While I generally look only at a few of our local or national newspapers, Bill has a more rounded approach that incorporates sources outside of France, including the US. He spotted an article  by Terry Ward in the travel section of CNN that he knew I would want to see. The title was “The secret stretch of coastal France that’s nicer than Nice” so naturally I wanted to find out where that was. It didn’t take more than two sentences to see the mention of our region, Occitanie, and then our departement, Aude, to know that the author was talking about Carcassonne and our coastal neighbors Narbonne and Gruissan. Now to find out why it’s a secret.

Continue reading “Secret coastal France”

Since Nîmes is less than a 2-hour train ride from Carcassonne, we’d been there on a day trip and now we were staying a few nights to explore some of the surrounding sites. On previous rail journeys through the area we had spotted two castles across from each other on the Rhône river in the towns of Beaucaire and Tarascon so we wanted to see those up close. Before that, however, was a visit to the  UNESCO World Heritage site connected to last week’s blog post about Uzès. The word “connected” is especially fitting since it’s the 2000-year-old Pont du Gard aqueduct that formed part of the link that brought water from its source in Uzès to Nîmes, 50 kilometers (31 miles) away.

Continue reading “Two castles and an aqueduct”

We were expecting to take today’s trip two years ago and I was going to call the blog post “Walking to Spain”. We would have gotten off the train at the last station in France, Hendaye, walked across the La Bidassoa river bridge to take a photo of the Bienvenido a España sign and then returned to France to continue our journey. The arrival of Covid and all of its associated travel restrictions forced a postponement and a rearrangement of our schedule but it all worked out fine. We still took a southbound train from Bayonne but exited 2 stops before the border (featured photo above) to spend the afternoon where Louis XIV, the Sun King, married his Spanish bride and future Queen of France. The next morning it was time to discover where the Sun King’s grandfather had been born 100 km (62 miles) to the east in the city of Pau.

Continue reading “St.-Jean-de-Luz and Pau”

We’ve visited the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris a few times including climbing up 422 steps to where the gargoyles stare out at the city and it has always been impressive in size, height, and history. When I read that the similarly named cathedral in Amiens could hold the Paris landmark inside with room left over, I knew that it would be something that we would want to see. That “someday” visit turned into a “let’s go now” trip when I learned that author Jules Verne (Around the World in 80 Days) had lived in the city for 18 years and that his house where he wrote many other novels was now a museum. But those were not the only surprises that awaited us.

Continue reading “Amiens in 2 days”

Carcassonne has 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites (Canal-du-Midi and the Medieval Walled City) plus 48 listed historic monuments, which I find pretty impressive. Arras also has 2 UNESCO sites (the Belfry and the Citadel) but 225 monuments. Well, it would seem that this city, 45 minutes north of Paris by train would be worth a visit. Since we were already in Lille this was going to be an easy train trip with 2 departures each hour so we would have time for sightseeing, lunch, and still be back “home” to the hotel for dinner. With so many choices of places to visit, where should we start?

Continue reading “Arras in 1 day”