Life in France

Who’s hungry?

The name Michelin used to accompany us on every vacation to France from the US because we always brought the guidebook for the city that we were visiting. If we were going to rent a car then we’d need the map to get us from Paris to that destination. Eventually it was more efficient, although considerably heavier, to pack an atlas that covered all of the roads in France. Although we never consulted it, we knew about the Red Guide for hotels and eateries and who hasn’t heard of the famous Michelin stars awarded to outstanding restaurants? That’s why I was surprised when it wasn’t that “celestial accolade” mentioned in the newspaper article saying that three chefs in our département were “at the top of the ranking of the best restaurateurs in the world.”

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Travel in France & beyond

The canals of Provence

If you told someone to name a place in France, my guess is that the first answer from most people would be “Paris”. After all, this capital consistently appears at or near the top of the lists of most-visited cities. Another French location that’s likely to come to mind might be Provence. You could suddenly be transported to warm and sunny fields of lavender, vineyards, hilltop villages, outdoor markets full of fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious, leisurely meals at quaint sidewalk cafés. Thanks to the “Year in Provence” trilogy by Peter Mayle, followed by the TV series based on the first book, many of us were drawn to this beautiful area of France. Therefore, when we saw an advertisement for a canal cruise, “Provence—from Sète to Arles” we knew that was for us.

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Life in France

Let’s go to the beach

If you click on the “Shop” button on the website for travel guidebook publisher Lonely Planet they will tell you that you can browse through 765 products. One of their books for this year is called “Best Beaches: 100 of the World’s Most Incredible Beaches” and when I saw that three of those were in France I had to find out where they were located. Recognizing that beaches aren’t a one-style-fits-all destination, the editors included themes such as family friendly, snorkeling, remote, crowded but worth it, and wildlife. We weren’t surprised at their first seaside choice for this country.

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Life in France

Hometown tourist, part 2

Picking up from where we left off last week, we were now making our way from the lower part of Carcassonne, created in 1247 and known as La Bastide, to the upper town that dates from at least 500 BC and is simply called La Cité. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is Europe’s most complete medieval walled city surrounded by a combined length of 3 kilometers (2 miles) of 2 concentric limestone walls secured by 52 defensive towers. Before we could get there, however, we had to cross the Aude River (photo in this paragraph).

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Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Hometown tourist, part 1

Last week, 4 American friends whom we’ve known for over 30 years made their first trip to Carcassonne and we got to play tour guides. The local tourism office made our job pretty easy since among their publications are several maps, part of one of which we’ll cover today, and the second part next week, that highlight the “unmissables” in this city’s 2000 years of history. I’ll include a link to a pdf of that map at the end of this post. Their most recent flyer is called Circuit Art Déco/Art Nouveau and I want to devote a future blog post just to the buildings around town that reflect this beautiful period of architecture. 

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Life in France

Where to live in France

We seem to write a lot on this blog about where to settle in France and that’s for a couple of reasons. It’s the second most requested topic of information that we are asked for; budget is the first. Once you realize that you can afford to live here— “hey, those two guys are retired and they seem happy”—you next want to figure out where to go. There are, by the way, 34,955 French communes (villages, towns, cities) to choose from so there are lots of choices. Over in the right hand column you’ll find a tag marked “Where to live in France” that will take you to more than 20 posts that we’ve published on this subject. An online newspaper had an article that grouped several websites covering this question, so I thought it would be helpful to do the same here.

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Life in France

Family life without (almost) a car

It’s one thing for Bill and me to live without a car but I did wonder about how families with children cope. Everyone on our street with kids has at least one car and during the school year we see the daily parade of Mom or Dad shuttling their offspring to sports events, band practice, other extracurricular activities or just to visit friends. An article in one of our local newspapers, La Dépêche, addressed that very topic. The headline read, “These Toulouse residents have chosen to live without a car with 3 children,” and although that’s 45 minutes away from us, it was still going to answer my question.

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Unknown's avatarBob17 Comments