July 6, 2025 • 58 mins
Have you ever dreamed of boating through the French countryside?
In “Exploring the Canal du Midi on a Rental Boat,” host Annie Sargent talks with John and Sally Capets about their week-long adventure on this historic waterway. They rented a boat with friends and spent their days slowly drifting past vineyards, plane trees, and medieval villages in southern France.
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They share what it’s really like to rent a boat on the Canal du Midi, navigate the many locks, and live in close quarters while exploring the beauty of Occitanie. John and Sally talk about practical details like packing light, using bikes along the towpath, and finding places to eat along the canal. They also explain why traveling slowly by boat gives you a deeper connection to France and its people.
They share highlights like seeing La Cité de Carcassonne from the water, visiting the Malpas Tunnel, and dining canal-side in Colombiers. They offer helpful advice for those curious about a Canal du Midi boat rental, what it costs, and what to expect during a week on the water.
If you love slow travel, French culture, and practical travel tips, you will enjoy this episode. Subscribe to the Join Us in France Travel Podcast for weekly episodes that bring you closer to France, whether you are planning your next trip or just dreaming about it. Listen now to discover how exploring the Canal du Midi by boat could be the relaxing adventure you didn’t know you needed.
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(00:16):
This is Join Us in France, episode553, cinq cent cinquante-trois.
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 withJohn and Sally Capets about their journey
(00:37):
renting a boat on the Canal du Midi.
We explore their unique experiences fromnavigating locks to dining canal side, and
discover why a slow-paced boat trip can bean incredible, enriching travel adventure.
I know many of you are thinking ofdoing a vacation like this one, because
there is something about being onthe water that is good for the soul.
(01:01):
So let's talk about it.
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(01:23):
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(01:46):
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For the magazine part of the podcasttoday, let's talk about the Tour
de France, always a wonderfulevent, and it's on right now.
(02:10):
Bonjour, John and Sally Capets,and welcome to Join Us in France.
Bonjour, Annie.
Wonderful to have you.
So, you had a great trip to France,perhaps not the only one, maybe
it's the last one of several?
We had been to France, we went on atrip with our family to Sardinia and
Corsica a couple years ago and finishedthat portion of the trip with our family
(02:35):
and then went off on our own, justthe two of us, and traveled, rented
a car and traveled in the south partof France, and ended in Barcelona.
And so that's pretty much what spurredus on to want to take this trip,
this past fall, to back to France,because we realized that, number
one, we'd probably try to fit toomuch into a short period of time.
(02:57):
We really wanted to spendmore time in France.
Another part of that was that we realizedwe made a mistake in ending in Barcelona,
because it just cost us a lot of money todo that, dropping the car, getting the car
in France and dropping it in Barcelona.
Okay, so it's not that they weredifficult to deal with, it's
just that it was the extra cost.
(03:17):
Yes.
Yeah, very easy to deal with on bothends, on the front end and the back end.
But yeah, we spent a few, really,literally a few days in the South
of France, and we knew immediatelythat we needed to come back.
You know it's a good trip whenyou're already saying, "Hey, let's
plan a trip back," before you'reeven done with this last trip.
(03:38):
So, we knew right away, but because wehad, as Sally said, we tried to jam a
lot into a few days, we knew that wewanted to come back and spend more time.
And so, today we'll focus on thecanal segment of the trip, but that
was the third leg of a three week.
Three week trip that we started inthe Alps, and then spent a week there,
(03:58):
spent a week in Roussillon, to explorethe Luberon, and Provence region.
And then this last weekwas on the canal boat.
Right.
Right.
So this was the Canal du Midi?
Correct.
Correct.
So are you boat people?
I mean, yes and no.
We owned our own boat here inNorth Carolina for, I guess about
(04:21):
25 years and then decided, okay,we can put that, you know, we're
ready to get rid of the boat now.
So we sold it.
So we haven't had a boat in quite sometime, but we have always enjoyed boating.
Yeah.
We have, and we have a group of friendswho we traveled with, we'll talk about
that more perhaps, but we had begun bareboating in the Caribbean on sailboats.
(04:43):
So, all of us who were on this trip hadbeen on, you know, multiple bare boat
trips, either together or separately.
And so we had some familiarity withboating lifestyle, if you will, or boating
travel, you know, being in close quartersand, you know, being self-sufficient,
so to speak, for extended periods.
That was kind of the genesis ofthe idea for a canal boat trip.
(05:06):
And, you know, in, in France, I think theCanal du Midi is probably the most famous
canal, at least for this type of trip.
And so that's where we started.
Right.
So The Seine River also has quitea bit and the Rhone also has some.
There's plenty, but the Canal duMidi is one I'm more familiar with
because I've seen boats on the canal.
(05:27):
Right.
So where did you start your trip?
And how many people was it in thisboat, and how did you select the boat?
Well, you probably need to answerthe question on how you selected it.
Yeah.
So, in our bare boat experiences in thepast, we had become familiar with Le Boat,
which is a, you know, boat hire service.
(05:47):
They have an excellent website.
They have really good customerservice, I would say, and so we just
began, I began exploring the trip.
I am kind of an amateur travel geek,and so I had planned a three-week trip
for our group and then just put itout there for anyone who might have an
interest in joining us along the way.
So we had a differing number ofpeople along, you know, for each trip.
(06:12):
On the canal boat, we had nine people.
Ooh, that's a lot.
It's a lot.
That's a lot.
It's a lot.
And the boat, so just exploringthe Le Boat website, we came
across this particular boatthat had five en suite cabins.
And so, we put it out there, andnaturally we had people to come
back and to fill each cabin.
(06:34):
And this particular boat is about 15meters long and about four meters wide.
So it's a fairly large boat.
For the Canal du Midi, but...
For the Canal du Midi, right.
So, it's a large boat for that.
And it's the largest boat that they offer.
We were pretty happy with that decision.
(06:56):
You know, Le Boat, I think for any ofyour listeners, Le Boat offers a, they
actually have a sticker on the sideof the boats that says, "No experience
needed and no license required."
Hmm.
So what they should just say in the middleis... only credit cards are required.
So...
And the boats are all pretty, atleast the ones that we saw on the
(07:18):
portion of the canal that we did,were all pretty, like, beat-up.
They weren't, like, brandnew shiny-looking boats.
I don't know.
They've all been in manyaccidents, let's say.
Well, let's say well-worn.
Yeah.
Clearly, there were people withouta lot of experience on those boats.
Correct.
Yeah.
You know, as you're traveling alongthis canal and you're going under the
(07:40):
little, you know, the bridges, andmost of them are arched bridges so
they're not... And they're not verybig so there's not a lot of wiggle room
on either side of the boat as you gothrough, and so I think there's a lot of
bumping that goes on as you pass under.
Did you bump anything?
Oh, yes.
I mean, yeah, it's... Yeah.
(08:01):
You have... If you're going to do thistrip, you're going to bump, you know,
most of the boats have fenders down theentire width you know, sides of the boat.
And when you're going through thesestructures, there's like 328 structures
of some kind, either aqueducts orbridges or canal locks rather, tunnels.
There's a lot of obstacles along the way.
(08:23):
Yeah.
So there, the boats are wellprotected from that but they do...
You know, they get pretty wornfrom the inexperienced travelers.
Well, and you're also going at sucha slow speed that it's not like, you
know, anyone ramming into you, likeat, you know, full speed ahead, because
I think they only go, what, like...
(08:44):
Seven or eight knots.
Yeah.
it's slow.
You can ride your bike fasterthan those canal boats go.
Yeah.
Before we move on from the boat,you also have a kitchen on board?
Full kitchen.
There was a nice, I would call ita full-sized refrigerator-freezer.
Yeah, it was very nice.
So there's plenty of room for storing,you know, refrigerated things,
(09:05):
and then we had storage underneaththe seats for dry goods and...
So we did eat mostly, I would say themajority of our meal, breakfast and
lunch was primarily on the boat, andthen... And even some of our dinners.
Because that was a whole other thing.
Breakfast, that was justeasier to do on boat.
We would usually ride and get some, youknow, croissants or something like that.
(09:30):
If there was a town nearby, wewould get that sort of thing to
have along with our breakfast.
And then lunches, we ended up eating alot of those on the boat because a lot
of times, with trying to get throughthe locks, we had a certain distance
we kind of needed to cover every dayand a lot of times, we were getting
to a lock and you'd get there and thelock keepers all take a lunchtime.
(09:52):
So they're not there from, Ithink it was, 12:00 to 1:00.
So, you know, we would just try to getto the lock, pull up, stop, we would
like have our lunch while the lockkeeper was having his lunch and then
we would move on when lunch was over.
Right.
And there's sometimes aline, right, for the lock?
Correct.
And then dinners, you know, therewere a couple of dinners that we had,
(10:13):
probably about half and half maybe.
We had half the dinners off the boat.
We probably would've had more dinnersoff the boat, and more lunches, but
there just weren't a lot of places thatwere open for us to do that or there
weren't... Like, some of the places weended up stopping, there weren't... There
just weren't any restaurants right there.
Right.
And for nine people, that's a biggroup for most small restaurants.
(10:37):
So you didn't dock along a city every timenecessarily, or a town, or village even?
Correct.
Mm-hmm.
That is correct, yeah.
We didn't.
There were in fact, the veryfirst night we were at the marina
so there was a restaurant there.
The next night, I think we wereat a small, near a small village.
Yeah.
I think we did eat out off the boatthat night, but there was the... Yeah,
(10:59):
there were a couple of times wherewe just weren't near a village or if
there was one there, there wasn't arestaurant open or we couldn't find
one that could take us, you know.
That was a sizeable group of nine people.
So we were traveling in September,at the end of September, so, you
know, this is a bit of a shoulderseason, right, for restaurant tours
(11:19):
and holidaymakers and so forth.
So I think that was a bitof a challenge for us.
The large group of nine madeit a little more difficult.
And I would say, the only time thatwe had communication issues in France
were when we were on the phone.
So face-to-facecommunications, no problem.
I mean, you can use sign language atthe very least or Google Translate.
(11:41):
But when you're trying to make areservation for the next town ahead
for a group of nine and there's...And sometimes you'll get a voice
message, you know, that we couldn'tunderstand, we couldn't translate.
And so you couldn't get on.
If a person answered you, they mightspeak English or they might not.
And so that was a bit of a challengefor us as Americans, but otherwise
(12:04):
people were friendly and very welcoming,so that wasn't really the issue.
It was just more a matter ofgetting across what our needs were.
Yeah.
It is true that in the Southwestof France, some of these
villages are not super touristy.
Maybe in the middle of the summer, theyhire some students who are younger and
therefore more familiar with English.
(12:24):
But in September, late September, hmm.
Yeah, not so much.
Not so much.
And you know, the Canal du Midiis, right now, is purely tourist,
it's a purely a tourist attraction.
There's no commercial enterprises.
Correct.
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
And so as a rule, we didn't havemuch trouble, but as you mentioned,
(12:44):
we were in small towns and villages.
We knew a little bit of Frenchand we would use that as we could.
And people were still, you know,very friendly, very welcoming.
That was never a problem inthe face-to-face interaction.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But making reservations fornine people, I can tell it...
Yeah, that's going to be a challenge.
That's got to be achallenge anywhere you go.
(13:05):
But we were willing tobreak up into groups too.
But still it was a challenge.
So you mentioned ridinginto the town sometimes.
So you had bicycles on the boat?
Yeah.
So, we didn't have a bike for everyone,what we decided to do was, I think
we had... Was it four or six bikes?
Four.
We got four bikes.
And so we just kind of tookturns, like we'd say, you know.
(13:27):
We had a duty roster, so everyone hadsort of like jobs to do and someone
was going to be driving the boat thatday and someone else was going to cook
breakfast, you know, that sort of thing.
And so if you didn't have anyduties like being on the lines or
something like that, then you know,you might go off and ride your bike
that day with a couple other people.
And so yeah, we did have bikes.
(13:47):
They weren't the best bikes.
I had one, one day that didn't wantto turn right and had a hard time
keeping air in the tire, but theydidn't have gears, but you know,
it was pretty flat along the canal.
There was one place, where youwere, you and I were riding that day
together and we had a couple hills.
In fact, that's when Irealized I had a flat tire.
As we were going up a big hill and itwas like, wow, this is, I know I'm going
(14:09):
up a hill, but this is really difficult.
And then I realized it's because I didn'thave any air in the front tire, so...
But having bikes, I highlyrecommend because most of the
towns are right along the canal.
And for example, the second night wewere out, we stopped in Colombiers.
And the nice thing about the Canaldu Midi, the boats will supply you
(14:30):
with a stake, and dock lines, anda hammer, so a little sledgehammer.
