Hidden Gems of the Loire Valley, Episode 516

Episode Transcript
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Annie Sargent (00:15):
This is Join Us in France, episode 516, cinq cent seize.
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 chat with PaulGulesserian about uncovering the
hidden gems of the Loire Valley.

(00:37):
We explore lesser known chateaus,recount fascinating historical tales, and
share insider tips on must visit spots,and delicious local cuisine as well.
Whether you're a seasoned traveler orplanning your first trip to France,
this episode is packed with insightsand inspiration you don't want to miss.

(00:58):
This podcast is supported by donorsand listeners who buy my tours and
services, including my itineraryconsult service, my GPS self-guided
tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app,or take a day trip with me around the
Southwest of France in my electric car.
You can browse all of that at myboutique: joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

(01:20):
And remember, Patreon supporters get thepodcast ad-free as soon as it's ready.
Click on the link in the shownotes to enjoy this Patreon reward
for as little as 2$ per month.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Paul today, I'll
discuss phone safety while on the go.
Maybe you know all of this, butthere are simple steps you can take

(01:43):
to make yourself less vulnerable.
And good news, the reservation systemfor Bootcamp 2025 is now open to all.
You can join me and Elyse in Francein real life for Bootcamp 2025.
This is a 10 day immersive tour startingthe morning of May 10th, 2025 of course,

(02:05):
and ending late on May 18th in Toulouse.
You'll have the possibility of takingFrench classes every weekday morning,
and the rest of the time we'll visitsome of the best attractions of the
Southwest, including Albi, Carcassonne,the Painted Cave of Pêche Merle, The
Castle of Foix, and several more.

(02:27):
You can hear previous bootcamperstalk about their experiences on
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If you'd like to read more about thespecifics or secure your spot, head
over to joinusinfrance.com/bootcamp2025,no spaces or dashes.
Let's make 2025 a year ofunforgettable French memories.

(03:01):
Bonjour, Paul Gulesserian, andwelcome to Join Us in France.

Paul Gulesserian (03:05):
Bonjour Annie, I'm super happy to be with you today.

Lovely to talk to you.
So you're actually living in France.
I'm getting French people, yay.

That's right.
That's right, though I am anAmerican, but yes, I am living in
France for the past six years now.
I can't believe it.

Wonderful, and your husband is French.

So my husband is French, originally.
So, I was actually living in France15 years ago, my work transferred
me to France, I met him, we spentsome time in France, then I got
transferred to London, we lived inLondon, then moved to New York, lived
in New York for 6 years, and then weboth came back to France 6 years ago.

Wonderful.
You've probably had plenty oftrips through France, but today
we're going to talk about one thatyou took around the Loire Valley.
And especially since you haveyour time, you go to some that
people don't get to, right?

Yeah, you know, I am a Francophile, I'm proud to admit
it, I am an ultimate Francophile,and since being in France, I have
fallen in love with this country.
And everywhere we go, we findsomething more and more beautiful.
And me and Florian, my husband, welove exploring and finding new sites,
natural wonders, trying the cuisine.

(04:16):
I love France so much, I actuallybecame a French citizen three years ago.

Bravo, bravo, merci.

And it's funny with Florian, he's actually seen more of
France with me than he had, you know,his entire life living in France, so
I've helped him become more French.

That's very good.
Yeah, nothing like leaving France andthen you come back and you go, huh, I
actually don't know the country that well.

And it's funny, I think I know France now better than
the United States, because in France wehave lots of vacation time, it's kind
of exotic to see, so lots of exploring.

Where are you based out of?
Where do you live?

So we spend our time half the time in Paris, and then we
have a house just outside of Paris inthis town called Chantilly, Chantilly in
English, about 45 minutes north of Paris.
So we're spending our weekends andour downtime there in Chantilly.
And actually, Annie, I was looking,we actually listened to a podcast, I

(05:11):
think, on the Château of Chantilly,that you had a couple of seasons ago.
So, yeah, we're in Chantilly, justoutside of Paris, and actually, yesterday
in Chantilly, the Olympic flame camethrough the town, so we were at work
from home, and we saw this flame passin front of the château in the town,
which was quite moving, I have to say.

Beautiful.
Yes, beautiful stuff.

But, speaking of chateaus, I am a château addict.
Ha ha ha ha!
I actually think we've lostcount of the number of chateaus
that we've seen in France.
And so we've actually been to the LoireValley region once before in 2020.
And during that trip, we saw all ofthe big name chateaus that I'm sure a

(05:54):
lot of your listeners have heard about.
It's like Chambord, Chenonceau,Cheverny, all the big ones.

Amboise.

Amboise, Blois, I forget the name, the one where Da Vinci...

That's Clos Lucé.

The Clos Lucé, also.

It's in Amboise as well, in the town of Amboise, yes.

