Navigating France by Train, Car, and Bus
[Music] this is Join us in France episode 549 bonjour i’m Annie Sergeant and join us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty culture and flavors of France today I bring you a conversation with Steven Nicholson about slow traveling through France by trains cars and buses we discuss the nuances of traveling between quaint villages tips for ensuring smooth transit experiences and memorable highlights from Steven’s 24-day journey listen in for practical advice and captivating tales of French adventures this podcast runs on sugar passable Wi-Fi and the fabulous support of delightful humans like you you book itinerary consoles stroll around Paris with me on the Voice Map app ride shotgun in my zippy electric car brave the boot camp or toss a few euros my way on Patreon and I do a little happy dance every time want to skip the ads and keep me caffeinated there’s a link for that in the show notes or head to join us.com/boutique and vivodcast nerds and don’t forget to check out the website that goes with this podcast that’s where you’ll find all the names and places we mentioned spelled out properly links to hotels and restaurants the full transcripts as well and the transcript is super handy it makes the podcast searchable maybe your memory is perfect but mine isn’t so I use it all the time you’ll find everything on the episode page at joinusinfrance.com for the magazine part of the podcast after my chat with Stephen today I’ll discuss whether or not we’re going towards a carfree Paris some of us love that idea some of us do not is it even realistic i have some data to share that will shed some light on this question [Music] bonjour Steven Nicholson and welcome to join us in France bonjour Annie thanks for having me wonderful to talk to you so you had a very nice leisurely trip to France you balanced trains cars you stayed in small places how long did you stay so we were in France for 24 days that’s very nice and it was your first time in France wasn’t it first extended trip i was there for a few days in college but that was a long time ago yes yes so you jumped right in 24 days for a first trip that’s brave isn’t it well my family’s from England and we typically go over there for 3 weeks at least and we’ve taken trips to Italy and to Europe and we like 3 weeks it’s long enough you fully utilized the cost of your airfare and get immersed in it so that was something we were used to and it was just you and your wife on this trip right yeah yeah we’re retired now so have more flexibility to have longer trips yeah yeah you’re young retirees you don’t look like 67 all right you just look young that’s great all right and your trip was around May 2024 right yeah it was midappril to midmay okay all right very good so you took a train directly from CDG to Ain i’d like to hear about that experience what was it like did it work out not tell me about that we arrived at the airport and I had budgeted 3 hours of time from arrival to catching the train just to be on the safe side and it took about an hour to get from the airplane to the train station so we had plenty of padding as far as time was concerned we took the we go which is the lower cost version and that was for two reasons one was the cost and one was also it just matched up better with the time that we wanted to leave the airport now we bought the supplement to the ticket the prices are low you can pay the lower price and not have a seat reservation but since we were traveling together I paid the extra €9 for seat reservations right and also I wanted to make sure we were on the top level so we got a better view even though we had a hard time staying awake yes now the WeGo does not have any catering on board so we did buy some snacks to eat on the way even though we had a chance to get a sandwich in the airport but it was smooth yeah finding the train was not difficult no no and you know you need to show your ticket to get on the platform i didn’t know that beforehand but that seems to be standard for the high-speed trains in the notes I mentioned that I was a little worried about security of the luggage but the fact that only ticketed passengers can get on and they’re going a long distance it’s not like somebody getting on the rear from the airport to Paris and they just hop on and then get off the next stop so I don’t think people should have to worry about luggage yeah it’s really not an issue on the rear it is an issue because if you take the RER from the airport into the city and that train makes many stops along the way you have several opportunities for some scumbag to hop in the train grab somebody’s backpack or somebody’s suitcase usually it’s the backpacks that they go for and run out of the train and the doors close and you’re stuck this does not happen with the express trains between the airport and gardun so if you’re going to do the rear take the express one because it’s less likely to be a problem for you all right we had originally talked about renting a car the entire time but I definitely was glad I made the choice of taking the train just because it was so much easier and cost effective as well especially when you use we go right so you used all three kinds of you used we go you used in which is the more expensive and then you use something called classic yeah we go classic we go classic which we don’t have in the southwest so I’ve never taken that yeah that was in the latter part of the trip and I can talk about that later yeah we can talk about that a little later okay so generally I