And you literally pull up to thebank, sledgehammer your stake
into the bank and then tie up.
So, Colombiers for example, Ithink they had a marina there.
But we just stopped, you know,found a really pretty place to stop
along the canal, near a bridge.
(14:51):
And walked over the bridge andthe restaurant was right along
the canal, so you could seethe boat from the restaurant.
For the most part, most of the towns andvillages along the way are right there.
But then there are some, wemight've ridden few kilometers,
you know, one day to a patisserie,but you know, nothing too bad.
As long as you had air inyour tires, you were okay.
(15:14):
Yeah.
Well, I mean obviously it's a canalso it's flat, but when you have
to go over the bridges, it kind ofgets a little steep for a minute
and then back down, you know.
Exactly.
Where you encounter the hills isreally at the locks more than anything.
Because the whole point of thelock is to... and we were going
from south to north, like southeastto northwest, so meaning we were
(15:37):
going uphill the whole time.
So if you think about, you know, the wholeidea of the lock system and the whole
point of the Canal du Midi in particularis a section of a longer canal that
connect the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
So you're starting at sea level atthe Atlantic, you're ending at sea
level at the Mediterranean, butyou're going either uphill or downhill
as you navigate across France.
(15:58):
And the locks would, in our case,were lifting us up the entire time.
We were always going uphill, if you will.
So where did you pick up the boat?
We picked it up in a little townor a little, I guess the town's
called Portiragnes, the portwas called Port Cassafières.
Okay.
And it was, yeah, verysouthern area, almost on the
(16:19):
Mediterranean near Cap d'Agde.
Uh-huh.
The beach there, famous beach.
So not far from there.
And we finished our trip in Castelnaudaryand then went on to Toulouse.
Aha.
And that took seven days?
You rented the boat for seven days?
Yes.
And that's a recommendation we had.
We did about 150 milessection... Not 150 miles, was it?
(16:43):
I
Maybe 150 kilometers?
No, 150 kilometers, I think.
Yeah.
I think that's right.
And we did that in a week.
And I think our recommendation to folkswho are thinking about this would be
to maybe cut that down a bit, becausewe found we were pushing, we were
pushing constantly throughout the trip.
There were a couple of times when westopped and said, okay, now we need
(17:05):
to spend a little more time here.
And Béziers was one place we spent alittle extra time and then Carcassonne,
one of our favorite parts along the canal.
That was nice.
Yeah, absolutely amazing stop.
But we did feel a little rushed.
When John was setting us up, he hadtalked to somebody and they said, "Oh,
yeah. That's totally doable trip for thatlength of time." But I really think it
(17:28):
was too much, because we would have likedto have had a little more time to just
sort of enjoy the towns along the way.
So that would be one recommendationis not try to fit so much into it.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, because, I mean,those boats go very, very slowly.
They go slowly.
And really the thing is... Imean, it's that, but it's also
(17:48):
going through the locks, becausehow many locks did we go through?
63 locks.
So 63 locks, and the locks, goingthrough the locks, it's not that
time-consuming, but what's time-consumingis waiting your turn or having to wait
an hour till the lock keeper comesback or, you know, that sort of thing.
So it really does slow you downand there were days where we had,
(18:10):
I think, you know, 15 or so locksthat we went through in one day.
You're not going very far becauseyou're doing a lock and then you're
waiting, and you're going throughanother lock and you're waiting, and
so there's a lot of waiting time.
Right.
So you mentioned, because I askedyou to rank your favorite things
that you did on this trip, sovisiting La Cité de Carcassonne.
So yes, that's very nice.
(18:32):
And how far did you dock from the Cité
?Oh, we were right there, I mean, we were right there.
We were on the canal but, like,to walk up to the... the walled...
Yeah, the citadel.
... the citadel, it was probably,like, what, a mile or...
Yeah, maybe a mile or so.
A 20-minute walk.
Okay.
Okay.
In fact, we ended up walking thatthree times out and back, because
(18:56):
when we arrived, we arrived aboutfour o'clock in the afternoon.
And we saw the city in the distance,and Sally and I immediately jumped
off the boat, you know, got theboat secured, jumped off the
boat and walked into the citadel.
We absolutely fell in love with it andthen came back, had dinner, and then went
back at night because we wanted to see itat night and experience it at nighttime.
(19:18):
With all our friendsbecause they hadn't...
Yeah.
... they hadn't been up there yet.
Yeah, so that was the secondtime, and then the next
morning, we walked back again.
So, we wanted to do one of the toursthrough the ramparts, and the what are
they called, the turrets or whatever.
Château Comtal.
Yeah.
It was...
That was.
I wish we would have had moretime to spend doing that.
Like, I could have spent anextra day in Carcassonne.
(19:41):
Really?
That's interesting because typicallyI tell people, you know, it takes
most of a day but by the timeyou get there and... Perhaps you
need six hours for Carcassonne,but you would have spent longer.
I would have, yeah, we really enjoyed it.
You know, I think we did that tourthe next morning when we woke up.
Was it a person-guided tour orwas it the self-guided tour?
(20:03):
We did the self-guided.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I felt like we were kind of, youknow, rushing through that a little bit.
I could have spent more time doing morereading and listening to, you know,
reading the placards, and going intothe... I forget what the name of the place
was where they had the artifacts then.
Yeah.
But yeah, I just thoughtit was really interesting.
Plus there were so many cute littlecafés and shops and things, and we really
(20:27):
didn't take advantage of any of that, so.
Yeah, yeah.
And Annie, we had not experiencedanything like that before.
For folks in France, it's old hat,but this was the first time we had
really experienced any kind of amedieval city of this magnitude.
Yeah.
We had seen, I'm a bit of a professionalcycling fan, so I had seen, you know,
Carcassonne in the Tour de France and...
(20:48):
Oh, sure.
But that was, that was quite nice.
Yeah.
And then the second thing you mentionedis the Fonseranes, the locks near
Béziers, and those are kind of cool.
It was so cool.
It was... As you're passing throughthe Fonseranes Locks, you're only
going one direction at a time.
What I mean by that is, boats that aretraveling up the canal are traveling
(21:09):
together, and boats that are goingto the south are going together.
So you have a kind of a staggeredtime when you can do that.
So, we went through.
It was probably one o'clock or so in theafternoon as we were going up the locks.
And for people who don't know,these Fonseranes Locks are just a
absolute incredible engineering feat.
They were built back in the1600s, by Pierre-Paul Riquet.
(21:31):
At that time, there were a totalof eight chambers, rising up
about 75 feet and 21 or so meters.
And it's absolutely an amazingthing to see, and somewhat
more amazing to experience asyou're going through the locks.
Sally and I, we mentionedhaving a duty roster.
And on the duty roster, we would assignpeople to be on the boat or on the lock
(21:54):
as you're passing through the lock.
And of course, you had a helmsman,you know, driving the boat.
So a boat this size really took fivepeople to get into and through a lock.
Some of the smaller boats, we sawpeople going through with just two
people on them, and that was finefor two, you know, smaller boats.
Mm-hmm.
It's still tricky.
Yeah.
We would often help, you know,fellow travelers, you know, to grab
(22:14):
the line for them or do whatever wecould to help them.... but as you're
traveling through the lock, at thetop of the lock is a visitor center.
And I think it's one of the mostvisited attractions, outside of
probably Paris and other larger cities,but in the area certainly, there
are hundreds of people just kind ofgathered and kind of chained off of
(22:35):
the lock so they weren't interferingwith people coming up the locks.
You feel kind of a bit of like arock star coming through these locks.
Yeah, everybody's looking at you.
Yeah.
A tourist attraction anyways.
We were part of the tourist attraction.
Yes.
Yeah.
We were the clowns I think.
But anyway, we tried not to mess up.
And the lock keepers are very strict,you know, so they have a chain behind
(22:56):
which people are, you know, touristsand spectators are supposed to watch.
And this little fella, little boy cameinside the chain and he was there with
his mom and couple of siblings and Iasked, I went over to him, I said, "Do
you want to help me with this lock?" Andhe said yeah, so I handed him the line,
and basically just wrapping the linearound a bollard, you know, to kind of
(23:17):
steady the boat as you're going through,and I think he really enjoyed that.
Of course.
He got in a little troubleafterwards, but that's okay.
He had a good experience I think.
Elyse and I went to Béziersand we saw the locks.
We didn't go to the visitors center,but when you do watch the people
going up and they are, "Oh, cool.There's people on the boats. Hello."
(23:37):
Yeah.
Everybody waves, you know?
Yeah.
And it was a beautiful day, it'sa very beautiful, sunny day and I
think that we maybe had, you know,more people out that day as a result.
Yeah, you have a lot of peoplewalking their dogs or...
Yes.
... kids with, you know, families with kidsin strollers and it's a very popular
place to go for a walk for locals.
(23:58):
That was the largest number ofpeople we saw along the canal.
Except for maybe Carcassonne.
There were a lot of people in Carcassonne.
And of course at the bottom of thelocks or near, between the locks
in Béziers you have the AqueductBridge, you know, which is a bit of a
tourist attraction too, so we did seea lot of people just walking along.
It's just a beautifulsection of the canal.
(24:18):
And at the top of the locks, thereat the visitor center, we didn't have
a lot of time and Sally mentionedwe were rushing a little bit through
there, but we caught a little petittrain tour took us into Béziers.
Yes, it takes you all the wayto the locks, that's right.
It does.
Takes you from the locks intotown and we really enjoyed that.
Béziers being a bit of a bigger town itwas, you know, there were some, obviously
some very interesting parts to it, butnot something we probably would have
(24:41):
wanted to walk through too much, you know?
So we enjoyed that petit train,but that made us maybe eight euros
a person, pretty inexpensive.
Yeah.
And Les Halles in Béziers is very fun.
Les Halles, where you eat,it's a very fun experience.
Wonderful.
Number three was diningcanal side in Colombier.
(25:01):
Colombier.
I mentioned that earlier whenwe had just staked up the boat.
It's a gorgeous night and the sun setting.
We had a, just a lovelydinner at Au Lavoir.
Au Lavoir.
Okay.
Au Lavoir.
Beautiful beautiful location there.
Stopped, had some drinks.
They were very accommodativefor our large group and stuff.
(25:22):
Very nice.
Yeah, we had a very, very nice waitress.
She was very friendly andshe was Canadian actually.
I think she'd married a Frenchguy and moved to France.
Yeah, so there was nolanguage barrier there?
No.
No.
That was kind of nice.
Yeah.
Number four you mentioned marveling atthe ingenuity of the canal system with its
many types of locks and the Malpas Tunnel.
(25:45):
Tell me about the tunnelbecause I haven't seen that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of interesting.
Again, it's a verynarrow tunnel, and long.
So that when you go in there, you'renot... I guess you can see the light
at the end of the tunnel but it'skind of long so it's dark in there.
And so it was a little... You know,if I had been driving the boat, it
would be intimidating for me becauseI'd be worried about bumping things
(26:06):
the whole way through but, yeah,that's an engineering feat also.
And that's a day, I think that was theday that you and I were riding our bikes.
We had ridden ahead and gone to,there was a little museum that
talked about the building of that.
And what's interesting is I think,if I remember correctly, there were
like four different levels of tunnels.
(26:26):
All for different purposes.
So we had the tunnel that we weregoing through on the canal but there's
also... What were the other ones, John?
Yeah, so, I mean, across the top ofthis called The Malpas was the Roman
road which was built in the BC times.
And then you have the canal tunnel whichSally mentioned was built in the 1600s.
(26:46):
And then there was a railwaytunnel built in the 1800s.
And then there was a drainage tunnel andthis was kind of an interesting one built
by monks, I think back in the 1200s.
And the drainage tunnel wasdesigned to drain a, they
call it the Etang de Montady?
M-O-N-T-A-D-Y.
Okay.
And very interesting area because thishad been a lake or a pond, very large
(27:11):
pond I guess, but it was maybe a smalllake, that was infested with mosquitoes
and carried disease and so forth.
And the monks who had a churchnearby had petitioned to build this
drainage tunnel back in the 1200s.
So all four of these levelsacross this col, which is, I
guess, is a small mountain.
Yeah, col means the, it's thehighest point of a hill or mountain.
(27:35):
Hill, yeah.
So it was, you know, relativelysmall but as Sally mentioned, the
visitor center was 20 miles away.
So many things packed.
I mean, you have the drainage, you havethe railway tunnel, you have the, you
know, the... I don't remember whichorder they were in, the canal tunnel
and then you have the road above.
So it was like, all these differentpathways through this mountain but not,
(27:55):
you know, all one on top of the other.
It was kind of fascinating.
They had a diorama, I feel that'swhat I would call it, like a
model of it in this little museum.
So we spent some time in there andlearned a little bit about that.
That was cool.