So we did all of these chateaus, but we took this trip
to visit some of the other chateaus,some of the lesser known ones, and
spend some time exploring the restof that beautiful part of France.

Fantastic.
I want to hear all about it becausepeople often ask, you know, is it
even worth going to the other ones?
And of course it is, but I wouldlike you to tell us about that.

Sure.
So we did this trip in May, kindof the beginning of May, and...

2024?

2024.
Yes.
And May is a very particular monthin France because there's like five
bank holidays in the month of May.
So it, depending when they fall, youget these super long weekends, or a
random day in the middle of the week.
And so that particular week, therewas two bank holidays in the week.
There was the May 8th, which islike the Victory in Europe Day.

(06:59):
And the May 9th is the AscensionDay, I'm not sure what it actually
is celebrating, but it's a day off.
And so that was the Wednesday andThursday and in our job they gave
us what they call in France, thethey gave us the extra Friday off.
So we had three days off in a row, so weonly had to take off two days, and we had
a full week of days off, which was nice.

French people love this.
What sort of work do you do thatyou can do this sort of thing?

Yeah.
So, me and my husband actually bothwork for a French beauty company.
I do HR, I do training.
So, I actually spend a lot of my timein conversations like on this, like on
Teams, educating and upscaling people.
And my husband works in purchasing.
It's a French based company, you know,that's very, very generous with the days.

Right, so, you get French holidays, and French...

We get the French, the French holidays, which is very nice.

And you also get your five weeks off, I assume, in the summer
or whenever you want to take them?

So, we're recording this in kind of middle of July, and in 1 week
I have one month off, so I can't complain.

Fantastic.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
All right, let's talk about your triplast May through the Loire Valley.
Where did you go?

Yeah, so we kind of focused on the western part of the
Loire Valley, and during that tripwe visited two different departments
in two different regions of France.
So the first part of the trip we spentfour days in between Saumur and Chinon,
and then two days around Angers.
So we're in between the Anneset Loire Department and the

(08:30):
Maine et Loire department.

Right.
Right.
It's because of courseit's a river, so it's long.

Yes.
Yes.

I mean, this is obvious, but when I do itinerary
with people, they say, what's acentral place in the Loire Valley?
I'm like, well, if it was a circularriver, it'd be an easy question,
but since it's not a circular river.

I think it's the longest river in France.

It's possible.
Right.
So you started from Saumur and Chinon.

Yep, that's exactly right.
We actually drove from ourhouse in Chantilly to Saumur.
It was the first stop.
It was about maybe a four hour drive.
We left super early on a Saturdaymorning, so there was literally
no traffic, direct shot.
And you know, the highway system inFrance is extremely well maintained,
I think it's actually much moremaintained than you find in the US.

(09:21):
And it's maintained byprivate companies, actually.
So the downside is,there's a lot of tolls.
So I think we paid, like 35euros in tolls to get there.
But the ride was super smooth.
The rest stops are verywell maintained and clean.
So it's kind of worth the price.
I wanted to give your listeners,Annie, a bit of warning though
about driving in France.

(09:41):
I've heard this a couple oftimes already on your podcast.
There's a lot of automaticsensors for speeding.
And if you get flashed by oneof these sensors, you'll get
in the mail a fine later on.

Yep.
That happened to me lastweek as a matter of fact.
Okay.
I was driving to my sister's house and shelives in the neighborhood where I grew up.
We both grew up in that neighborhood,it's the same house where we grew up.
And I was not aware that they had put aspeed thing at the bottom of the hill.
And I was 6 over the speedlimit, which cost me 90 euros.

Oh!

Oh well, now I know.
And that one, because it was inthe city, there's not even a flash.
No flash.
I didn't know until...

It showed up in the mail.

But it was me.
It was me.

What was interesting here, so, it was a very rainy
period, when we were driving, it wasraining, then stopping, raining, and
stopping, and in France, the normalspeed limit on the autoroute is
what, 130 kilometers per hour, whichI think is like 80 miles per hour.
But when it's raining, it goes to 110,and so, on the way there, we thought we

(10:47):
were flashed, because we were going above110, because it actually wasn't raining
anymore, but it was still a little wet.
So, fingers crossed, we haven't receivedanything yet, and it was about two
months, so hopefully we're in the clear.

Oh, yeah, two months, you're fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You get those, I mean, if you liveoutside of France, it can take longer, but
within France, I got mine within a week.

Okay.
All right.
Good.
So no fine for us.

You're good, you're good.

Good.

But yes, you do have to be very careful about your speed.

And I noticed now since the Olympics, I see a
lot more of the sensing machines.
Like, we were driving back toParis yesterday and there's
quite a few more new ones around.
So it's something to watch out for.

Watch out.
Yes.
Watch out.
All right.
So, Saumur, you startedwith, where were you staying?
Were you, did you move hotels every night?
Well, how did you do this?

