhere you are.
It's perfect if Paris isnot in your immediate plans.
You can take me in yourpocket with VoiceMap.
If you're planning a trip to Franceand you want expert help, you can
hire me as your itinerary consultant.
It's kind of busy this season, but you canstill find a slot unless you're leaving
(54:11):
tomorrow and then I can't help you.
I usually have openingswithin a month or so.
But don't wait too much, and again,that's at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
And now let's talk aboutthe fireworks in Paris.
They're going to take place around theEiffel Tower starting at 11:00 PM on July
14th, which is tomorrow if you listen tothis episode as soon as it gets released.
(54:35):
Different cities hold fireworksand celebrations either
on July 13th or July 14th.
Wherever you are in France, ask whatis planned, as these events are always
wonderful, and it's warm in France thisweek, but it's not like canicule warm.
It's not like 35.
It's not 100 degrees.
(54:55):
It's 90s, but not 100, whichmakes a big difference.
The Bayeux Tapestry is going on loanto England in September while they
renovate the Bayeux Museum that has beenhousing this masterpiece for many years.
Emmanuel Macron announced it in a speechhe gave to Parliament in London this week.
You know, it's a big deal giving aspeech to Parliament, and so he wanted
(55:18):
to thank them with something thatthey have been asking for a long time,
which is loan us the Bayeux Tapestry.
I think we were worried thatthey were never going to return
it, but now they will return it.
He must have assurances or he wouldn'thave done anything that stupid.
Oh wait, Macron doesstupid things at times.
Oh, well, we'll see.
So if you're going to Bayeux laterthis year, keep that in mind,
(55:39):
or perhaps go see it in London.
Since reopening in December,more than six million people
have visited Notre-Dame de Paris.
If this trend continues, thecathedral could become the most
visited monument in France.
"The emotion people felt during thefire is matched by the emotion they
feel now that Notre-Dame has reopened,"says Monseigneur Olivier Ribadeau
(56:04):
Dumas, director of the cathedral.
Between December 16th and June 30th,Notre-Dame welcomed over six million
visitors, averaging 35,000 per day.
If this pace holds, the cathedral couldsee around 12 million visitors in 2025.
This would place it ahead of theSacré-Cœur in Montmartre, ahead of the
(56:26):
Louvre, again, ahead of Versailles,and even ahead of the Eiffel
Tower in the numbers of visitors.
Before the fire of April 2019, Notre Damegot around 11 million visitors each year.
Although counting methodswere less precise back then.
But today, they kind of click every timesomebody walks through, so they do know.
(56:49):
And their director pointed out thatthis surge is probably not just a
temporary trend, visitor numbersare increasing by about 1,000
people per day each month so far.
So, if it's an extra 1,000 peopleper day since the reopening, then
probably it's going to peak in August.
(57:11):
You know, some of the people who'vebeen there recently said it was like
Sistine Chapel kind of level of busy.
It's going to get to the pointwhere it's too many, I think.
Anyway, in June, the cathedralspire regained one of its, of the
16 statues that once adorned itsbase, the base of the spire, that is.
(57:32):
And the tower visits willresume on September 20th.
So, you'll be able to go up to the roof.
And there's going to be a feefor that, and while there isn't
a fee to go into the cathedral.
Notre Dame reopened, of course, afterfive years of massive restoration
funded by the $846 million indonations from around the world.
(57:52):
They still have about $140 millionleft, but they say they need
another $140 million to completeeverything that they want to do.
And you don't have to pay thatkind of money to get my tour of the
Notre Dame Sainte-Chapelle, and theConciergerie, which will take you
around that monument, and explains manyof the things that you're looking at.
(58:16):
My thanks to Anne and ChristianCotovan, who edit the podcast
and produce the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast, anepisode with my friends Patricia
and Jennifer, about Chartres, thebeautiful, beautiful city of Chartres.
Thank you so much for listening andI hope you join me next time so we
(58:37):
can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
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