I thought that was fun.
Yeah.
At the top of that, by the visitorcenter, they had a structure, a stone
structure that was very similar to aborie, you know, the bories over by...
(28:19):
In the Luberon?
Yeah, in Luberon.
Yeah.
So there's that bories village.
Yeah.
And we went back after seeing that.
We went back and talked to those twoladies in the visitor center, spoke
very little English, but we conveyedto them that this was like a borie
and they didn't know anything aboutbories so it kind of showed them.
They were delighted to see, you know...
We had some pictures, yeah.
(28:40):
We had pictures of the boriesnear, what's the name of that town?
Gordes, Gordes.
Yeah.
Gordes, yeah.
So, but that was, yeah, just incredibleengineering and we had fun with it.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
And you also saw some folk artat the Ecluse de L'Aiguille?
Oh, oh yeah.
That was a really interesting place.
(29:00):
So I think, the lock keeperwas responsible for all this.
It's basically like metal pieces of art.
He just put together scrapmetal into different, like, into
people or machines or bikes.
And some of them were mechanical.
So I was surprised.
We had come into this place for thenight, and at the top of this lock where
(29:21):
this art is, and we had seen it as we'dcome up to the top of the lock but we
were busy getting the boat situated.
And then, at some point, everyonewent off doing something.
For some reason, I was left there kindof by myself so I walked over to this
artwork and I was by myself, and as Istepped in front of this one piece of
art, it all de sudden started movingand it was like a guy on a bicycle
(29:43):
or something and I was like, "Oh mygosh." It just took me by surprise.
I wasn't expecting anything tomove ... or make noise or anything.
Some of it's a littlegraphic, like you know...
R-rated.
Yeah, maybe R-rated, yeah.
Oh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
R-rated metal art?
Yes!
Yes.
Yes.
You'll have to look it up.
You can probably findsome pictures but yeah.
Yeah.
(30:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll look.
Yeah.
Got your attention now.
Yeah.
They had a motion sensor there, and alot of the art was kind of stationary,
you know, folk art I would call it,but you know, made with junk basically.
Yeah.
Scrap metals and junk, but very ingenious.
Yeah, yeah.
Some for sale.
Some for sale.
(30:23):
We didn't buy any, but...
You didn't buy any art?
No, not this time.
No.
Yeah, and that was the time we justpulled up next... we went through a
lock because we wanted to get throughthat lock so we'd be, have an early
start in the morning, so we pulled upon the other side, drove a stake in
the bank and spent the night there.
Absolutely gorgeous setting.
Yeah, that was so pretty.
(30:43):
Absolutely stunning,and a beautiful sunset.
What is it like sleepingon a small boat like that?
Well, you know, first I should probablydescribe... I mean, I think we slept
well, but I will say the cabins weresome of the smallest, like, even though
we've been on boats before, sailboatsand so on, and usually the cabins are
(31:05):
rather small but this was very small.
Like, when you walked in the room at thecabin of this boat, there was not room
for two people to stand in that cabin.
So like, you could go in and ifone person was in bed, the other
person could go into the bathroom.
But there was really only oneroom for one person to stand.
So you know, putting away your luggageand that sort of thing was a little
(31:27):
challenging with more than one person.
But sleeping was not a problem.
I mean, the beds were big enough.
Were they like queen size sort of beds?
It's probably more like a double.
They weren't all the same either.
There's some of them, the oneroom had like a little bit of a
bigger bed in it, but...
Yeah, they were... I would describethem as small twins pushed together.
(31:50):
Mm-hmm.
Small twins, you know, in the US we thinkof two twins being pushed together to
make a king but that wasn't the case here.
It was to make a, maybea full size, right?
Okay.
A couple of the cabins, it was kindof interesting the way they were,
the way it was set up because youwanted to sleep with your head facing
towards the door because on the otherend of the bed was sort of like a,
(32:11):
something that kind of hung downfrom the ceiling, like an overhang.
You kind of had to like slipyour feet underneath this thing.
I mean, there were several feet of space.
It wasn't coffin like to me oranything, but we did have one...
Right, but you don't want your head there.
Don't want your head there.
But we did have one guy who we foundout, well, he found out also, he
didn't realize he was claustrophobic.
(32:31):
But he happened to be in one ofthose cabins with that overhang.
Ours did not have that but his cabinhad that overhang and he got up in the
middle of the night like sort of in apanic, he was feeling claustrophobic.
So he ended up switchingcabins with another couple
and it was all okay, but yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I would say too, you know,these cabins, as I mentioned, they were
(32:53):
en suite, so you had a bathroom, thatwould have what they would call a wet
head, meaning that you would shower,the toilet, just slip the toilet seat
down and you would shower in aroundthe toilet area, and the sink area.
So it was very, very small.
All in one.
It was an all in one,all in one experience.
Kind of rustic.
(33:14):
It was very rustic.
Yeah, I would say more like glamping.
Yeah.
You know, glamour camping, glamping.
Yeah.
But if you've been on a boatbefore, you kind of expect that.
Sally said two people couldn't standin the cabin together at the same time.
Wow.
Pretty small.
In fact, that was a, just a kindof a thought reflection we had that
(33:34):
if we were to do this again, wewould have one more spare cabin than
the number of crew that we needed.
So if we, if there were four couples, wewould take, maybe use the five-cabin boat.
And that way, we could storeluggage in that last cabin.
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah, if you were two, two couples,I would get a three-cabin boat.
I mean, we both had collapsible,rolling duffles is what we had
(33:57):
packed in, but I will say, andalso, we had small rolling carryon.
But for the most part, ourluggage was pretty collapsible.
But even though it was, we couldonly fit one of our collapsible
bags, I think, underneath the bed.
There was a little bit of space thatyou could put your suitcase, and so
that was kind of a, you know, like whatare you going to do with your suitcases
(34:19):
that... It's not like you have a dresserin there, like you have sort of like
a shelf beside your bed and you canstow some of your stuff up there and...
Yeah, so yeah, it's very, very,very small, like it sounds like.
It is.
Mm-hmm.
It is.
And actually, we were sleepingwith... I had my, I think we had
the small carryon suitcase atthe foot of my side of the bed.
(34:40):
Nowhere to put it.
Nowhere else to put it.
Nowhere else to put it, yeah, yeah.
So you got to be careful with what youpack in and how much you have and...
Yeah.
And I think some travelerswill go, you know, they'll do
an out and back kind of trip.
We did a point to point, so if youwere to go out and back, you could
probably store luggage whereveryou're starting and ending.
In our case, we were starting at pointA and finishing at point B, so we
(35:03):
couldn't, we didn't have that luxury.
Yeah, you had to have your stuff with you.
Exactly.
Interesting.
You mentioned that Pont Canal sur l'Orb.
So tell me about that.
I don't know anything about that.
Well, that's just, I think that'sthe French name for that canal
aqueduct right outside of Béziers.
Ah.
And that's a, you know, prior tothis trip, we had seen videos of
(35:25):
people transiting France on canalboats, or in some cases, a sailboat.
This just kind of really intriguedus, that you could have a canal
on a bridge passing over a river.
That was really special, and it wasincredible that it was built in,
again, built in late, I think mid-1800sand, you know, and it wasn't leaking
as far as I could tell, you know?
(35:46):
It's holding water just fine andit was just pretty incredible.
Yeah.
Well, they were probably maintaining.
We don't have anything likethat here in the United States.
Nothing, no.
No.
Well, no.
You wouldn't do it thatway nowadays, you know?
Yeah.
And you also mentioned that you likedsightseeing in Toulouse but by then,
you were off of the boat, right?
Correct.
Yes.
(36:07):
When you got off, you must havefelt like in your hotel room was
like, "Oh! This is a palace!"
It was luxurious, yeah.
It was very nice.
Particularly the showers, you know?
Oh, yeah.
I took the longest shower that night.
Like, I don't know.
I thought I was never goingto come out because...
Well, you know, I mean,showering over the toilet?
(36:28):
Ah, no.
No.
No.
This is not happening.
So Toulouse wasn't really on ourradar, because we were focused on
the canal boat part of the trip.
We finished in Castelnaudarywhich it's a nice town.
Wasn't particularly special,but it was a very nice town.
It's all right.
And so we took the train fromCastelnaudary to Toulouse.
And when we arrived in Toulouse, actually,a little bit before we arrived there,
(36:51):
we had done a little bit of research,and I think you actually sent me a
Voice Map, maybe Elyse's or yours.
I'm not sure whose.
Elyse, yeah.
Yeah.
But when we arrived in Toulouse, it wasa beautiful day and we loved Toulouse.
Oh yeah, it was great.
I liked every bit.
Yeah.
I had no idea, didn't know what toexpect, and learned later it was like
the fourth-largest city in Franceand it was just, it was fabulous.
(37:13):
We had a really greattime exploring Toulouse.
We did a little bus tour there, too.
We did a petit train tour.
I'm a sucker for a petit train tour.
I just think it's a good way justto get an overview of the town.
It is.
You see a lot in a short period of time.
For cheap, you know, for a few euros.
So then we could come back andrevisit wherever we wanted to see.
So how much, how much timedid you spend in Toulouse?
(37:35):
Was it one night, two nights?
Ooh, just one night.
We got in maybe like around noontimeor late morning, I think, and
so we were there to have lunch.
We had lunch and spent the afternoon,and then we were leaving the next
morning on a plane, so we had,I guess we Ubered to the hotel.
It was near the airport.
Just had dinner there at the hotel,which was probably a mistake.
(37:57):
We should've had...... we shouldhave had dinner in Toulouse and then
gone to the hotel because it was...
There's not much there.
Well, there was a restaurant, butI don't, they had something that, I
think they had an event going on andso they had a large party coming in
and so we kind of had to talk our wayinto getting a place there to eat.
Only some of us did.
(38:18):
The rest of them were kindof, I don't know what they did
for dinner that night, but...
Two things I would say about theend of our trip is we, when we
got off the train, we just storedour luggage at a nearby hotel.
And just spent a couple euros.
They held our luggage for us,it was secure, and off we went.
We got that recommendation from Annie.
Yes, so we stored the luggage.
others in our group, you know, theytaxied immediately to the hotel and
(38:40):
dropped the luggage and came back, butdidn't think that was really necessary.
But the other thing is, for us, Ilike to push the easy button on travel
and so for the last, you know, forthe last night of a trip, I really
like staying at a airport hotel.
And by airport I meana hotel in the airport.
So in Toulouse, you may knowthere's a really nice hotel that
(39:02):
you literally walk out of receptioninto the airport concourse.
Which one is that?
I think, was it called the N Hotel?
Or I'm trying to think what it was called.
I have never done that.
I mean, not in Toulouse.
I've done that in other cities.
Yeah, you probably don'tneed to in Toulouse.
You're home by then.
No, no.
I don't.
But that was a, I think a reallygood thing because we had an early
(39:23):
morning flight, and we literally gotup, had a croissant or some breakfast
and then walked into the concourse.
Yeah, I think we had like a, Ithink we were leaving the hotel at
like 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning.
It was very early, so it wasnice not to have to travel.
Yeah.
Yeah, the flights out of Toulouseto get to Paris and then to
the US are brutally early.
(39:45):
You have to get up really early andso what we do anymore is we leave from
Barcelona because the flights leavefrom there at 3:00 or something and
I have an apartment not far, so justgo down to Barcelona and then take
the bus into the airport and take offby 3:00, which is quite easy to do.
(40:06):
Easy.
Or, we fly to, if we're flying to, throughAmsterdam, we fly the night before and
spend the night in Amsterdam and then takethe flight to the US, because it is, I
mean, those super early departure times...
Pretty brutal.
It's already difficult traveling andflying, you know, across the pond, but so
(40:27):
our flight was from Toulouse to Munich,from Munich and then Munich to Charlotte,
went to Charlotte, North Carolina area.
So that worked out pretty well.
So, okay, so overall with the boat trip,I mean, I've heard people say it's awfully
slow, so it's like hurry up and wait kindof deal because you need to be there all
(40:49):
the time to mind the boat, don't you?
Well, I mean, there were a couple oftimes we all got off the boat and went
to a restaurant, but yeah, there werea couple of people in our group that
were a little nervous about that, but...
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
Like, do you lock your stuff?
Do you have a lot?
Well, you didn't have, youdidn't bring very much, but...
Yeah, we didn't really havevaluables, but we did, there was a
(41:09):
way to lock the door on the boat.
The bikes were out on the deck but theywere kind of locked to the railing.
And I don't think anyone wouldwant to steal them anyways because
they weren't that great of bikes.
But I think they do sometimes getstolen, but yeah, I mean, I don't know.
John and I felt pretty comfortablewith it and we didn't have any issues,
luckily, with anything getting stolen butI guess that is a thing that can happen.