Yeah.
So we stayed four nights kindof in between Saumur and Chinon.
And we actually stayed at this beautiful,this beautiful domain, it was kind
of like a renovated farm complex.
So there was many, many, many buildings.
And I'll tell you the name in one second,I'm just looking for my notes here.

(11:58):
It was called the Hotel LeDomaine de Mestré in a town
called Fontevrault L'Abbaye.
So it's kind of inbetween Saumur and Chinon.
And like I said, it was kind oflike an old farm complex with
different buildings, all renovated,and kind of a French country decor.
Honestly, I was reallyimpressed with this property.

(12:19):
There was like a nice shared family room,there was a dining room restaurant on
premises that we had dinner one night.
And the rooms all renovated,super comfy bed, you know, nice
decor, no TV, but you know what?
We didn't miss it.
We didn't miss it.
They had a pool with, like an indoorpool, with a sauna and a hot tub.
So it was really honestly one ofthe best hotels I've stayed at.

(12:42):
So, I'll share with you the link.

Yes, and I'll put that in the show notes.
When people enjoy a hotel, I put itin the show notes, because why not?
That's great.

Yeah, so we stayed there, and so the first day we went to
Saumur, and it was raining horribly,but that didn't stop us, so cute town,
about 27,000 people, known for greatwine, and it's a horse town, so there
was like a cavalry station there.
They had the farmer'smarket on the Saturday.
Very traditional French country marketwith the butcher, the cheese, the veggies.

(13:15):
And when we were there, it was all aboutthe strawberries, and the white asparagus,
which was everywhere, so beautiful to see.
We went to the château that was there.
So the château de Saumur.
Not as big, but it was situated on ahill, and it had a beautiful, beautiful
view of the Loire River just below.
Inside, you know, there's like a porcelaincollection, some horse collections,

(13:36):
some memorabilia, so we just kindof walked around and checked it out.

So yeah, I wonder if the Château de Saumur
is not a national château?

Mm.

That makes a difference.
Some of them are national,which means that they are...
so they call it Château de Saumur,Musée des Arts Décoratifs et du Cheval.
So they have an emphasis ondecorative arts and horsey things.

It was really well maintained.
Looks like it was renovated, caredfor, they had a nice welcome center,
so honestly, this one was pretty nice.

Mm hmm, mm hmm.
But it's not as big as theother ones, it's not as famous
as the other ones, you know?

No, no, no.
Honestly, we toured thething in 20 minutes.
The view outside, because you'reperched up high, you know, down in the
river below was really spectacular.

Yeah.
Okay, fantastic.
So, you recommend this onefor people who want, what?
They are looking for...?

If you have a passion for horses, there's a
lot of horse memorabilia there.
The town itself is cute, and especiallyon a weekend to see the farmer's market.
It was raining, so we couldn't profit, butyou can go to the farmer's market, grab a
sandwich, or a pastry, you know, and situp on the hill near the château and you
get a great view of the Loire River below.

Yeah.
You don't need to do anything spectacularto have a good time in France.
That's one of the reasons why it'sso pleasant to live here, is because
you can just go somewhere, and justtake it easy, and look around, and
have a meal and a drink and enjoy it.

It's this joie de vivre.

Although we're not quite as joyous when it's raining too much.

Yeah, but you know what?
I had my yellow raincoatsand we powered through.

Wonderful, wonderful.
Okay, what came next?

We did about a 15 minute drive, and that's what's actually
interesting with the Loire Valley.
Every 20 minutes, you hit a chateau.

Yeah, yeah.

So we drove 20 minutes to this other one
called the Château de Brézé.

Which I have not seen.

This one, honestly, it's a hidden gem, and they
advertise it as un château sous unchâteau, a château under a château.
So, basically you go, andit's a beautiful château.
The château itself, nothingamazing, kind of standard.
But underground, it was built on thismassive network of underground tunnels

(15:51):
that were carved into, like, thelimestone over the last thousand years.
So it was this big underground fortressthat, you could actually, there was
rooms where you saw they used to makebread in this underground chateau.
They were making wine in this fortress.
They had horses wereliving all underground.
So it was completely somethingyou would not expect, until

(16:12):
you actually go down below.
Really, really different.

That's very different.
Do you remember why they did that?

It was, like, originally it was a defensive fortress in the Middle
Ages, carved out for the stone that theywere excavating for other things, so it
was just a defensive, a defensive station.
And they just kept addingto it over the years.

An underground shelter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting, interesting.
So I suppose that one didn'thave quite so many visitors.

Well, not as many, and if mobility is a
challenge, it's not good for that.
It's quite steep going down, and youknow, going in the underground part is
a little bit, a little bit difficult.

Okay.
Okay.
All right.
That's good to know.
That's good to know.
That would be a problem for some people,but most people can probably handle it.
I mean, for most people,it'll be okay, I suppose.