recommend people schedule 3 hours between the time they land and the time they take the train and it’s true that if all goes well if your plane isn’t late if the delivery of your suitcase but you were traveling with carry-on right yes right so you didn’t have to wait for delivery but you know if there are no delays at security well it’s passport control when you exit some days passport control takes a long time and sometimes it’s really quick and there’s no way to plan that yeah i would still do 3 hours even though I had a good experience this time i was very lucky so yeah yeah yeah i mean it doesn’t take much you know your plane’s delayed and whatever and especially if you get the we go tickets they’re not refundable usually so you know you’d have to buy a brand new ticket so yeah take your time all right so then you made your way to Avenue yeah so you get to the TGB station and then you take the local train into Avenue right and we got an Airbnb very close to the train station which was kind of a thing that we did throughout so we didn’t have to walk very far and then we used the local trains during our four days in Avignon to go to Arl so that was very seamless i bought the tickets the day of we took the local bus to St louis to Provence right a regional bus yeah and that was fine you always wonder about where you buy tickets and how you deal with that and it was pretty straightforward at least there in Avenueon yeah typically the bus station the regional bus station is right by the train station most cities I’ve ever I don’t remember this i can’t think of an exception except for Paris because it’s giant and there are fewer regional but in the rest of France the bus station the regional bus station is right by the train station and you just go there buy a ticket get on for the most part that’s how it works so it’s pretty seamless those were the two public transportations we used in Avenueon and then we went we rented a car at the TGV station and so we took the train out to the TGV station and rented a car there one point that I was going to bring up was that I was looking for prices and prices change on rental cars there’s not one price all the time so I made a reservation fairly early which I thought was a pretty good price and then I went back and looked later which is dangerous because you might see a lower well you might see a lower price and think “Oh I should have waited.” It turns out though that most of the rental car operations will let you cancel your reservation so if you see a good price go ahead and do it but don’t hesitate to look for a lower price in the future and then just cancel your old reservation and then make the new reservation so I would do it the opposite direction i would make the new reservation and cancel the old one right well that’s why Yeah that’s what I did i Okay all right yeah yeah so you know instead of waiting and thinking oh is it going to go down is it going to go down just make the reservation and then if it does go down just cancel the old one and make the new one right yeah yeah i mean cars you can normally cancel i saved $100 just by doing that very good yeah yeah so we stayed 4 days in an Airbnb just outside of the Lubberon and just took trips usually halfhour drive to various villages the whole trip was kind of built around these the Leu village de France yes i look for areas that had the highest concentration of those villages and Provence was one of them and the Dordonia was another one so I kind of used those as places I wanted to get to and then I built the rest of the trip kind of around that so I could make the loop around France right and yeah the aviron also has a high concentration there’s a few areas like that that have quite a few yeah and that’s a good way to go and in middle of April to middle of May that’s where tourism starts up again so these villages are not going to be completely dead there’s going to be some like the the little pottery shop and the restaurants are going to be open whereas if you go in January we’re recording this in January i can guarantee you it’s all going to be locked up nothing is open the rest of the year we uh returned the car to the train station to TGV train station and this was our longest day of travel so we took the train from Avenue TGV to Avenue Central Avenue Central to Nim and then that was a regional train then we got a connection to an intercity train to Carcasson we got off there stored our luggage near the train station and then we walked to the chateau or the town and looked around there and then went back and got our luggage and then caught the regional train from Carcasson to Tulus so yeah I want to you know break that down a little bit so you arrived in Carason and stored your luggage somewhere was this lockers in the city in the train station or did you arrange for like nanny bags or something yeah I don’t remember the exact app i had two apps on my phone for companies that show people who will store your luggage and I found one that was close to the train station and they’re typically about 5 per bag y and you have to tell them approximately when what time you’re going to be there which you know because you’re going to arrive by train so right i mean they’re usually places that this is one of their many businesses exactly they do laundry they rent out Airbnbs and this is kind of a subset of their business right they probably also like if you pick up a package or if you return a package they will also do Amazon returns and they will do other returns for other companies there are plenty of like