(41:31):
Well, did you ever think like,what if somebody hops on the
boat in the middle of the night?
No, I didn't think about that.
Didn't worry about that?
No, the only place that I might havewondered about something like that
happened was in, near Carcassonnebecause there were some homeless
people, it looked like maybethey were homeless people nearby.
Like, it seemed like where we were tiedup or, you know, stayed for the night,
(41:53):
there were like park benches, kind oflike a little bit of a park area right
there next to the canal, and maybe somepeople looked a little, you know, iffy.
But there were nine of youso you didn't ever feel...
And we actually asked the, therewas a boat right behind us I think.
Someone had struck up a conversationwith the guy in the boat and we asked
them were they going to be around thatevening and they said they were and we
(42:17):
asked if they could just kind of keepan eye out on our boat while we were out
to dinner, so yeah, it all worked out.
That worked out fine.
I think boaters tend to be kind of lookafter, you know, look after one another.
Everyone's kind of in the samesituation, so they know, what the needs
are and where to help if they can.
Were there mostly Englishspeakers on the...
(42:38):
On other boats?
Yeah.
Mostly I would say they were not Englishspeakers, they English-speaking but not,
maybe not, we saw, you know, maybe someGermans, Dutch, a few French I'm sure.
Well, I mean, I can say a lot ofthem couldn't communicate with us.
I mean, it was, you weren'talways sure you were getting
the full meaning but, you know.
(42:58):
We got by.
Back to your original question abouta, you know, overall impression, I
thought it was a really fun thing to do.
I don't like to do a lot ofthings twice because there's so
many places to go in the world.
I don't like to, you know, do thesame thing over and over again.
But I would recommend someone doing itwith maybe some recommendations to try
and maybe travel less distance on the tripso you're not rushing through it as much.
(43:23):
I wish we could have done that.
And then also, you know, have morespace by having that extra cabin, so
you have a place to put your things.
Yeah, perhaps not nine people.
That's a lot of people.
It was a lot of people.
There were, yeah, we did run acrossseveral people who would say, "Oh,
who are you traveling with?" Andwhen we would tell people that there
were nine people on our boat, theyjust about wanted to fall over.
(43:45):
But no, I mean, we're all stillfriends, so that, you know that's good.
We just got together with eight ofthe other people, the other day,
so yeah, we're all still friends.
It was a little challenging at times justbecause you're in close quarters, even
walking through the galley area wherethe kitchen is, it's like, oh, someone
has to step over so you can walk through.
And then, you know, it's kind of like aTetris game walking through the galley.
(44:07):
But it all worked out okay.
I think everyone enjoyed it.
I think the thing that made itchallenging was the space being
kind of confined at times, youknow, with that number of people.
Yeah, and I think what added tothat was the weather, so it was
pretty cool, late September, itwas pretty cool to be out at night.
And probably more than thetemperature was the wind.
(44:27):
The wind.
It was very windy, which I guess is prettytypical for that area of the country.
We had, when we were in Provence, we hadincredible winds traveling through there.
Yeah.
And it kept us, really kept us indoorsmore than we would've liked to.
Very windy there too, yeah.
It was very windy in Provence.
That kind of just tires you out aftera while, the wind, when you're in it.
(44:49):
But, you know, what made it enjoyablethough, Annie, you talked about, it
is a slow boat, and that's kind of thepoint of it is taking a little bit of a
breather and relaxing and reading a book.
Sally likes to journal.
You know, just differentthings, enjoying a nice glass
of wine as the sun's going down.
I think it's what ispart of that experience.
Yeah.
(45:10):
Slowing down.
I mean, I think, you would saythe same thing, I was never
bored at all the entire time.
Never bored.
I thought it was a really fun trip,and it was just, like I said, I wish
we could have had more time in some ofthe places, which, you know, it would
be taking it a little bit slower even.
Not so much in terms of thespeed of the travel, but just...
(45:31):
How far you wanted to get.
Yeah.
So instead of getting all theway to Castelnaudary, maybe you
would have stopped in Carcassonne?
You know, and you're somewhatlimited by the bases of the
operations too, so you have to keepthat in mind when you're planning.
But I would say if you were travelingin the summer, in more of a high season,
could be difficult to make that seven-dayjourney that we made just because of
(45:54):
queuing up ahead of the locks and youknow, maybe waiting to pass through
bridges and tunnel or whatever it may be.
One last question.
Who would you say this typeof activity is best for?
I mean, probably not people in theirteens or 20s, but maybe mature adults?
Maybe for little kids?
(46:15):
I don't know.
Could it be dangerous?
Like...
It would be a really fun tripfor like mom, dad, and you
know, a couple kids, few kids.
That would be, I think, a really fun trip.
Mm-hmm.
Although if they're real little, likeyou're not going to get in that water in
a canal, and if it's the summertime, yeah.
I mean, that's...
That's a terrible idea.
Don't.
(46:35):
No.
No.
It's not healthy, I don't think.
But I think that couldbe a fun family trip.
I think fun family trip or, you know,group, like our group, you know, we are
60-somethings, but I would say a group of30-somethings, 40-somethings, any type of
group activity like that, a smaller group.
Was there, like, a big tablewhere you could all sit and eat?
Yes.
Okay.
(46:55):
Yeah.
So there was a table with, like, sort ofa bench seat along three sides, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Both indoor and outdoors.
So top side there was a very largetable, and we had a canopy there
that we could put up or down.
And we would eat up theresometimes, but it was so windy.
I noted in my journal that, like,one day, one of my friends had her
(47:17):
olives blow off the plate, you know?
Olive blowing day.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
But yeah, I think for us, we've seenYouTubers or what have you that have done
multiple trips in multiple locations.
(47:37):
So for us, I think the Canal duMidi is a one-and-done, you know?
But maybe other canals wemight consider doing that.
Our preference is to be more activekind of individual travel as opposed
to, like, large group, riverboat or,you know, cruise ship type of travel,
so we like exploring on our own.
And so this really affords people who wantto do that a great opportunity, I think.
(48:00):
Wonderful.
Well, we're going to have to stop herebecause we've been talking a long time.
But it's wonderful because I don't thinkwe have had very many conversations about
canal... especially the Canal du Midi.
I mean, we talked about people whobike on it and things like that, but
not so much spending a week on it.
So thank you so much fortalking to me about this.
Oh, you're welcome.
(48:20):
You're welcome.
Our pleasure.
And thank you too, I can't tell you howmany podcasts I listened to prepare.
Oh, yeah.
Lots.
So, but we really appreciateyou, what you're doing as well.
And not just what you're doing,but the way that you do it.
And your, well, love your sense of humor,but also the kind of commercial aspect
and, you know, how you approach thepodcast, so thank you for doing that too.
(48:41):
Thank you very much.
And I wish you many happy trips to France.
All right.
Merci beaucoup.
Thank you.
Merci, au revoir.
Au revoir.
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing that.
(49:03):
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
And a special shout-out this week tomy new Join Us in France champions:
Dee, Joanne Tenzer, and Katie Hall.
And thank you, Cathy, forediting your pledge up.
(49:24):
Would you join them too?
You can do it for as little as $3a month, but if you can afford it,
I would love to have you pledge alittle more so you can have access to
more of the rewards, such as the Zoommeetings, the monthly Zoom meetings.
Go to patreon.com/joinus, and to supportElyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
(49:47):
So two Sundays ago, I had my Zoommeetings with patrons, which is, I
think, my favorite Patreon rewards.
We got to hang out andchat about your plans.
You get to ask me pretty much anything.
And very often these patrons will alsomeet me in person, either at the bootcamp
or on a day trip with me, et cetera.
So, you know, it feelslike they're real friends.
(50:09):
It's fantastic.
The next dates are going to be July 26thand 27th, and there's a Saturday 6:00
PM meeting, a 9:00 AM Sunday meeting.
That one usually works out greatfor the folks in the Pacific, or my
favorite night owl, Kristy, from theCentral Time Zone in the US, and also
Sunday nights, 7:00 PM, France time.
(50:31):
You need to decide whichone works best for you.
And our small Aussie/New Zealand groupis growing as well, so that's wonderful.
Let me read a few reviews of my VoiceMaptours this week, and also tell you about
one that, oh, I didn't like so much.
Anyway, here's the good onesabout the Latin Quarter.
"The tour was structured well and hadprecise instructions. The experience
(50:54):
seemed very close to having a realguide." I'm a real person, I swear.
"I liked that it was self-paced, whichallowed us to stop at interesting
locations for pictures, art, coffee,et cetera." Another person wrote, "A
wonderful introduction to the Marais.
We would not have seen a majorityof the places Annie brought us to.
(51:15):
I'm thankful we had Annie in our pocket."Thank you very much. So another one
again, "This is the third tour of Annie's,which we've enjoyed from home." So this
is Montmartre. "It brought back fondmemories of Montmartre and answered
questions I didn't remember that I had.
It also made me eagerto climb the hill again.
(51:36):
She's a gifted storyteller whodoesn't overwhelm you with info.
She sets a good pace.
I enjoyed it very much." All right.
Yeah, he enjoys it from home, and why not?
You can enjoy thosetours anywhere you want.
About my Saint-Germain-des-Pres tour,"We enjoyed Annie's tour. It was great
being able to take the tour at ourconvenience. We appreciated her tips
(51:58):
on places to stop along the way."
Now, the one that made me unhappy,and there's one of those every
now and then, it's a reality.
One person kind of trashed myfood tour, around Les Halles a
few days ago because many storeswere closed and they got hangry.
I had to look it up.
I didn't know what it was.
I don't like it when people have a badexperience with one of my VoiceMap tours.
(52:23):
However, it says right in the tourdescription that it's best not to take
this tour on a Sunday afternoon or Mondayall day, because many stores are closed.
And these people showed up hungry and thenhangry on a Sunday afternoon, and they
(52:44):
took it out on me in the comment section.
I know most of you don't needthis reminder, but perhaps
a few do, so here I go.
French stores do close, especiallymom and pop food stores.
I know many of you are used to very longhours from all sorts of stores, but it's
not that way in France, not even in Paris.
(53:06):
When in France, you should not expectpeople to work nonstop, and you can't
expect them to hire a slew of poorlypaid workers who get no health insurance
and no benefits of any sort, becausewe don't do that in France either.
Also, please read the tourdescription before you take it.
There's a lot of importantinformation in there.
(53:29):
Podcast listeners get a big discountfor buying these tours from my website.
It's best for me as well because I getmore of what you pay instead of giving it
to Apple or Google, but if you buy from myboutique, it's not instant like it would
be if you bought from VoiceMap directly.
Give it a day or two, please.
To use your code, open VoiceMap, tapon Tour Codes at the bottom right,
(53:53):
enter the code, and download the tour.
You don't have to use yourtour credit immediately.
It just sits in youraccount until you're ready.
And if you're planning a trip to Franceand you want some expert help, you can
hire me as your itinerary consultant.
It's busy season, so book earlyat joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
(54:14):
Usually, you have openings within a month.
Right now it's more liketwo or three months.
It just depends.
Sometimes you luck out, but don't waittoo much is what I'm trying to say.
The Tour de France 2025 startedyesterday, on July 5th, 2025.
That's if you listen to this episodeas soon as it comes out, of course.
The tour set off yesterday from Lille.
(54:36):
Some of us cheer the racers on roadsideand some of us follow it on TV with a
coffee in hand, especially if you'refrom the US because that's, it would
be shown in the morning where you are.
This event is so much fun.
This year the route will start in Lille,then Normandy and Brittany, the Loire
Valley, Mont d'Or in the center of France.
(55:00):
Toulouse, my hometown on July15th, lots of days in the Pyrenees,
including Luchon-Super-Banniereswhich just got their train service
back last week, by the way.
That was a big deal for this small town.
Carcassonne on July 20th,
Montpellier and Mont Ventoux,and this one is a doozy.
(55:21):
But then they go on to the Alps andCourchevel, Albertville, Pontarlier,
on the border with Switzerlandbefore heading to Paris on July 27th.
We'll get to see aerial views ofchateaus, sunflower fields, coastal
roads, medieval villages as the riderspush through long days in the saddle.
(55:44):
Even if you're not a cyclist,the Tour de France is a wonderful
way to see the beauty of France.
And it might just inspire your next trip.
And let's be honest, it's a loteasier to watch from your sofa
than to pedal up the Mont Ventoux.
And those drones that they usegive the most amazing footage.
(56:05):
So I turn on my TV in the afternoonin France, that's when it usually
takes place, and enjoy as much ofit as I can, and I hope you do too.
My thanks to podcast editorsAnne and Christian Cotovan
who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast, an episodethat I really enjoyed recording
and I hope you'll enjoy listeningto it just as much as I did.