Then the next one, again, another 50
minute drive, we hit a chateau.
This one was called, honestly, it'scrazy, you throw a stone and you hit one.
This one was called theChâteau de Montreuil-Bellay.
This one was tiny.
Tiny, tiny, tiny.
Again, it was perched up on a hill,this time above the le Thouet River,
so a smaller tributary, I guess, ofthe Loire River, had this beautiful,

(17:21):
beautiful very manicured garden.
So, you know, we were just kind ofwalking around the garden, checking out
this house, and, you know, funny storyhere, a bit of a memorable experience,
we're walking around, outside of thegarden, all of a sudden, we felt like
something hit us, and actually a birdhad pooped on Florian's head and jacket.

Oh, oh.

But when it happened, I remembered, oh, I
actually think that's good luck.

Perhaps it is.
Let's say it is.

It happens.
Yeah, so if some, some reason I hadthat in my head, it's good luck.
So, right after we left thechateau, we went across the
street to the magazine shop.
We bought the lottery tickethoping, hoping we would win, but
unfortunately we had to go back towork on Monday, so we didn't win.
So, it wasn't that lucky.

Alas.
Oh, that's great.
Yes, yes.
That's great.
So what was special about that one?

Well, you know, the garden was quite special, and again,
a lot of these chateaus are perchedup on the hills, you have these just,
views, the views of the river, andyou can see quite far, and you know,
even though it was overcast with theclouds, it's just beautiful scenery.
And honestly, I think I was just standingthere for ten minutes, just like...
looking around, I'm like,this is just beautiful.

(18:30):
You see the slate roofsof the little village.
You see the bridges and the river.
You see some forest.
It's just like, wow, this isjust a really magical place.
It's breathtaking.

Yeah, yeah.
And I'm sure that was big, Imean, of course, safety was
the name of the game back then.
But you know, a lot of the chateaus in theLoire were not built that long ago that
they were worried about invasions by the,I don't know, the Vikings, or whatever.
That was over by then, but they stillenjoyed beautiful high up, you know,

(19:02):
because it's both, I can see down below,but also you can see me, and how cool I am
that I have this big château on the hill.

I'm the boss up here.

That's right.
That's right.
The boss has the...
I guess it's the ultimate penthouse.

The ultimate penthouse, I think that's right, Annie.

So that one took how long for the visit?

20 minutes.
20-25 minutes.
We spent most time in the gardenand then we walk around the château.
And this one was interesting, it almostlooked like inside people were actually
still living there, you know, there's likesome of the furniture was modern in the
salon, and this family picture is so...
maybe they lived there into the50s or 60s, you know, so it's, you
could see that a family still hada somewhat of a presence there.

Huh.
And I assume you had to pay a little bitto get into all of these chateaus, right?
They are not free!

They're not cheap either, you know, sometimes
I think the price is like between8 euros and 14 euros per person.
So, you know, we visited 13 chateaus,so it, you know, it adds up.
But actually, one pro tip, Annie, thatwe came across the way, like, it's
interesting if you visit a château toask them, are they in a network with
some of the other chateaus, becausewe went to actually this one château

(20:13):
and they said, oh, hey, we're incollaboration with this other chateau.
So if you go there and show the receiptto this one, you get like a two euro
reduction and it goes both ways.

Yes.

It's helpful to ask that, like if you're
visiting a cultural place.

And they might have a combo pass, something with like
more than one that you can get.
That's worth asking at the chateau.
And this is the sort of thing that youjust need to ask when you get there
because it probably changes all the time.

So that was the first day.

So there's three chateaus in one day.
That's...
that's...
yeah, you like chateaus.

We like to be pretty active on our vacations and
we spend a lot of time planning.
And I actually find planning fortrips like a relaxing moment, you
know, studying a bit and making aspreadsheet of where we're going to go.
But the way we like to do it is we getup early and we bang out a lot of the
cultural sites and then we're back atthe hotel at like maybe 2pm, 3pm, read
a book, here is the pool, so we go inthe pool and hang out, and you have the

(21:10):
afternoon off before you go to dinner.
So we find for us, it's likea nice balance, an active
morning, relaxing afternoon.

That's great.
That's fantastic.
So that was day one.

That was day one.
So day two.
It was still raining, but we broughtour bikes with us, and we were
determined, okay, we want to go biking.
And so we have these bikes that fold up,they're easy to put in the car, so we can
take them pretty easily, unfold it and go.
So this day, we're like, okay,let's put on our rain gear, and
we're going to go for a bike ride.
So we did it.
We biked about maybe 20-30 minutes, andwe stopped in this town called Turquant,

(21:49):
and I'm not sure what to call it inEnglish, but it's a troglodyte village.
So it's a village that's actually builtinto a side like a cliff, like houses and
stores are built into caves in the side ofthe mountain, and they're living in there.