the one that does it near me is it’s a little boutique thing that sells just local produce locally made things some cheeses some wines and they also do all sorts of other things on the side so probably keep your bags things like that and it’s great because it makes your life easy they probably don’t do this every day but it’s very handy if you need that i’ll put a link to Nanny Bag this is the one that I’ve been recommending they seem to be you know and most of these places they will sign up with different ones like they’re on Natty Bag and they’re on whoever else does this you know it’s same store just going through different aggregators is is how it works let’s dial back a little bit to your time in the Liberon okay did you have a favorite thing you did in Aignon or the Liberon area was there something that stands out well another focus was to visit markets and so the market in Sani was very nice and just visiting the small villages i just enjoy that and especially that time of year because as you said there are things happening but it’s not super crowded exactly it’s not like the height of tourist season which would be probably July is especially in Provence because of the lavender fields that’s when everybody wants to go so between middle of June to middle of July or late July even it’s going to be mobbed seriously mobbed yeah so we saw probably six or seven little villages some that were on the list some that were not on the list but sure it was fun just find a car park and walk in walk around get a pastry enjoy yourself yeah so it’s interesting you wrote in your notes that for the cities where you took the car you picked ahead of time with Google Maps where you were going to park tell us a little bit about that yeah I just wanted to I didn’t want to get to one of these villages and be wandering around and getting into parts of the village I wasn’t supposed to be so instead of saying I’m going to go to Rousilion or I would look specifically on the map and find where the car parks were and I would go to the car park directly because each of the villages has one or number of car parks and you’re going to have to park there i’m not going to try to park anywhere else except the designated spots right and this is an excellent way to do this just instead of setting your GPS to I’m going to Ron for example i happen to know that in Rion there is a parking area right close to where the Santi starts where everybody goes and you pay what 10 bucks or something for the day nobody stays for the whole day you know you have cars coming and going all day because they walk through Santier and then head out there’s not that much you can do in Wong but it’s very good to set your GPS to the parking spot and this is true also in big cities you know don’t say I’m going to Tulus no say I’m going to my parking wherever I’m going to park most small villages that get a lot of visitors will be prepared so they have some signs but you never know maybe the wind blew it off or something and you have no idea where to go and then you find yourself on these in these crazy little medieval streets with a car and you’re like “No I don’t want to be here.” Yeah so another thing is you mentioned that you used a parking application instead of cash to pay for your parking how did that work out for you yeah it worked out fine one nice thing was that you’d have this line of people at the meter trying to put their car information in and I would just get onto my phone i think it was pay by phone was the app in that particular area i think they used one particular app and you already had your car information in the app so you basically just said I’m here and how long do you want to stay for you’re not trying to figure out what buttons to push and people behind you getting annoyed at you because you can’t read the thing correctly and so yeah that can be a problem because if there’s a long line and I’ve even made mistakes i use those Bod is what they’re called the machines to pay for parking and sometimes you especially if when it comes to how long you’re going to stay so you say “Oh I’m going to stay for plus plus plus.” And you see the price go up and up and up and at a certain point the price quadruples because you went an extra minute you’re like “Oh no no I don’t want to do that.” And so you try and back up and you can’t and oh it’s like you have to start over again so the apps are good but the problem with the apps is that different areas will have different apps right did you Were you able to use yours in several towns yes ah okay yeah so that was good i didn’t need to but if I decided I needed to stay an extra hour you could do that on your app you wouldn’t have to go back to the to the car the parking lot car yeah excellent as long as you have reception phone reception right you need data to do this very good you mentioned also using your credit card to fuel up and using the Wise card this is not something that has come up a lot yeah are you familiar with a Wise card at all i know what it is i don’t have one but I know what it is okay but explain please there’s plenty people who don’t know yeah so the Wise card is like a debit card and you put money in your currency so US dollars for me and then you can convert it to euros so it then has euros in your account it’s more seamless to use in various foreign countries and also the exchange rate is much better or it’s a good exchange rate that you’re guaranteed now what I had happen to me was I went to fuel up and I don’t let the balance be too large on this debit card just from a safety