(56:28):
We called it "In Search of the Southwestof France" with Katherine MacMillan.
She was so much fun andshares so many wonderful tips.
So join me next Sunday for that.
Thank you so much for listening andI hope you join me next time so we
can look around France together.
(56:48):
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, episode553, cinq cent cinquante-trois.
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 withJohn and Sally Capets about their journey
(00:37):
renting a boat on the Canal du Midi.
We explore their unique experiences fromnavigating locks to dining canal side, and
discover why a slow-paced boat trip can bean incredible, enriching travel adventure.
I know many of you are thinking ofdoing a vacation like this one, because
there is something about being onthe water that is good for the soul.
(01:01):
So let's talk about it.
This podcast runs on chocolatine,caffeine, and the support
of lovely humans like you.
You book itinerary consults, takemy VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun with
me in my electric car, come to thebootcamp, or slip me a few Euros
on Patreon, and I love you for it.
If you want to keep me goingand skip the ads, there's a
(01:23):
link for that in the show notes.
Head to joinusinfrance.com/boutique topurchase any of my services and merci.
If you want all the links and thefull episode transcripts, you'll find
that at joinusinfrance.com/episodes,and to subscribe to the newsletter,
which contains a handy summaryof the conversation with all
(01:46):
the useful links, you can go tojoinusinfrance.com/newsletter.
For the magazine part of the podcasttoday, let's talk about the Tour
de France, always a wonderfulevent, and it's on right now.
(02:10):
Bonjour, John and Sally Capets,and welcome to Join Us in France.
Bonjour, Annie.
Wonderful to have you.
So, you had a great trip to France,perhaps not the only one, maybe
it's the last one of several?
We had been to France, we went on atrip with our family to Sardinia and
Corsica a couple years ago and finishedthat portion of the trip with our family
(02:35):
and then went off on our own, justthe two of us, and traveled, rented
a car and traveled in the south partof France, and ended in Barcelona.
And so that's pretty much what spurredus on to want to take this trip,
this past fall, to back to France,because we realized that, number
one, we'd probably try to fit toomuch into a short period of time.
(02:57):
We really wanted to spendmore time in France.
Another part of that was that we realizedwe made a mistake in ending in Barcelona,
because it just cost us a lot of money todo that, dropping the car, getting the car
in France and dropping it in Barcelona.
Okay, so it's not that they weredifficult to deal with, it's
just that it was the extra cost.
(03:17):
Yes.
Yeah, very easy to deal with on bothends, on the front end and the back end.
But yeah, we spent a few, really,literally a few days in the South
of France, and we knew immediatelythat we needed to come back.
You know it's a good trip whenyou're already saying, "Hey, let's
plan a trip back," before you'reeven done with this last trip.
(03:38):
So, we knew right away, but because wehad, as Sally said, we tried to jam a
lot into a few days, we knew that wewanted to come back and spend more time.
And so, today we'll focus on thecanal segment of the trip, but that
was the third leg of a three week.
Three week trip that we started inthe Alps, and then spent a week there,
(03:58):
spent a week in Roussillon, to explorethe Luberon, and Provence region.
And then this last weekwas on the canal boat.
Right.
Right.
So this was the Canal du Midi?
Correct.
Correct.
So are you boat people?
I mean, yes and no.
We owned our own boat here inNorth Carolina for, I guess about
(04:21):
25 years and then decided, okay,we can put that, you know, we're
ready to get rid of the boat now.
So we sold it.
So we haven't had a boat in quite sometime, but we have always enjoyed boating.
Yeah.
We have, and we have a group of friendswho we traveled with, we'll talk about
that more perhaps, but we had begun bareboating in the Caribbean on sailboats.
(04:43):
So, all of us who were on this trip hadbeen on, you know, multiple bare boat
trips, either together or separately.
And so we had some familiarity withboating lifestyle, if you will, or boating
travel, you know, being in close quartersand, you know, being self-sufficient,
so to speak, for extended periods.
That was kind of the genesis ofthe idea for a canal boat trip.
(05:06):
And, you know, in, in France, I think theCanal du Midi is probably the most famous
canal, at least for this type of trip.
And so that's where we started.
Right.
So The Seine River also has quitea bit and the Rhone also has some.
There's plenty, but the Canal duMidi is one I'm more familiar with
because I've seen boats on the canal.
(05:27):
Right.
So where did you start your trip?
And how many people was it in thisboat, and how did you select the boat?
Well, you probably need to answerthe question on how you selected it.
Yeah.
So, in our bare boat experiences in thepast, we had become familiar with Le Boat,
which is a, you know, boat hire service.
(05:47):
They have an excellent website.
They have really good customerservice, I would say, and so we just
began, I began exploring the trip.
I am kind of an amateur travel geek,and so I had planned a three-week trip
for our group and then just put itout there for anyone who might have an
interest in joining us along the way.
So we had a differing number ofpeople along, you know, for each trip.
(06:12):
On the canal boat, we had nine people.
Ooh, that's a lot.
It's a lot.
That's a lot.
It's a lot.
And the boat, so just exploringthe Le Boat website, we came
across this particular boatthat had five en suite cabins.
And so, we put it out there, andnaturally we had people to come
back and to fill each cabin.
(06:34):
And this particular boat is about 15meters long and about four meters wide.
So it's a fairly large boat.
For the Canal du Midi, but...
For the Canal du Midi, right.
So, it's a large boat for that.
And it's the largest boat that they offer.
We were pretty happy with that decision.
(06:56):
You know, Le Boat, I think for any ofyour listeners, Le Boat offers a, they
actually have a sticker on the sideof the boats that says, "No experience
needed and no license required."
Hmm.
So what they should just say in the middleis... only credit cards are required.
So...
And the boats are all pretty, atleast the ones that we saw on the
(07:18):
portion of the canal that we did,were all pretty, like, beat-up.
They weren't, like, brandnew shiny-looking boats.
I don't know.
They've all been in manyaccidents, let's say.
Well, let's say well-worn.
Yeah.
Clearly, there were people withouta lot of experience on those boats.
Correct.
Yeah.
You know, as you're traveling alongthis canal and you're going under the
(07:40):
little, you know, the bridges, andmost of them are arched bridges so
they're not... And they're not verybig so there's not a lot of wiggle room
on either side of the boat as you gothrough, and so I think there's a lot of
bumping that goes on as you pass under.
Did you bump anything?
Oh, yes.
I mean, yeah, it's... Yeah.
(08:01):
You have... If you're going to do thistrip, you're going to bump, you know,
most of the boats have fenders down theentire width you know, sides of the boat.
And when you're going through thesestructures, there's like 328 structures
of some kind, either aqueducts orbridges or canal locks rather, tunnels.
There's a lot of obstacles along the way.
(08:23):
Yeah.
So there, the boats are wellprotected from that but they do...
You know, they get pretty wornfrom the inexperienced travelers.
Well, and you're also going at sucha slow speed that it's not like, you
know, anyone ramming into you, likeat, you know, full speed ahead, because
I think they only go, what, like...
(08:44):
Seven or eight knots.
Yeah.
it's slow.
You can ride your bike fasterthan those canal boats go.
Yeah.
Before we move on from the boat,you also have a kitchen on board?
Full kitchen.
There was a nice, I would call ita full-sized refrigerator-freezer.
Yeah, it was very nice.
So there's plenty of room for storing,you know, refrigerated things,
(09:05):
and then we had storage underneaththe seats for dry goods and...
So we did eat mostly, I would say themajority of our meal, breakfast and
lunch was primarily on the boat, andthen... And even some of our dinners.
Because that was a whole other thing.
Breakfast, that was justeasier to do on boat.
We would usually ride and get some, youknow, croissants or something like that.
(09:30):
If there was a town nearby, wewould get that sort of thing to
have along with our breakfast.
And then lunches, we ended up eating alot of those on the boat because a lot
of times, with trying to get throughthe locks, we had a certain distance
we kind of needed to cover every dayand a lot of times, we were getting
to a lock and you'd get there and thelock keepers all take a lunchtime.
(09:52):
So they're not there from, Ithink it was, 12:00 to 1:00.
So, you know, we would just try to getto the lock, pull up, stop, we would
like have our lunch while the lockkeeper was having his lunch and then
we would move on when lunch was over.
Right.
And there's sometimes aline, right, for the lock?
Correct.
And then dinners, you know, therewere a couple of dinners that we had,
(10:13):
probably about half and half maybe.
We had half the dinners off the boat.
We probably would've had more dinnersoff the boat, and more lunches, but
there just weren't a lot of places thatwere open for us to do that or there
weren't... Like, some of the places weended up stopping, there weren't... There
just weren't any restaurants right there.
Right.
And for nine people, that's a biggroup for most small restaurants.
(10:37):
So you didn't dock along a city every timenecessarily, or a town, or village even?
Correct.
Mm-hmm.
That is correct, yeah.
We didn't.
There were in fact, the veryfirst night we were at the marina
so there was a restaurant there.
The next night, I think we wereat a small, near a small village.
Yeah.
I think we did eat out off the boatthat night, but there was the... Yeah,
(10:59):
there were a couple of times wherewe just weren't near a village or if
there was one there, there wasn't arestaurant open or we couldn't find
one that could take us, you know.
That was a sizeable group of nine people.
So we were traveling in September,at the end of September, so, you
know, this is a bit of a shoulderseason, right, for restaurant tours
(11:19):
and holidaymakers and so forth.
So I think that was a bitof a challenge for us.
The large group of nine madeit a little more difficult.
And I would say, the only time thatwe had communication issues in France
were when we were on the phone.
So face-to-facecommunications, no problem.
I mean, you can use sign language atthe very least or Google Translate.
(11:41):
But when you're trying to make areservation for the next town ahead
for a group of nine and there's...And sometimes you'll get a voice
message, you know, that we couldn'tunderstand, we couldn't translate.
And so you couldn't get on.
If a person answered you, they mightspeak English or they might not.
And so that was a bit of a challengefor us as Americans, but otherwise
(12:04):
people were friendly and very welcoming,so that wasn't really the issue.
It was just more a matter ofgetting across what our needs were.
Yeah.
It is true that in the Southwestof France, some of these
villages are not super touristy.
Maybe in the middle of the summer, theyhire some students who are younger and
therefore more familiar with English.
(12:24):
But in September, late September, hmm.
Yeah, not so much.
Not so much.
And you know, the Canal du Midiis, right now, is purely tourist,
it's a purely a tourist attraction.
There's no commercial enterprises.
Correct.
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
And so as a rule, we didn't havemuch trouble, but as you mentioned,
(12:44):
we were in small towns and villages.
We knew a little bit of Frenchand we would use that as we could.
And people were still, you know,very friendly, very welcoming.
That was never a problem inthe face-to-face interaction.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But making reservations fornine people, I can tell it...
Yeah, that's going to be a challenge.
That's got to be achallenge anywhere you go.
(13:05):
But we were willing tobreak up into groups too.
But still it was a challenge.
So you mentioned ridinginto the town sometimes.
So you had bicycles on the boat?
Yeah.
So, we didn't have a bike for everyone,what we decided to do was, I think
we had... Was it four or six bikes?
Four.
We got four bikes.
And so we just kind of tookturns, like we'd say, you know.
(13:27):
We had a duty roster, so everyone hadsort of like jobs to do and someone
was going to be driving the boat thatday and someone else was going to cook
breakfast, you know, that sort of thing.
And so if you didn't have anyduties like being on the lines or
something like that, then you know,you might go off and ride your bike
that day with a couple other people.
And so yeah, we did have bikes.
(13:47):
They weren't the best bikes.
I had one, one day that didn't wantto turn right and had a hard time
keeping air in the tire, but theydidn't have gears, but you know,
it was pretty flat along the canal.
There was one place, where youwere, you and I were riding that day
together and we had a couple hills.
In fact, that's when Irealized I had a flat tire.
As we were going up a big hill and itwas like, wow, this is, I know I'm going
(14:09):
up a hill, but this is really difficult.
And then I realized it's because I didn'thave any air in the front tire, so...
But having bikes, I highlyrecommend because most of the
towns are right along the canal.
And for example, the second night wewere out, we stopped in Colombiers.
And the nice thing about the Canaldu Midi, the boats will supply you
(14:30):
with a stake, and dock lines, anda hammer, so a little sledgehammer.
And you literally pull up to thebank, sledgehammer your stake
into the bank and then tie up.
So, Colombiers for example, Ithink they had a marina there.
But we just stopped, you know,found a really pretty place to stop
along the canal, near a bridge.
(14:51):
And walked over the bridge andthe restaurant was right along
the canal, so you could seethe boat from the restaurant.
For the most part, most of the towns andvillages along the way are right there.