That's great.
Yeah, those are fun.

So you have this whole street of these little cave stores,
and it was filled with art galleries,so each little house was an art
gallery, and you could go in and tour.
And one of them was kind of a funny story,so it was this beautiful art gallery
with different types of media and stuff.
Even though we're living in Franceand Florian's French, you know,
him and I, we talk in English.
So we're in the store talking in Englishand the owner hears us and he comes over

(22:31):
and he starts engaging us in English.
And it was a little bit difficultfor him, but he kept engaging us
in English, which is very nice.
And then at some point he said,oh, we even ship to the UK.
So I guess he thoughtwe were, we're British.
And we're like, oh no, weactually live in France.
And he's like, wait a second, you'reFrench and you're making me speak English?
Like what's going on?
And so like he burstlaughing for like 10 minutes.

(22:54):
He thought it was like the funniest, thefunniest thing ever, but it made me come
to realize like the French people arevery welcoming and they make an effort to
welcome people from different cultures.
And if you make the effort back,with the Bonjour and the S'il vous
plait, honestly, it's very appreciatedand you can find some really
special moments with new people.

Yeah.
No, that's wonderful.
And again, these little towns, youread about them, but there's not that
many in the Loire Valley that are left.
There were more before.
And there's also mushroom caves.
Did you run into any mushroom caves?

We didn't see any, but I remember when we were in summer, there was
a lot of mushrooms at the market, and wesaw a sign that was like a museum mushroom
site or something that you could see.

Yeah, if you like to see where mushrooms grow, you can
do that in the Loire Valley as well.

What was also in that town, and one of the caves, was
like a winery, called the Domainedes Amandiers, so the almond domain.
And we actually did a tasting.
And this guy, this gentleman had areally beautiful, a rosé crément, so
like a a rosé sparkling, sparklingwine, and it was super, super sweet,
which we love, so it's, like, reallynice for an aperitif in the summer.

(24:06):
So we bought two bottles, not superexpensive, like, 8.70 Euros, that we'll
save for the vacation in a couple weeks.

Yeah, and you managed to take all of that on your bike.
So were you drenched bythen or not quite yet?

You know, it was, like drizzling, on and off.

Okay.

It was okay.

It was okay.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Yeah.

So then we biked 30 minutes to a town called Montsoreau.
It's one of the plusbeaux village de France.
One of the most beautifulvillages in France.
And we saw a sign there,apparently the Olympic torch
went through that town as well.
There was a small châteauthat we went into.
And it was completely, everythingoriginal was gone inside and they
turned it into a modern art gallerywith modern installations and videos.

(24:53):
Like some of the stuff was a bit weirdfor me, you know, it was a bit too modern.
But what was interesting aboutthis chateau, you could go on
the roof, at the very, very top.
And so again, you had an amazing view.
The Loire river, and it's juststunning, even raining, it's stunning,

Yeah.
Yeah.
Even raining, it's stunning.
Yeah, that's true.

And so then, the best site of the day was the last
one, so we biked another 20 minutes,and here we started to get wet.
But we powered through, andwe went to this site called
l'Abbaye Royale Fontevraud.

Yes.

This was one of the most beautiful sites I have seen in
France, and you really can't see it ifyou get past the entrance complex and
you walk through the entrance lobby.

This one is not on a hill.

No, it's not on a hill.
It's actually kind of down a bit.
And it's this complex of thesereligious buildings, this beautiful
abbey, and it has quite an interestinghistory because it was this abbey.
Apparently, I was reading that theEleanor of Aquitaine and her son, the
Richard Lionhearted are buried there.
So some very famous figuresin France were there.

(26:03):
So you had this Abb ey that was turnedinto a prison, and then it was turned
into a museum, and in the museum it'sdifferent types of modern arts and
multimedia stuff, so many things to see.
I think we spent two hours there.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that visit, as well, yeah.
It's a beautiful place and it's alovely village too, I mean, it's
very small, but it's very pleasant.

Very pleasant, honestly, unexpected.
It's like, oh, we're going toan abbaye, okay, another church.
No, it was really, reallysomething spectacular.
So for me that's, butyou can't miss that one.

Yeah, and so from there you biked back to where you were staying?

The hotel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's actually, it was in that town.
So we were five minutes fromhome with the ho and we went
right to the pool afterwards.

You were wet already.
Get a little wet more.
Yeah, that's great.
Did you enjoy the hotelthere or was it just okay?

That hotel?
Well, then I was still at thehotel that I mentioned before.

Okay.
Okay.
Same one.
Same one.
Okay.
Very good.

So, the next day, we drove to Chinon, so a 20 minute drive.
We parked near the Royal Fortressof Chinon, and I think this one is
probably more well known than someof the other ones we had visited,
I think this one does have a name.