standpoint and I was going to buy maybe €30 of fuel so I had maybe €70 in my account i put the card in and it won’t accept it because they hold like €150 when they do it even though you’re only going to buy €30 right cuz they don’t know how much you’re going to buy so they just put a big hold on it okay yeah so you’ll see that hold on your credit card it’ll go away but temporarily so and then there was one case the same I think it was the same place I was trying to buy fuel one of my credit cards didn’t work so I tried the Wise card first it didn’t have enough balance in it then I used a regular American credit card it didn’t work i was starting to panic because I had a train to catch and then I tried the third you know the third option and it finally did work yeah yeah but you do see that you do see this thing come up on your credit card if you look at your balance and you think “Why did they charge me €150?” And they’re not it’s just a temporary thing but it doesn’t just go away immediately sometimes it takes a day to go away right they put that hold on there so don’t panic yeah we have the exact same problem with EV car chargers they also put a hold on i don’t think they ever put on 150 because you couldn’t possibly spend that much with an EV but whatever it is it’s a big hold some people are always like “Oh what is this?” It it just goes away they end up charging you whatever you did use and not the whole thing are you happy with your Wise card otherwise yeah yeah it does allow you to take two ATM withdrawals per month but it’s not huge but then you don’t really need that much cash these days so no it’s not that much of a restriction okay so now we’re back to Kasog i’ve had somebody ask me once on an itinerary call and so I’ll relate this so those who are listening know this if you want to stop in Kasson for however many hours to visit on your way to Tulus for example you just buy a train ticket to Kasonasson you can’t buy a ticket with a stop in Kasonason it doesn’t work that way so just buy ticket to Kakason and buy another ticket Kakason to Tulus if that’s where you’re going to end up for some reason this person hadn’t she had never thought of that and Gakasan the train station is not right by where the medieval citadel is but it’s not very far so you stored your luggage and then you hoofed it to the citadel yes I did it was interesting because I followed Google Maps and Google Maps led me onto this mud path it had been raining that day and it was it was an experience i told my wife “Okay Google Maps says to go this way.” And we go in there and all of a sudden we’ve got an inch of mud on our shoes and I said “Oh I think this is a bad idea.” Yeah so don’t always trust Google Maps it seems like it’s a bad idea it probably is a bad idea anyway so yeah we went to the Citadel now because we had all that travel beforehand we got there in the afternoon and I think it may have been a weekend but it was very busy i think you said it was May 1st saturday it was Mayday it was the day before Mayday okay it was the day before Mayday oh these are super busy weekends yes i didn’t have the best experience at Carcasson just because it was so busy it just seemed seemed very touristy to me well it is if you go on one of those long weekends it really is because you have visitors but you also have all the French families that have been say “Oh we’ll go to Kakasan one of these days.” And they all go because they have a long weekend so why not go on their long weekend and it’s very very busy so yeah I would avoid Kakason you know the weekend around May 1st the weekend around May 8th Easter weekend would also be very very busy mhm the opposite thing is also true if you go in the winter if you go in January or February well you’re better off going on the weekend because that’s when there will be a few people if you go on a Monday morning in February you’ll be the only one there so it’s just Yeah you know timing makes a big difference yeah it does yeah all right so you enjoyed Carason even though it was very busy yeah it’s beautiful but it was very busy yeah and then you made your way to Tulus for two nights right two nights in Tulus yeah so we took Elise’s voice map tour which was excellent oh good i think it’s great you know I’m always mentioning my own voice map tours because you know but I think Elise does a great job and I wish she would do more of them yeah I do also and it was very interesting being in Tulus on Mayday yeah why well we go out and there are all these police officers with machine guns and we think “What is going on here are we going to be afraid for our life?” So we went and did the voice map tour and it was a nasty day that day it was raining ah so we got through most of the tour and then we decided we were going to go back to the apartment and we ran right into the march they were marching in downtown yep and so we’re thinking okay how do we even get across we had to go across the parade route and all the people with their banners and it was just interesting to see their enthusiasm for that particular it’s different than Labor Day in the United States very much so yes so Labor Day in the United States you’re going to have floats and uh fun and whatever in France it’s a day when most of the Sandika so it’s a day when unions called Sika in French call people to demonstrate and it’s usually not I mean they always have security they always have people with machine guns because that’s how they do this in France but it’s usually not violent i don’t remember there being any problems with the May 1st