But then there are some, wemight've ridden few kilometers,
you know, one day to a patisserie,but you know, nothing too bad.
As long as you had air inyour tires, you were okay.
(15:14):
Yeah.
Well, I mean obviously it's a canalso it's flat, but when you have
to go over the bridges, it kind ofgets a little steep for a minute
and then back down, you know.
Exactly.
Where you encounter the hills isreally at the locks more than anything.
Because the whole point of thelock is to... and we were going
from south to north, like southeastto northwest, so meaning we were
(15:37):
going uphill the whole time.
So if you think about, you know, the wholeidea of the lock system and the whole
point of the Canal du Midi in particularis a section of a longer canal that
connect the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
So you're starting at sea level atthe Atlantic, you're ending at sea
level at the Mediterranean, butyou're going either uphill or downhill
as you navigate across France.
(15:58):
And the locks would, in our case,were lifting us up the entire time.
We were always going uphill, if you will.
So where did you pick up the boat?
We picked it up in a little townor a little, I guess the town's
called Portiragnes, the portwas called Port Cassafières.
Okay.
And it was, yeah, verysouthern area, almost on the
(16:19):
Mediterranean near Cap d'Agde.
Uh-huh.
The beach there, famous beach.
So not far from there.
And we finished our trip in Castelnaudaryand then went on to Toulouse.
Aha.
And that took seven days?
You rented the boat for seven days?
Yes.
And that's a recommendation we had.
We did about 150 milessection... Not 150 miles, was it?
(16:43):
I
Maybe 150 kilometers?
No, 150 kilometers, I think.
Yeah.
I think that's right.
And we did that in a week.
And I think our recommendation to folkswho are thinking about this would be
to maybe cut that down a bit, becausewe found we were pushing, we were
pushing constantly throughout the trip.
There were a couple of times when westopped and said, okay, now we need
(17:05):
to spend a little more time here.
And Béziers was one place we spent alittle extra time and then Carcassonne,
one of our favorite parts along the canal.
That was nice.
Yeah, absolutely amazing stop.
But we did feel a little rushed.
When John was setting us up, he hadtalked to somebody and they said, "Oh,
yeah. That's totally doable trip for thatlength of time." But I really think it
(17:28):
was too much, because we would have likedto have had a little more time to just
sort of enjoy the towns along the way.
So that would be one recommendationis not try to fit so much into it.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, because, I mean,those boats go very, very slowly.
They go slowly.
And really the thing is... Imean, it's that, but it's also
(17:48):
going through the locks, becausehow many locks did we go through?
63 locks.
So 63 locks, and the locks, goingthrough the locks, it's not that
time-consuming, but what's time-consumingis waiting your turn or having to wait
an hour till the lock keeper comesback or, you know, that sort of thing.
So it really does slow you downand there were days where we had,
(18:10):
I think, you know, 15 or so locksthat we went through in one day.
You're not going very far becauseyou're doing a lock and then you're
waiting, and you're going throughanother lock and you're waiting, and
so there's a lot of waiting time.
Right.
So you mentioned, because I askedyou to rank your favorite things
that you did on this trip, sovisiting La Cité de Carcassonne.
So yes, that's very nice.
(18:32):
And how far did you dock from the Cité
?Oh, we were right there, I mean, we were right there.
We were on the canal but, like,to walk up to the... the walled...
Yeah, the citadel.
... the citadel, it was probably,like, what, a mile or...
Yeah, maybe a mile or so.
A 20-minute walk.
Okay.
Okay.
In fact, we ended up walking thatthree times out and back, because
(18:56):
when we arrived, we arrived aboutfour o'clock in the afternoon.
And we saw the city in the distance,and Sally and I immediately jumped
off the boat, you know, got theboat secured, jumped off the
boat and walked into the citadel.
We absolutely fell in love with it andthen came back, had dinner, and then went
back at night because we wanted to see itat night and experience it at nighttime.
(19:18):
With all our friendsbecause they hadn't...
Yeah.
... they hadn't been up there yet.
Yeah, so that was the secondtime, and then the next
morning, we walked back again.
So, we wanted to do one of the toursthrough the ramparts, and the what are
they called, the turrets or whatever.
Château Comtal.
Yeah.
It was...
That was.
I wish we would have had moretime to spend doing that.
Like, I could have spent anextra day in Carcassonne.
(19:41):
Really?
That's interesting because typicallyI tell people, you know, it takes
most of a day but by the timeyou get there and... Perhaps you
need six hours for Carcassonne,but you would have spent longer.
I would have, yeah, we really enjoyed it.
You know, I think we did that tourthe next morning when we woke up.
Was it a person-guided tour orwas it the self-guided tour?
(20:03):
We did the self-guided.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I felt like we were kind of, youknow, rushing through that a little bit.
I could have spent more time doing morereading and listening to, you know,
reading the placards, and going intothe... I forget what the name of the place
was where they had the artifacts then.
Yeah.
But yeah, I just thoughtit was really interesting.
Plus there were so many cute littlecafés and shops and things, and we really
(20:27):
didn't take advantage of any of that, so.
Yeah, yeah.
And Annie, we had not experiencedanything like that before.
For folks in France, it's old hat,but this was the first time we had
really experienced any kind of amedieval city of this magnitude.
Yeah.
We had seen, I'm a bit of a professionalcycling fan, so I had seen, you know,
Carcassonne in the Tour de France and...
(20:48):
Oh, sure.
But that was, that was quite nice.
Yeah.
And then the second thing you mentionedis the Fonseranes, the locks near
Béziers, and those are kind of cool.
It was so cool.
It was... As you're passing throughthe Fonseranes Locks, you're only
going one direction at a time.
What I mean by that is, boats that aretraveling up the canal are traveling
(21:09):
together, and boats that are goingto the south are going together.
So you have a kind of a staggeredtime when you can do that.
So, we went through.
It was probably one o'clock or so in theafternoon as we were going up the locks.
And for people who don't know,these Fonseranes Locks are just a
absolute incredible engineering feat.
They were built back in the1600s, by Pierre-Paul Riquet.
(21:31):
At that time, there were a totalof eight chambers, rising up
about 75 feet and 21 or so meters.
And it's absolutely an amazingthing to see, and somewhat
more amazing to experience asyou're going through the locks.
Sally and I, we mentionedhaving a duty roster.
And on the duty roster, we would assignpeople to be on the boat or on the lock
(21:54):
as you're passing through the lock.
And of course, you had a helmsman,you know, driving the boat.
So a boat this size really took fivepeople to get into and through a lock.
Some of the smaller boats, we sawpeople going through with just two
people on them, and that was finefor two, you know, smaller boats.
Mm-hmm.
It's still tricky.
Yeah.
We would often help, you know,fellow travelers, you know, to grab
(22:14):
the line for them or do whatever wecould to help them.... but as you're
traveling through the lock, at thetop of the lock is a visitor center.
And I think it's one of the mostvisited attractions, outside of
probably Paris and other larger cities,but in the area certainly, there
are hundreds of people just kind ofgathered and kind of chained off of
(22:35):
the lock so they weren't interferingwith people coming up the locks.
You feel kind of a bit of like arock star coming through these locks.
Yeah, everybody's looking at you.
Yeah.
A tourist attraction anyways.
We were part of the tourist attraction.
Yes.
Yeah.
We were the clowns I think.
But anyway, we tried not to mess up.
And the lock keepers are very strict,you know, so they have a chain behind
(22:56):
which people are, you know, touristsand spectators are supposed to watch.
And this little fella, little boy cameinside the chain and he was there with
his mom and couple of siblings and Iasked, I went over to him, I said, "Do
you want to help me with this lock?" Andhe said yeah, so I handed him the line,
and basically just wrapping the linearound a bollard, you know, to kind of
(23:17):
steady the boat as you're going through,and I think he really enjoyed that.
Of course.
He got in a little troubleafterwards, but that's okay.
He had a good experience I think.
Elyse and I went to Béziersand we saw the locks.
We didn't go to the visitors center,but when you do watch the people
going up and they are, "Oh, cool.There's people on the boats. Hello."
(23:37):
Yeah.
Everybody waves, you know?
Yeah.
And it was a beautiful day, it'sa very beautiful, sunny day and I
think that we maybe had, you know,more people out that day as a result.
Yeah, you have a lot of peoplewalking their dogs or...
Yes.
... kids with, you know, families with kidsin strollers and it's a very popular
place to go for a walk for locals.
(23:58):
That was the largest number ofpeople we saw along the canal.
Except for maybe Carcassonne.
There were a lot of people in Carcassonne.
And of course at the bottom of thelocks or near, between the locks
in Béziers you have the AqueductBridge, you know, which is a bit of a
tourist attraction too, so we did seea lot of people just walking along.
It's just a beautifulsection of the canal.
(24:18):
And at the top of the locks, thereat the visitor center, we didn't have
a lot of time and Sally mentionedwe were rushing a little bit through
there, but we caught a little petittrain tour took us into Béziers.
Yes, it takes you all the wayto the locks, that's right.
It does.
Takes you from the locks intotown and we really enjoyed that.
Béziers being a bit of a bigger town itwas, you know, there were some, obviously
some very interesting parts to it, butnot something we probably would have
(24:41):
wanted to walk through too much, you know?
So we enjoyed that petit train,but that made us maybe eight euros
a person, pretty inexpensive.
Yeah.
And Les Halles in Béziers is very fun.
Les Halles, where you eat,it's a very fun experience.
Wonderful.
Number three was diningcanal side in Colombier.
(25:01):
Colombier.
I mentioned that earlier whenwe had just staked up the boat.
It's a gorgeous night and the sun setting.
We had a, just a lovelydinner at Au Lavoir.
Au Lavoir.
Okay.
Au Lavoir.
Beautiful beautiful location there.
Stopped, had some drinks.
They were very accommodativefor our large group and stuff.
(25:22):
Very nice.
Yeah, we had a very, very nice waitress.
She was very friendly andshe was Canadian actually.
I think she'd married a Frenchguy and moved to France.
Yeah, so there was nolanguage barrier there?
No.
No.
That was kind of nice.
Yeah.
Number four you mentioned marveling atthe ingenuity of the canal system with its
many types of locks and the Malpas Tunnel.
(25:45):
Tell me about the tunnelbecause I haven't seen that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of interesting.
Again, it's a verynarrow tunnel, and long.
So that when you go in there, you'renot... I guess you can see the light
at the end of the tunnel but it'skind of long so it's dark in there.
And so it was a little... You know,if I had been driving the boat, it
would be intimidating for me becauseI'd be worried about bumping things
(26:06):
the whole way through but, yeah,that's an engineering feat also.
And that's a day, I think that was theday that you and I were riding our bikes.
We had ridden ahead and gone to,there was a little museum that
talked about the building of that.
And what's interesting is I think,if I remember correctly, there were
like four different levels of tunnels.
(26:26):
All for different purposes.
So we had the tunnel that we weregoing through on the canal but there's
also... What were the other ones, John?
Yeah, so, I mean, across the top ofthis called The Malpas was the Roman
road which was built in the BC times.
And then you have the canal tunnel whichSally mentioned was built in the 1600s.
(26:46):
And then there was a railwaytunnel built in the 1800s.
And then there was a drainage tunnel andthis was kind of an interesting one built
by monks, I think back in the 1200s.
And the drainage tunnel wasdesigned to drain a, they
call it the Etang de Montady?
M-O-N-T-A-D-Y.
Okay.
And very interesting area because thishad been a lake or a pond, very large
(27:11):
pond I guess, but it was maybe a smalllake, that was infested with mosquitoes
and carried disease and so forth.
And the monks who had a churchnearby had petitioned to build this
drainage tunnel back in the 1200s.
So all four of these levelsacross this col, which is, I
guess, is a small mountain.
Yeah, col means the, it's thehighest point of a hill or mountain.
(27:35):
Hill, yeah.
So it was, you know, relativelysmall but as Sally mentioned, the
visitor center was 20 miles away.
So many things packed.
I mean, you have the drainage, you havethe railway tunnel, you have the, you
know, the... I don't remember whichorder they were in, the canal tunnel
and then you have the road above.
So it was like, all these differentpathways through this mountain but not,
(27:55):
you know, all one on top of the other.
It was kind of fascinating.
They had a diorama, I feel that'swhat I would call it, like a
model of it in this little museum.
So we spent some time in there andlearned a little bit about that.
That was cool.
I thought that was fun.
Yeah.
At the top of that, by the visitorcenter, they had a structure, a stone
structure that was very similar to aborie, you know, the bories over by...
(28:19):
In the Luberon?
Yeah, in Luberon.
Yeah.
So there's that bories village.
Yeah.
And we went back after seeing that.