Well, Fontevraud is also famous.
For people who love history,they know Fontevraud.

Yeah.
It does have a rich history.

But Chinon is also one of the more popular ones, I guess.

Yeah, and honestly, again, the view, it's this ancient
fortress, it's mostly destroyed, soit's mostly ruins of towers, and you
know, château pieces, you can go insome, but some are still ruined, so
it's a mix, you know, some thingsyou can view, some things you can't.
But you're perched up on the hill,above the Vienne River, so another

(27:49):
river in the Loire ecosystem.
And again, the view, the village,all the slate roofs, and honestly,
I thought of like a storybookof this this view of Chinon.
So you had the view, weexplored some of the sites.
We profited from the histopad that theyhad, which I know you've spoken about
before where you, you know, it's theiPad where you hold it up and it kind

(28:11):
of shows you what things looked like,when the château wasn't destroyed.
So we were able to see whatit was like in its heyday.

Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, those are very fun.
If you can do a visit with a histopad,I think that's a very good way to go.

Yeah, and it was included in the price.
Some places will charge you, I guess,for the audio guide, here was included.
So it was nice to be ableto profit from that as well.
And we arrived just in timebecause right behind us was a
group of school kids, like 50 kids.
So it's like we were able to sneakthrough and tour it and then not have
to wait behind all the cute kids.

That would be loud.
Oh, 50 kids, that would be loud.

So then we had brought our bikes with us in the car from Chignon.
And so we did it, we tried todo another bike ride that day.
And I wanted to give someadvice on bike trips.
And I think you might havementioned this in a podcast
before, and I fell victim to it.
So I should have listened more carefully.
I used the Google Maps to build theitinerary for the bike, the bike ride,

(29:08):
and you know, it looks pretty niceand so 9/10 times it's pretty good.
But sometimes it's taking you througha route that's really not a route,
so you're going in a field of cropsin between the corn and the wheat.
You're going through what'sreally thick bush, and you end
up having to push your bike.
And when it's muddy and raining,it's not the nicest experience,

(29:31):
so check it before you go.

Yeah, you know, the Google map, the bike route, it's
better than not having it, but ifwhen you get there it doesn't look
right, back off and go some other way.

Yeah, and sometimes we're like, oh, it's probably
just five minutes, and then it'slike half an hour you're pushing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I've had this experience as well, right
around my area, but of course, it's myarea, so I knew where else I could go.
Like, I'll just take the roadwhere the car is, where I do this
on the car instead of this dumb...
especially if it's uphill,there's holes and gravel and,
ugh, no, no, no, not for me.

But anyway, we found our way, and we found this other
château called the Château du Riveau.
This one was stunning.
It was a beautiful chateau, super wellrenovated and maintained, with a mix of
antique pieces, with modern art pieces.

(30:28):
Each room was really quite visuallystunning to look at, but the most
exciting part was the gardens.
The gardens was one of themost beautiful gardens I've
seen, and it was quite diverse.
You know, you had a traditional vegetablegarden, there was like, you know how they
do the maze sometimes with shrubs, therewere beehives, they had phoenix birds

(30:49):
like in a cage, they had trees where theyharvest the truffles from the roots there,
there were peacocks, there were rabbits.
Exploring the garden wasreally, really, really magical.

And it wasn't raining at that point?

We were in between, we were in between the rain.

Oh, that's the best kind.
That's the best kind.
Because then you know, theflowers are going to be happy.
They're happy and wet...
but it's not raining on you.
So that's perfect.
That's great because I don'tthink I've been to, I'm sure
I haven't been to Riveau.

Yeah, no, it was a really beautiful day.
We brought sandwiches, we satoutside and just had lunch.

Yeah, I meant to ask you, how did you do for food there?
You brought your own or youhad, you enjoyed the cafes at
the chateaus if they had one?

Well, what we usually do when we travel, it's
like, okay, we'll stop on the way,get a croissant for breakfast.
And we usually pack lunch like on theway or just get a sandwich on the way.
And then we save room for thedinners, because the dinners is
where we'll do the three coursesand have the wine and everything.
So lunch, we'll kind of, thecasual sandwich just sitting

(31:51):
outside where there's a nice view.

Fantastic.

Oh, and I wanted to mention about the rain, too,
because it was quite particular here.
So the first time we went to the LoireValley, the river itself was almost empty.
And you could actually see the ground, andit wasn't a hugely rapidly rapid river.
This time there had been so much rain inthe season, the rivers were to the max.
And there was actually quitea bit of flooding everywhere.

(32:16):
Some of the vineyards were flooded, someof the roads were flooded, so even when
we were taking the bike, we had to bererouted because we couldn't go through.