parade in to lose last year it’s usually fine but it can be a little bit startling yeah it was a little surprising at first but you know by the time we got through the crowd and we were relaxed it wasn’t scary or anything yeah yeah yeah it’s just it’s just very different and in Paris they have so in Paris if you go around the Louvre not very far from the Louv on Vivoli you have this big gold statue of Jonavar and that’s where the extreme right-wing people always meet up to do their demonstration that has tended to be a bit more tense than the others i would personally avoid that area not that there’s been big problems recently but So how did you like to lose not on Mayday so on May 2nd were you there on May 2nd as well well we still saw a lot of it and actually I was very pleasantly surprised with Tulus i thought it was beautiful mhm i mean just so different than a lot of the other larger places that we went into went to Bordeaux and Paris of course and they use stone as their building material and Tulus with the brick mhm so yeah I would definitely recommend going to Tulus yeah there’s very fun things to do i mean I wouldn’t spend two weeks or whatever but for two or three nights there’s plenty to do yeah and then if you spend longer go to Carason go to Albi go to Fua you can have very nice day trips we have a whole category on the website about day trips you can do from Tulus so lots plenty to do in here then you went to let’s see ah you took a train to K yeah so that was interesting originally we were going to take the train we were going to stay in Carcasson for two nights and then I decided to stay in Tulus instead good good decision and the ultimate goal was to get to the Dordonia specifically Sarlot there’s a train to Sarlot but once you get there you still need a car yep so we thought about getting a car in Ordo but that’s almost a two and a half hour drive so then I was searching for somewhere else to get a car and brie yes yeah that’s a big enough place that they did have rental cars so I needed to get there but we were trying to limit how much we did in a day so I was looking for somewhere between Tulus and Briv that we could stop and so Koha looked like a good place it is a nice place so we spent the night there and I would recommend going there too it was very pretty the old part of the city there you know there’s some houses that have been stuckcoed but it seems like a lot of people are taking the stucco off and then you have the more original brick and timber construction and so it’s very pretty yeah so you have halftimbered houses that in the 50s they were noticing that they were degrading quickly and so they said “Well let’s just stucco over all of that.” And so you ended up with medieval houses covered with stucco and now that they have better products to protect the brick and the wood they are you know most people are removing the stucco and you see bare brick and timber for the half tim kind of houses which makes the place look very nice and cow has a lot of medieval kind of houses they’re not all beautifully restored but some are very very nice and Leon Valantre is very nice if you like wine there’s plenty of wine to taste in K but you guys don’t drink right yeah right and how is that not drinking in France well we don’t eat out a huge amount either we tend to bring stuff in from the supermarkets or the markets and cook it in our Airbnb we do eat out of lunch sometimes so it’s not like we’re out all the time and worrying about looking odd because we’re not getting any wine nobody car i mean honestly I was out at lunch today with my husband cute little restaurant in a small village near us full of people i think one table had wine on it everybody else was drinking water soda you know French people drink less and less wine especially at lunch now anymore it’s unusual oh there was some people drinking a beer yeah there was some guys drinking a beer i will drink a beer yeah i’m like “Oh maybe I’ll drink a beer.” No I don’t want a beer so but yeah so that that happens too yeah so we left the next morning to go to Brie and rent the car which was interesting because there wasn’t a rental counter in the train station they must have some arrangement where the rental agent brings the information leaves it at the train information counter so we went there and the person that it wasn’t a employee of the rental car agency and we got our key and the documentation and then the car was parked in the parking lot at the train station but that did require us sending our license and our passport to the rental agency ahead of time yeah they sent me a WhatsApp message saying “Can you provide this information for us?” Which again I didn’t expect that but it worked out fine took pictures of our documents and told them when we were going to be there and rented the car and brought it back and handed it back in so it worked yeah yeah i mean BARD is not a touristy place at all so it might have been a better idea to rent from Kor because Kor gets more visitors but I have never tried to rent a car in either town so I don’t know if I had advised you I would have told you to rent a car in Tulus and drop it off in Bordeaux probably that would have been my advice because you save yourself a lot of there’s a lot more choice for car rentals in big cities like Bordo and Tulus yeah there was only one particular brand there weren’t more than one and one thing that you run into as well is that French supermarkets rent cars and vans but these are for people who live in France i have never heard of anybody who doesn’t