We went back and talked to those twoladies in the visitor center, spoke
very little English, but we conveyedto them that this was like a borie
and they didn't know anything aboutbories so it kind of showed them.
They were delighted to see, you know...
We had some pictures, yeah.
(28:40):
We had pictures of the boriesnear, what's the name of that town?
Gordes, Gordes.
Yeah.
Gordes, yeah.
So, but that was, yeah, just incredibleengineering and we had fun with it.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
And you also saw some folk artat the Ecluse de L'Aiguille?
Oh, oh yeah.
That was a really interesting place.
(29:00):
So I think, the lock keeperwas responsible for all this.
It's basically like metal pieces of art.
He just put together scrapmetal into different, like, into
people or machines or bikes.
And some of them were mechanical.
So I was surprised.
We had come into this place for thenight, and at the top of this lock where
(29:21):
this art is, and we had seen it as we'dcome up to the top of the lock but we
were busy getting the boat situated.
And then, at some point, everyonewent off doing something.
For some reason, I was left there kindof by myself so I walked over to this
artwork and I was by myself, and as Istepped in front of this one piece of
art, it all de sudden started movingand it was like a guy on a bicycle
(29:43):
or something and I was like, "Oh mygosh." It just took me by surprise.
I wasn't expecting anything tomove ... or make noise or anything.
Some of it's a littlegraphic, like you know...
R-rated.
Yeah, maybe R-rated, yeah.
Oh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
R-rated metal art?
Yes!
Yes.
Yes.
You'll have to look it up.
You can probably findsome pictures but yeah.
Yeah.
(30:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll look.
Yeah.
Got your attention now.
Yeah.
They had a motion sensor there, and alot of the art was kind of stationary,
you know, folk art I would call it,but you know, made with junk basically.
Yeah.
Scrap metals and junk, but very ingenious.
Yeah, yeah.
Some for sale.
Some for sale.
(30:23):
We didn't buy any, but...
You didn't buy any art?
No, not this time.
No.
Yeah, and that was the time we justpulled up next... we went through a
lock because we wanted to get throughthat lock so we'd be, have an early
start in the morning, so we pulled upon the other side, drove a stake in
the bank and spent the night there.
Absolutely gorgeous setting.
Yeah, that was so pretty.
(30:43):
Absolutely stunning,and a beautiful sunset.
What is it like sleepingon a small boat like that?
Well, you know, first I should probablydescribe... I mean, I think we slept
well, but I will say the cabins weresome of the smallest, like, even though
we've been on boats before, sailboatsand so on, and usually the cabins are
(31:05):
rather small but this was very small.
Like, when you walked in the room at thecabin of this boat, there was not room
for two people to stand in that cabin.
So like, you could go in and ifone person was in bed, the other
person could go into the bathroom.
But there was really only oneroom for one person to stand.
So you know, putting away your luggageand that sort of thing was a little
(31:27):
challenging with more than one person.
But sleeping was not a problem.
I mean, the beds were big enough.
Were they like queen size sort of beds?
It's probably more like a double.
They weren't all the same either.
There's some of them, the oneroom had like a little bit of a
bigger bed in it, but...
Yeah, they were... I would describethem as small twins pushed together.
(31:50):
Mm-hmm.
Small twins, you know, in the US we thinkof two twins being pushed together to
make a king but that wasn't the case here.
It was to make a, maybea full size, right?
Okay.
A couple of the cabins, it was kindof interesting the way they were,
the way it was set up because youwanted to sleep with your head facing
towards the door because on the otherend of the bed was sort of like a,
(32:11):
something that kind of hung downfrom the ceiling, like an overhang.
You kind of had to like slipyour feet underneath this thing.
I mean, there were several feet of space.
It wasn't coffin like to me oranything, but we did have one...
Right, but you don't want your head there.
Don't want your head there.
But we did have one guy who we foundout, well, he found out also, he
didn't realize he was claustrophobic.
(32:31):
But he happened to be in one ofthose cabins with that overhang.
Ours did not have that but his cabinhad that overhang and he got up in the
middle of the night like sort of in apanic, he was feeling claustrophobic.
So he ended up switchingcabins with another couple
and it was all okay, but yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I would say too, you know,these cabins, as I mentioned, they were
(32:53):
en suite, so you had a bathroom, thatwould have what they would call a wet
head, meaning that you would shower,the toilet, just slip the toilet seat
down and you would shower in aroundthe toilet area, and the sink area.
So it was very, very small.
All in one.
It was an all in one,all in one experience.
Kind of rustic.
(33:14):
It was very rustic.
Yeah, I would say more like glamping.
Yeah.
You know, glamour camping, glamping.
Yeah.
But if you've been on a boatbefore, you kind of expect that.
Sally said two people couldn't standin the cabin together at the same time.
Wow.
Pretty small.
In fact, that was a, just a kindof a thought reflection we had that
(33:34):
if we were to do this again, wewould have one more spare cabin than
the number of crew that we needed.
So if we, if there were four couples, wewould take, maybe use the five-cabin boat.
And that way, we could storeluggage in that last cabin.
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah, if you were two, two couples,I would get a three-cabin boat.
I mean, we both had collapsible,rolling duffles is what we had
(33:57):
packed in, but I will say, andalso, we had small rolling carryon.
But for the most part, ourluggage was pretty collapsible.
But even though it was, we couldonly fit one of our collapsible
bags, I think, underneath the bed.
There was a little bit of space thatyou could put your suitcase, and so
that was kind of a, you know, like whatare you going to do with your suitcases
(34:19):
that... It's not like you have a dresserin there, like you have sort of like
a shelf beside your bed and you canstow some of your stuff up there and...
Yeah, so yeah, it's very, very,very small, like it sounds like.
It is.
Mm-hmm.
It is.
And actually, we were sleepingwith... I had my, I think we had
the small carryon suitcase atthe foot of my side of the bed.
(34:40):
Nowhere to put it.
Nowhere else to put it.
Nowhere else to put it, yeah, yeah.
So you got to be careful with what youpack in and how much you have and...
Yeah.
And I think some travelerswill go, you know, they'll do
an out and back kind of trip.
We did a point to point, so if youwere to go out and back, you could
probably store luggage whereveryou're starting and ending.
In our case, we were starting at pointA and finishing at point B, so we
(35:03):
couldn't, we didn't have that luxury.
Yeah, you had to have your stuff with you.
Exactly.
Interesting.
You mentioned that Pont Canal sur l'Orb.
So tell me about that.
I don't know anything about that.
Well, that's just, I think that'sthe French name for that canal
aqueduct right outside of Béziers.
Ah.
And that's a, you know, prior tothis trip, we had seen videos of
(35:25):
people transiting France on canalboats, or in some cases, a sailboat.
This just kind of really intriguedus, that you could have a canal
on a bridge passing over a river.
That was really special, and it wasincredible that it was built in,
again, built in late, I think mid-1800sand, you know, and it wasn't leaking
as far as I could tell, you know?
(35:46):
It's holding water just fine andit was just pretty incredible.
Yeah.
Well, they were probably maintaining.
We don't have anything likethat here in the United States.
Nothing, no.
No.
Well, no.
You wouldn't do it thatway nowadays, you know?
Yeah.
And you also mentioned that you likedsightseeing in Toulouse but by then,
you were off of the boat, right?
Correct.
Yes.
(36:07):
When you got off, you must havefelt like in your hotel room was
like, "Oh! This is a palace!"
It was luxurious, yeah.
It was very nice.
Particularly the showers, you know?
Oh, yeah.
I took the longest shower that night.
Like, I don't know.
I thought I was never goingto come out because...
Well, you know, I mean,showering over the toilet?
(36:28):
Ah, no.
No.
No.
This is not happening.
So Toulouse wasn't really on ourradar, because we were focused on
the canal boat part of the trip.
We finished in Castelnaudarywhich it's a nice town.
Wasn't particularly special,but it was a very nice town.
It's all right.
And so we took the train fromCastelnaudary to Toulouse.
And when we arrived in Toulouse, actually,a little bit before we arrived there,
(36:51):
we had done a little bit of research,and I think you actually sent me a
Voice Map, maybe Elyse's or yours.
I'm not sure whose.
Elyse, yeah.
Yeah.
But when we arrived in Toulouse, it wasa beautiful day and we loved Toulouse.
Oh yeah, it was great.
I liked every bit.
Yeah.
I had no idea, didn't know what toexpect, and learned later it was like
the fourth-largest city in Franceand it was just, it was fabulous.
(37:13):
We had a really greattime exploring Toulouse.
We did a little bus tour there, too.
We did a petit train tour.
I'm a sucker for a petit train tour.
I just think it's a good way justto get an overview of the town.
It is.
You see a lot in a short period of time.
For cheap, you know, for a few euros.
So then we could come back andrevisit wherever we wanted to see.
So how much, how much timedid you spend in Toulouse?
(37:35):
Was it one night, two nights?
Ooh, just one night.
We got in maybe like around noontimeor late morning, I think, and
so we were there to have lunch.
We had lunch and spent the afternoon,and then we were leaving the next
morning on a plane, so we had,I guess we Ubered to the hotel.
It was near the airport.
Just had dinner there at the hotel,which was probably a mistake.
(37:57):
We should've had...... we shouldhave had dinner in Toulouse and then
gone to the hotel because it was...
There's not much there.
Well, there was a restaurant, butI don't, they had something that, I
think they had an event going on andso they had a large party coming in
and so we kind of had to talk our wayinto getting a place there to eat.
Only some of us did.
(38:18):
The rest of them were kindof, I don't know what they did
for dinner that night, but...
Two things I would say about theend of our trip is we, when we
got off the train, we just storedour luggage at a nearby hotel.
And just spent a couple euros.
They held our luggage for us,it was secure, and off we went.
We got that recommendation from Annie.
Yes, so we stored the luggage.
others in our group, you know, theytaxied immediately to the hotel and
(38:40):
dropped the luggage and came back, butdidn't think that was really necessary.
But the other thing is, for us, Ilike to push the easy button on travel
and so for the last, you know, forthe last night of a trip, I really
like staying at a airport hotel.
And by airport I meana hotel in the airport.
So in Toulouse, you may knowthere's a really nice hotel that
(39:02):
you literally walk out of receptioninto the airport concourse.
Which one is that?
I think, was it called the N Hotel?
Or I'm trying to think what it was called.
I have never done that.
I mean, not in Toulouse.
I've done that in other cities.
Yeah, you probably don'tneed to in Toulouse.
You're home by then.
No, no.
I don't.
But that was a, I think a reallygood thing because we had an early
(39:23):
morning flight, and we literally gotup, had a croissant or some breakfast
and then walked into the concourse.
Yeah, I think we had like a, Ithink we were leaving the hotel at
like 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning.
It was very early, so it wasnice not to have to travel.
Yeah.
Yeah, the flights out of Toulouseto get to Paris and then to
the US are brutally early.
(39:45):
You have to get up really early andso what we do anymore is we leave from
Barcelona because the flights leavefrom there at 3:00 or something and
I have an apartment not far, so justgo down to Barcelona and then take
the bus into the airport and take offby 3:00, which is quite easy to do.
(40:06):
Easy.
Or, we fly to, if we're flying to, throughAmsterdam, we fly the night before and
spend the night in Amsterdam and then takethe flight to the US, because it is, I
mean, those super early departure times...
Pretty brutal.
It's already difficult traveling andflying, you know, across the pond, but so
(40:27):
our flight was from Toulouse to Munich,from Munich and then Munich to Charlotte,
went to Charlotte, North Carolina area.
So that worked out pretty well.
So, okay, so overall with the boat trip,I mean, I've heard people say it's awfully
slow, so it's like hurry up and wait kindof deal because you need to be there all
(40:49):
the time to mind the boat, don't you?
Well, I mean, there were a couple oftimes we all got off the boat and went
to a restaurant, but yeah, there werea couple of people in our group that
were a little nervous about that, but...
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
Like, do you lock your stuff?
Do you have a lot?
Well, you didn't have, youdidn't bring very much, but...
Yeah, we didn't really havevaluables, but we did, there was a
(41:09):
way to lock the door on the boat.
The bikes were out on the deck but theywere kind of locked to the railing.
And I don't think anyone wouldwant to steal them anyways because
they weren't that great of bikes.
But I think they do sometimes getstolen, but yeah, I mean, I don't know.
John and I felt pretty comfortablewith it and we didn't have any issues,
luckily, with anything getting stolen butI guess that is a thing that can happen.
(41:31):
Well, did you ever think like,what if somebody hops on the
boat in the middle of the night?
No, I didn't think about that.
Didn't worry about that?
No, the only place that I might havewondered about something like that
happened was in, near Carcassonnebecause there were some homeless
people, it looked like maybethey were homeless people nearby.