Yeah, yeah, this year was very different that way.
We had a lot of rain.
It stopped.
Although this morning I got up early andI was walking my dog and it was looking
like it was going to be 20, you know,it was like 23 degrees when I left.
An hour later, it wasraining pretty hard on us.
But only for 10 minutes, but it was atthe end of the walk, so it didn't matter.
I was like, okay, well, I was allwet, both me and the dog were all

(32:47):
wet, but it didn't matter because wewere just heading home anyway, so...

The weather has been extreme this year.

Yeah, it's been different.
It's been different.
But I'd rather have too much rainthan too much heat waves, you know?

It's true.
I agree with you.
Okay.
So next day we drove.
We went to this town called Langeais.
Another super cute medieval townand they have a château there.
Surprise, surprise.
So we went to the château Langeais, andthis one was just rich with history.
Apparently at this hotel, chateau, nothotel, there was the secret wedding

(33:20):
of Anne de Bretagne, and Charles VIII,King of France, which, because of that
marriage, Brittany became part of France.
So they had a kind of a multimediaexhibition, kind of like the animatronic
characters reenacting this wedding.
It was something different to seeand it was actually quite well done.
Really well restored with a lot ofmedieval furniture and everything.

(33:43):
In the attic, they had all these like toyPlaymobil mini chateaus set up to see,
which was kind of funny, and this one hadanother great garden, had this massive
three story treehouse, which was funnyto explore and get some pictures again.
But, you know, Annie, a lot ofthese chateaus, the grounds are
equally spectacular to the interiorand sometimes actually nicer.

That's very true.
That's very true.
If you enjoy gardens,chateaus, they normally have
a really, really good garden.
Some of them stand outas truly spectacular, but
most of them are very nice.
No question about that.

Next one we went to, I didn't actually like that much, it
was called the Château de l'Islette.
It looked nice.
It was beautiful.
Beautiful grounds, beautiful château,but people were still living there.
So, it was actually modern inside.
So, you're going into a modern kitchen,and a modern bathroom, a modern

(34:38):
bedroom, which is kind of like, weird.

Yeah.

It's like, I don't just see their toilet.

Yeah.
Okay.
So this one is l'Islette.
I never even heard of it.

Yeah.
It was beautiful, but, and actuallyon the grounds too, there was a
lot of animals and there was agoose that tried to attack me.
So, it was like, the experience overallwas kind of not so great at that one.

So, not recommended.

Not recommended that one.
But the next one we saw, highly recommend.
This one was the Château D'Usse.
And this one, apparently wasthe inspiration for the book,
the original book of SleepingBeauty, by Charles Perrault.
The castle, I guess, inspiredhim to write that story.
So, big, impressive castle, withits own little cathedral, and then

(35:24):
in the upper floors, they havebasically all reenactment scenes
from The Sleeping Beauty done withlike mannequins and you see the wheel
where they make the thread that shepicks herself, you can see all that.
It was kind of well done.
Kids would really like that, I think.

Uh huh.
That's cool.
That's very nice.
Yeah, I haven't seen the Châteaud'Ussé, but I have heard about it.

Yeah, it was really impressive.
So that ended the first four days ofthe trip and then we actually relocated.
So we drove about an hour heading towardsAngers, and before we got to Angers,
well, first of all, the weather turned,and it was actually, it got beautiful.
Sun out, you know, we have theshorts on, finally, we're able to

(36:04):
profit a bit, so that was nice.
But on the way to Angers, westopped at a chateau which was
actually my favorite of the trip.
This one was calledthe Château de Brissac.
It was huge.
It was about six or seven floors,so like this massive square tower,
about 20 minutes outside of Angers.
Really well maintained, beautiful rooms.

(36:26):
And it was interesting because on thetop floor, they actually built a fully
functional theater to do like plays andmusicals that could s eat 50 to 75 people.
So, like, at the top floor of this thing,there's a full theater, which was kind
of different and unexpected to see.

What's the name of the château again, sorry?

Brissac, B-R-I-S-S-A-C.

Ah, okay.
I haven't heard of this one either.
You did go into somevery interesting ones.
That's wonderful.

That's what's kind of interesting Annie, it's like, the
big ones like Chambord, Chenonceau,they're impressive, and they're
amazing, and you definitely need tovisit them, because they're monumental.
All these little ones, there's somethingdifferent and unexpected in each one.
You know, so they may not be themost big and impressive, but there's
these little gems that we found ineach place that made it equally as

(37:20):
special and interesting to visit.

That's wonderful.

This one had a wine tasting as well, so we were
able to test different rose winesthat they actually make there.
And we bought a couple bottlesas well, so that was nice.
Then we drove to Angers, beautifulcity, about 120,000 people.
It's young.
It's a university town.
It's vibrant.
I was reading, I think it'svoted as like one of the most

(37:45):
likable places to live in France.
So we set up shop in Angers.
In Angers, we took an Airbnb.
So we stayed there for two nights.
We did an Airbnb, and it was okay,you know, it was clean, modern, it had
everything, but it was kind of sterile,you know, it had no, it didn't have
charm like the place, the place before.