have a French address a French electrical bill or water bill or something proof of residency to be able to rent a vehicle from Llair or Ocean or Kur or places like that but French people French residents can rent I mean several times I’ve rented moving vans from them if you’re moving a big big piece of furniture it’s like the U-Haul you know like that sort of thing except that it’s always attached to a big grocery store and they also have smaller cars but I don’t think they would rent them to people who are not residents in France for people who are not residents you have to go through Herz or Six or Avis or you know one of the big ones like that and sixth is quite big in France i don’t I’m not sure if they are very big in the US but they are not I did not use them just because I wasn’t familiar with them i used Herz and Avis right right but that’s fine so then you spent some a few days in the Don yeah so it was a pleasant drive from the train station to Sarlot and we specifically arranged that we’d be there on a Saturday which is big market day and our Airbnb was right along the main thoroughare in the old part of the city that was nice just walking out the door wandering through the market buying some fuagra and some baguettes and some goat cheese and taking it back and having it for lunch yep and then we did a couple of day trips to well actually from the train station rather than going straight to the Airbnb which we couldn’t get into we visited Roab Mador and Martell which are both on that list of most beautiful villages and then one of the other days we went to Dom and Loro Gajak and then another day we went to the Chateau Milandes Miland yeah chat de Miland with Josephine Baker right and they also have a raptor show which is really Yeah I love the bird show yeah the virtual yeah the bird show it’s great and the Chateau Ben yes the Chateau Bak beautiful yeah I love that i like medieval history so yeah we spent four days in Sarlot and then returned the car and took the regional train into Bordeaux so you returned the car in Brie same place you picked it up yep yes same place yep and then took the regional train to Bordeaux which is easy peasy yep got an Airbnb by the train station again and then used the trams to get into the main part of the city we did a walking tour audio walking tour there as well was it a voice map or somebody else it was a voice map but it wasn’t one of us yeah yeah yeah what do you need to do a one for Bordeaux yeah was it okay though was it It was okay but it wasn’t as good as you and Elise yeah we put in a lot of time to our voice map tours and other people they just let’s let’s do something yeah yeah so Bordeaux was very different than Tulus but still nice yes very nice yeah Bordeaux is a beautiful town it’s just the feeling is very different you know it’s just not It had more English for a long time we didn’t have that in yeah i guess it was also a lot of the old parts were torn down and then kind of rebuilt in this style so that was good we did not go to the wine museum because we don’t like wine but right that’s a good reason not to go i mean honestly if you don’t like wine why yeah we had thought of originally skipping Bordeaux and just going directly to tours but I thought uh it’ be nice to see something different and there was it wasn’t very easy to get it was easier to go to Bordeaux spend the night again make it more relaxing i didn’t want to have a six-hour day of changing trains so that was Yes yes brie to tour would be complicated i’m sure you can do it if you are bent on not having a good day much easier to go to Bordo and then directly yeah and then we took the this was our ine trip and we decided to go first class because it wasn’t that much more expensive than second class when we bought the tickets so we splurged so is now a good time to tell me the differences between all these types of trains is it worth the extra money or Well same i mean if I had the option of saving money I would take advantage of it but that’s just me i mean it’s not like you might some people might think oh I don’t want to ride with the riff raff in in uh the lower cost is it really riffraff though or was it just regular people no it’s not yeah yeah it’s just regular people i would have no problem doing that it was fun going in first class i mean if it’s not that much more expensive but there are cases where the we go can be significantly cheaper and it’s not really that much different from my perspective if you travel light and you’re okay bringing your own drinks and food then we go is just fine now if you have more suitcases bigger you know if you have a big suitcase whatever it’s better to be in first class because you have more room and things like that but you know it yeah they’re good options exactly it’s good to have options france has a great train system yeah so the last thing we’ve been talking a long time so we need to speed it up but you had some adventures in the Lir Valley you did L Valley without a car we did a whole episode about that uh it was episode 432 how did that work out for you from Tul you went to which is easy yeah that was easy and you could see two shadows there we just went to the one the one associated with Leonardo da Vinci yeah we went to Lang yeah that was good the trains are less frequent so you have to be patient in terms of it’s not like you can go and get back exactly when you want to you may have to wait a little bit and then we had our trip to Shenan so which again it’s not as regular as Ammois and the weekend we were in that area in the