Like, it seemed like where we were tiedup or, you know, stayed for the night,
(41:53):
there were like park benches, kind oflike a little bit of a park area right
there next to the canal, and maybe somepeople looked a little, you know, iffy.
But there were nine of youso you didn't ever feel...
And we actually asked the, therewas a boat right behind us I think.
Someone had struck up a conversationwith the guy in the boat and we asked
them were they going to be around thatevening and they said they were and we
(42:17):
asked if they could just kind of keepan eye out on our boat while we were out
to dinner, so yeah, it all worked out.
That worked out fine.
I think boaters tend to be kind of lookafter, you know, look after one another.
Everyone's kind of in the samesituation, so they know, what the needs
are and where to help if they can.
Were there mostly Englishspeakers on the...
(42:38):
On other boats?
Yeah.
Mostly I would say they were not Englishspeakers, they English-speaking but not,
maybe not, we saw, you know, maybe someGermans, Dutch, a few French I'm sure.
Well, I mean, I can say a lot ofthem couldn't communicate with us.
I mean, it was, you weren'talways sure you were getting
the full meaning but, you know.
(42:58):
We got by.
Back to your original question abouta, you know, overall impression, I
thought it was a really fun thing to do.
I don't like to do a lot ofthings twice because there's so
many places to go in the world.
I don't like to, you know, do thesame thing over and over again.
But I would recommend someone doing itwith maybe some recommendations to try
and maybe travel less distance on the tripso you're not rushing through it as much.
(43:23):
I wish we could have done that.
And then also, you know, have morespace by having that extra cabin, so
you have a place to put your things.
Yeah, perhaps not nine people.
That's a lot of people.
It was a lot of people.
There were, yeah, we did run acrossseveral people who would say, "Oh,
who are you traveling with?" Andwhen we would tell people that there
were nine people on our boat, theyjust about wanted to fall over.
(43:45):
But no, I mean, we're all stillfriends, so that, you know that's good.
We just got together with eight ofthe other people, the other day,
so yeah, we're all still friends.
It was a little challenging at times justbecause you're in close quarters, even
walking through the galley area wherethe kitchen is, it's like, oh, someone
has to step over so you can walk through.
And then, you know, it's kind of like aTetris game walking through the galley.
(44:07):
But it all worked out okay.
I think everyone enjoyed it.
I think the thing that made itchallenging was the space being
kind of confined at times, youknow, with that number of people.
Yeah, and I think what added tothat was the weather, so it was
pretty cool, late September, itwas pretty cool to be out at night.
And probably more than thetemperature was the wind.
(44:27):
The wind.
It was very windy, which I guess is prettytypical for that area of the country.
We had, when we were in Provence, we hadincredible winds traveling through there.
Yeah.
And it kept us, really kept us indoorsmore than we would've liked to.
Very windy there too, yeah.
It was very windy in Provence.
That kind of just tires you out aftera while, the wind, when you're in it.
(44:49):
But, you know, what made it enjoyablethough, Annie, you talked about, it
is a slow boat, and that's kind of thepoint of it is taking a little bit of a
breather and relaxing and reading a book.
Sally likes to journal.
You know, just differentthings, enjoying a nice glass
of wine as the sun's going down.
I think it's what ispart of that experience.
Yeah.
(45:10):
Slowing down.
I mean, I think, you would saythe same thing, I was never
bored at all the entire time.
Never bored.
I thought it was a really fun trip,and it was just, like I said, I wish
we could have had more time in some ofthe places, which, you know, it would
be taking it a little bit slower even.
Not so much in terms of thespeed of the travel, but just...
(45:31):
How far you wanted to get.
Yeah.
So instead of getting all theway to Castelnaudary, maybe you
would have stopped in Carcassonne?
You know, and you're somewhatlimited by the bases of the
operations too, so you have to keepthat in mind when you're planning.
But I would say if you were travelingin the summer, in more of a high season,
could be difficult to make that seven-dayjourney that we made just because of
(45:54):
queuing up ahead of the locks and youknow, maybe waiting to pass through
bridges and tunnel or whatever it may be.
One last question.
Who would you say this typeof activity is best for?
I mean, probably not people in theirteens or 20s, but maybe mature adults?
Maybe for little kids?
(46:15):
I don't know.
Could it be dangerous?
Like...
It would be a really fun tripfor like mom, dad, and you
know, a couple kids, few kids.
That would be, I think, a really fun trip.
Mm-hmm.
Although if they're real little, likeyou're not going to get in that water in
a canal, and if it's the summertime, yeah.
I mean, that's...
That's a terrible idea.
Don't.
(46:35):
No.
No.
It's not healthy, I don't think.
But I think that couldbe a fun family trip.
I think fun family trip or, you know,group, like our group, you know, we are
60-somethings, but I would say a group of30-somethings, 40-somethings, any type of
group activity like that, a smaller group.
Was there, like, a big tablewhere you could all sit and eat?
Yes.
Okay.
(46:55):
Yeah.
So there was a table with, like, sort ofa bench seat along three sides, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Both indoor and outdoors.
So top side there was a very largetable, and we had a canopy there
that we could put up or down.
And we would eat up theresometimes, but it was so windy.
I noted in my journal that, like,one day, one of my friends had her
(47:17):
olives blow off the plate, you know?
Olive blowing day.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
But yeah, I think for us, we've seenYouTubers or what have you that have done
multiple trips in multiple locations.
(47:37):
So for us, I think the Canal duMidi is a one-and-done, you know?
But maybe other canals wemight consider doing that.
Our preference is to be more activekind of individual travel as opposed
to, like, large group, riverboat or,you know, cruise ship type of travel,
so we like exploring on our own.
And so this really affords people who wantto do that a great opportunity, I think.
(48:00):
Wonderful.
Well, we're going to have to stop herebecause we've been talking a long time.
But it's wonderful because I don't thinkwe have had very many conversations about
canal... especially the Canal du Midi.
I mean, we talked about people whobike on it and things like that, but
not so much spending a week on it.
So thank you so much fortalking to me about this.
Oh, you're welcome.
(48:20):
You're welcome.
Our pleasure.
And thank you too, I can't tell you howmany podcasts I listened to prepare.
Oh, yeah.
Lots.
So, but we really appreciateyou, what you're doing as well.
And not just what you're doing,but the way that you do it.
And your, well, love your sense of humor,but also the kind of commercial aspect
and, you know, how you approach thepodcast, so thank you for doing that too.
(48:41):
Thank you very much.
And I wish you many happy trips to France.
All right.
Merci beaucoup.
Thank you.
Merci, au revoir.
Au revoir.
Again, I want to thank my patrons forgiving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing that.
(49:03):
You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
And a special shout-out this week tomy new Join Us in France champions:
Dee, Joanne Tenzer, and Katie Hall.
And thank you, Cathy, forediting your pledge up.
(49:24):
Would you join them too?
You can do it for as little as $3a month, but if you can afford it,
I would love to have you pledge alittle more so you can have access to
more of the rewards, such as the Zoommeetings, the monthly Zoom meetings.
Go to patreon.com/joinus, and to supportElyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
(49:47):
So two Sundays ago, I had my Zoommeetings with patrons, which is, I
think, my favorite Patreon rewards.
We got to hang out andchat about your plans.
You get to ask me pretty much anything.
And very often these patrons will alsomeet me in person, either at the bootcamp
or on a day trip with me, et cetera.
So, you know, it feelslike they're real friends.
(50:09):
It's fantastic.
The next dates are going to be July 26thand 27th, and there's a Saturday 6:00
PM meeting, a 9:00 AM Sunday meeting.
That one usually works out greatfor the folks in the Pacific, or my
favorite night owl, Kristy, from theCentral Time Zone in the US, and also
Sunday nights, 7:00 PM, France time.
(50:31):
You need to decide whichone works best for you.
And our small Aussie/New Zealand groupis growing as well, so that's wonderful.
Let me read a few reviews of my VoiceMaptours this week, and also tell you about
one that, oh, I didn't like so much.
Anyway, here's the good onesabout the Latin Quarter.
"The tour was structured well and hadprecise instructions. The experience
(50:54):
seemed very close to having a realguide." I'm a real person, I swear.
"I liked that it was self-paced, whichallowed us to stop at interesting
locations for pictures, art, coffee,et cetera." Another person wrote, "A
wonderful introduction to the Marais.
We would not have seen a majorityof the places Annie brought us to.
(51:15):
I'm thankful we had Annie in our pocket."Thank you very much. So another one
again, "This is the third tour of Annie's,which we've enjoyed from home." So this
is Montmartre. "It brought back fondmemories of Montmartre and answered
questions I didn't remember that I had.
It also made me eagerto climb the hill again.
(51:36):
She's a gifted storyteller whodoesn't overwhelm you with info.
She sets a good pace.
I enjoyed it very much." All right.
Yeah, he enjoys it from home, and why not?
You can enjoy thosetours anywhere you want.
About my Saint-Germain-des-Pres tour,"We enjoyed Annie's tour. It was great
being able to take the tour at ourconvenience. We appreciated her tips
(51:58):
on places to stop along the way."
Now, the one that made me unhappy,and there's one of those every
now and then, it's a reality.
One person kind of trashed myfood tour, around Les Halles a
few days ago because many storeswere closed and they got hangry.
I had to look it up.
I didn't know what it was.
I don't like it when people have a badexperience with one of my VoiceMap tours.
(52:23):
However, it says right in the tourdescription that it's best not to take
this tour on a Sunday afternoon or Mondayall day, because many stores are closed.
And these people showed up hungry and thenhangry on a Sunday afternoon, and they
(52:44):
took it out on me in the comment section.
I know most of you don't needthis reminder, but perhaps
a few do, so here I go.
French stores do close, especiallymom and pop food stores.
I know many of you are used to very longhours from all sorts of stores, but it's
not that way in France, not even in Paris.
(53:06):
When in France, you should not expectpeople to work nonstop, and you can't
expect them to hire a slew of poorlypaid workers who get no health insurance
and no benefits of any sort, becausewe don't do that in France either.
Also, please read the tourdescription before you take it.
There's a lot of importantinformation in there.
(53:29):
Podcast listeners get a big discountfor buying these tours from my website.
It's best for me as well because I getmore of what you pay instead of giving it
to Apple or Google, but if you buy from myboutique, it's not instant like it would
be if you bought from VoiceMap directly.
Give it a day or two, please.
To use your code, open VoiceMap, tapon Tour Codes at the bottom right,
(53:53):
enter the code, and download the tour.
You don't have to use yourtour credit immediately.
It just sits in youraccount until you're ready.
And if you're planning a trip to Franceand you want some expert help, you can
hire me as your itinerary consultant.
It's busy season, so book earlyat joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
(54:14):
Usually, you have openings within a month.
Right now it's more liketwo or three months.
It just depends.
Sometimes you luck out, but don't waittoo much is what I'm trying to say.
The Tour de France 2025 startedyesterday, on July 5th, 2025.
That's if you listen to this episodeas soon as it comes out, of course.
The tour set off yesterday from Lille.
(54:36):
Some of us cheer the racers on roadsideand some of us follow it on TV with a
coffee in hand, especially if you'refrom the US because that's, it would
be shown in the morning where you are.
This event is so much fun.
This year the route will start in Lille,then Normandy and Brittany, the Loire
Valley, Mont d'Or in the center of France.
(55:00):
Toulouse, my hometown on July15th, lots of days in the Pyrenees,
including Luchon-Super-Banniereswhich just got their train service
back last week, by the way.
That was a big deal for this small town.
Carcassonne on July 20th,
Montpellier and Mont Ventoux,and this one is a doozy.
(55:21):
But then they go on to the Alps andCourchevel, Albertville, Pontarlier,
on the border with Switzerlandbefore heading to Paris on July 27th.
We'll get to see aerial views ofchateaus, sunflower fields, coastal
roads, medieval villages as the riderspush through long days in the saddle.
(55:44):
Even if you're not a cyclist,the Tour de France is a wonderful
way to see the beauty of France.
And it might just inspire your next trip.
And let's be honest, it's a loteasier to watch from your sofa
than to pedal up the Mont Ventoux.
And those drones that they usegive the most amazing footage.
(56:05):
So I turn on my TV in the afternoonin France, that's when it usually
takes place, and enjoy as much ofit as I can, and I hope you do too.
My thanks to podcast editorsAnne and Christian Cotovan
who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast, an episodethat I really enjoyed recording
and I hope you'll enjoy listeningto it just as much as I did.
(56:28):
We called it "In Search of the Southwestof France" with Katherine MacMillan.
She was so much fun andshares so many wonderful tips.
So join me next Sunday for that.
Thank you so much for listening andI hope you join me next time so we
can look around France together.
(56:48):
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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