Lir Valley it was the Ascension Day slash whatever the other holiday was this year victory in year i don’t know it was a victory in Europe yeah it was May 8th and Yeah it was around May 8th yeah it’s a long weekend so I bought tickets for Shannon so and I thought “Oh I’ll just buy the train tickets the day before and I went to buy them.” Not that weekend not that week nope so it was sold out even though it was a regional train and so what we ended up doing was finding a train to the village just before Shenano and having to walk five miles to get to Shannon so we’d already committed to buying the tickets and so we toughed it out yeah yeah but the word to the wise is don’t always assume that the regional train will have room those weekends are very very busy i’ve said this a million times but if it’s Easter May 1st May 8th watch out all the French people are out and they will book everything like everything right so it worked out okay but it could have been I was panicking there for a little while yeah yeah yeah so what did you learn about France on this trip overall was it a good experience tell me more yeah my wife was a little hesitant at first americans think the French don’t like Americans and so my wife was hesitant about the trip from that perspective but we’ve taken trips to many other countries so this was not our first time traveling so we have experience around the world and my wife said this was the best trip that we’ve been on so it was a combination of the food even though we didn’t eat out a lot just the food in general that we’ve bought in markets the pastries the friendliness of the people especially going in and then to shop making sure you say bonjour and you know that goes a long way and people are very nice so as a consequence we are coming back again this year wonderful yeah so we’re gonna spend another three weeks so obviously we had a great time and we’re going to spend a lot of the time down in your direction in Albi and in Norbon oh nice nice there’s an episode coming about Bizier that you want to hear the Okay yeah we planned on going there yeah so that’d be great yeah wonderful and you don’t even speak very good i mean you can pronounce French so you probably speak a little bit yeah i’ve used Dolingo and I’m using Babel this time to try to learn it i can read it well i can speak it okay i have the hardest time understanding people speaking right right but even if you’re not very good at French people are friendly to you right i mean it’s Oh yeah yeah we only had a few cases where they couldn’t speak some English but even then I knew enough French that I could communicate i could say France you know so perfect very good well Stephen thank you so much for talking to me about your trip you’ve shared some very interesting stuff uh a lot of warning to people to do this do that don’t do that so that’s very helpful for future travelers thank you so much and I wish you another wonderful trip in France okay thank you mercivo again I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that you can see them at patreon.com/join us a special shout out this week to my new join us champions Jude and Liz G and thank you Sheree Noel for updating your pledge up to group D podcast would you join them too you can do it for as little as $3 a month but if you can afford it I would love to have you pledge more so you can have access to more rewards go to patreon.com/join us that’s p a t r e o n join us no spaces or dashes and to support Elise go to patreon.comart e L Y S A R T i’m recording ahead this week so I don’t have any new voice map reviews to share but if you’re curious about what listeners think of my voice map tours head over to join us infrance.com/vmr that stands for voice map reviews you’ll find lots of feedback from fellow travelers who’ve walked the streets of Paris with me in their ear maybe your review will be the next one I read podcast listeners get a big discount for buying these tours from my website it’s best for me as well because I get to keep more of what you pay instead of giving it to Apple or Google but if you buy from my boutique it’s a manual process so don’t expect it to be instant like it would be if you were buying directly from the app but most of you listening to me right now plan their trips at least a few days weeks or months in advance so you probably have plenty of time to use your tour code open voice map tap on tour codes at the bottom right enter the code and download the tour you own it forever even if you change phones just log into your voice map account to access it again the tours work without data because the audio images and maps are downloaded to your phone and GPS works anywhere even without cell service best of all you can listen in virtual playback from anywhere in the world perfect if Paris is not in your immediate plans so yes take me in your pocket with Voice Map if you’re planning a trip to France and want expert help you can hire me as your itinerary consultant it’s busy season so book early at joinusinfrance.com/boutique usually I have openings within a month but right now it’s more like two or three months out so don’t wait let’s talk about something that comes up often in France and especially in Paris are Parisians ready to give up cars in the city this debate gets a lot of attention and I want to give you the latest on what’s happening and how it ties into France’s push towards greener transport so back in March 2024 Parisians were asked a pretty direct question during a public consultation the city wanted to know are you in favor of turning 500 more streets into green pedestrianfriendly zones across all neighborhoods of Paris and guess what 66% of the people who voted said yes but here’s the thing the voter turnout was very low less than 4% of registered voters actually went to the polls still the city is moving ahead and this will mean that about a 100,000 parking spots will be removed from Paris that’s a big shift this isn’t just about one vote in Paris though nationwide things are changing too the ADM that’s France’s Agency for Ecological Transition published a study in September 2024 now ADM I should say is the government agency that works on all things related to sustainability from energy efficiency to clean transport they’re also a key player in the electrification of transport in France they help fund and guide projects for electric vehicles charging stations and more eco-friendly urban planning anyway their study asked people in French cities with more than 100,000 residents what they think about sustainable transport measures and the results were very telling 77% of people support more pedestrian zones 65% are in favor of speed limits of 30 km hour unless you’re behind the wheel and then that’s awfully slow and a huge 85% want more bike lanes that shows a strong shift in public opinion toward more sustainable mobility people are more willing to accept changes that reduce pollution and noise of course not everyone agrees some elected officials and drivers rights groups still push back against these changes worried about access and convenience but overall it’s clear that more and more people in France not just Parisians are open to rethinking how we use cars in cities and how we can move toward a cleaner quieter and greener future if you have noticed these changes in your travels in France or have thoughts about carfree city life I’d love to hear from you perhaps on Facebook or perhaps as a patron my thanks to podcast editors Ann and Christian Civan who produced the transcripts and get ready for an incredible journey on our next episode of Join us in France i’ll be chatting with Rowena as she takes us through her adventurous hike along the Schuman Dupi and the Silly Valley these are all on the Camino right she shares memorable encounters tackling rain soaked trails and breathtaking landscapes you won’t want to miss her captivating story we also talk about planning perseverance and the joy of exploring France on foot thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together the Join us in France travel podcast is written hosted and produced by Annie Sergeant and copyright 2025 by addicted to France it is released under a creative comments attribution non-commercial no derivatives [Music] license heat heat [Music] heat heat [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah heat heat [Music] away [Music]
How do you plan a smooth and memorable trip across France using trains, rental cars, and buses? In this episode of the Join Us in France Travel Podcast, titled Navigating France by Train, Car, and Bus, host Annie Sargent chats with Stephen Nicholson about his 24-day journey through France. Stephen and his wife combined different types of transportation to explore big cities, small towns, and hidden gems—without joining a tour group.
They started in Paris and used the OuiGo high-speed train to reach Avignon, then added regional trains, rental cars, and local buses to visit places like Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Carcassonne, Sarlat-la-Canéda, and Amboise. Stephen shares practical advice on booking train tickets, rebooking car rentals to save money, and using travel apps to avoid stress.
Annie and Stephen also talk about how to find the best parking in small villages, how to use luggage storage services, and why it’s smart to plan around French public holidays. They touch on lesser-known challenges like fuel station card holds and using Wise debit cards in Europe.
Whether you’re planning to travel light, visit Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, or simply get the most out of your trip without overpacking your schedule, this episode is full of useful, real-world tips.
Subscribe to Join Us in France for more smart travel advice, inspiring guest stories, and honest discussions about what it’s really like to explore France at your own pace.
Table of Contents for this Episode
[00:00:15] Introduction and Trip Overview — [00:00:31] Today on the podcast — [00:00:56] Podcast supporters — [00:02:06] The Magazine segment — [00:02:37] Steven and Annie about ”Navigating France by Train, Car, and Bus” — [00:04:01] First Impressions and Travel Logistics — [00:08:07] Exploring Avignon and Surroundings — [00:09:26] Navigating Car Rentals and Local Markets — [00:11:53] Journey to Carcassonne and Toulouse — [00:14:15] Favorite Things in the Luberon — [00:18:54] Wise Card — [00:21:29] Carcassonne — [00:24:12] Toulouse:Take Elyse’s VoiceMap tour! — [00:24:38] Encountering a French Labor Day Parade — [00:25:22] Labor Day in France vs US — [00:26:46] Exploring Toulouse and Surrounding Areas — [00:27:45] Journey to Cahors and Car Rentals in France — [00:30:02] France for Non-Foodies — [00:31:00] Renting a Car in Brive-la-Gaillarde — [00:33:54] Adventures in the Dordogne — [00:38:42] Navigating the Loire Valley — [00:40:53] Should You Worry About French People Not Liking Americans? — [00:43:21] Thank you Patrons — [00:44:36] Discounts for Podcast Listeners — [00:45:57] Car-Free Paris? — [00:49:00] Next week on the podcast — [00:49:40] Copyright — More episodes about how to get around in France