Yeah, well, Airbnb, you know, I mean, that's what they
tell you, everything should be fromIkea, disposable, like if they break
it and they break it, fine, you know.
So Airbnb, don't expect too much,unless it's a really expensive
Airbnb and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, but it did the job, you know, it was fine.

Yeah.

We had a place to sleep.

Exactly, exactly.

And then that day we also did one other château just outside
of Angers called the Château de Serrant.
This one wasn't the most beautiful, itwas actually kind of run down, but what's
interesting here, you could go in thebasement and visit like the servant area.
So you could see like the kitchens, wherethe butler was, where they did the ironing

(38:49):
and the dishwashing, and the furnace.
So again, it was somethingdifferent, you know.
It was like Downton Abbey, you know,we're downstairs with the servants.

You're

with

the servants.
I love it.
Yeah.

So again, something different, you
know, that you didn't expect.

Yeah, most chateaus you don't get to see the kitchen.
I mean, some of them you do,but many of them you don't.
So that would be reallyinteresting to see that.

And I think people lived into it, lived in it into the 1900s.
So it was kind of, you know,turn of the century stuff.
It was kind of cool to see.
And so the next day we spent the wholeday in Angers, doing a self walking tour.
And again, the weather was spectacular,so we were so happy to be outside.
And you know, one pro tip I wanted toshare with you, Annie, and the listeners

(39:32):
is, every town in France, almost everytown in France has the tourist office.
And these are gems of resource andsometimes some really good deals.
We've hit the tourist office hereto get a map and everything, and
actually, they told us about thisAngers city pass, which is basically

(39:53):
for 28 euros, for 48 hours, get grantedyou access to 25 sites around Angers.
And so with that, we actuallybuilt our walking tour, like,
okay, let's hit all of these sites.
And so I think we paid 28 euros,but I think it actually, if we
added up all the prices, it wouldhave been 50 euros per person.

(40:15):
So it was a great deal to save some money,and see all of these fantastic sites.

And also it gives you a list of all the places that are worth
seeing, that are not the one thateverybody finds on the page one of Google.
But, you know, that's always a problem,like, a lot of these places, they have a
lot of interesting stuff, but they don'tshow up on Google, if you don't show up in
the first five, it's like you don't exist.
Unless you have a nice tourist officethat say, okay, you can visit all

(40:43):
these outstanding things and they'reall interesting, or they wouldn't
even be in this deal, you know, ifthey weren't interesting in some way.

Yeah.
So we were happy to havethat, they were very helpful.
They got told us whereto start and everything.
So unless it does tourist offices,you know, really help you plan nicely.

Yes, I agree.
Let's move on to some restaurantsbecause we don't have a lot of
time and you had some very goodmeals that you wanted to recommend.
So let's talk about those.

We ate one night in Saumur at this
restaurant called Le Pot de Lapin.
So it's the rabbit, the rabbit pot,I guess that translates to English.
And this restaurant was styled as,they called it a bouchon saumurois.
Kind of like a BouchonLyonnais, but more to that...

Yeah,

Very familial, you know, a homey, nothing
fancy, fresh, local ingredients.
And the experience was fantasticbecause the chalkboard with everything
written, the waitress came overand walked us through every single
item on the chalkboard, having fun,laughing with us, you know, created

(41:53):
a really, really nice moment for us.
And you know, we had adelicious, delicious meal
there, really fresh and local.
And there was one thing on themenu that was something new that
was really, really spectacular.
It was one of their starters,and it was called Foie Gras de
Pauvre, so Poor Man's Foie Gras.

(42:16):
So Foie Gras is madefrom duck or goose liver.
Here, it was made from rabbit liver,which I guess is less costly than
the duck or the goose, and it'smixed with lots of garlic and herbs.
It's made to look exactly like aregular foie gras, but the taste
and texture was so light, soaromatic, it was just something

(42:39):
really, really fresh and delicious.
And I encourage your listeners, in Francebe adventurous, you know, be adventurous
and try something new, because worstcase, you don't like it, and okay,
you have a great story to tell yourfriends, you tried something weird, but
you might fall in love, and you findsomething really, really spectacular.

I've never heard of Foie Gras de Lapin, never heard of it.

I didn't either.

Well, I wouldn't try it, my husband would.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In Chinon, you also had a good dinner.

Yeah, so in Chinon, we ate at a restaurant
called A Charbon, translates tocharcoal, I guess, in English.
And basically the restaurant used to bea pizza place, so they had this big wood
burning oven, but they changed owners,and they made it into a rotisserie
restaurant, so they're cooking all themeats directly in this wood burning stove.

(43:28):
Nice.
And so Florian, he loves the roasted bonemarrow where you spread it on the bread.
So he had that and then we had thebraised pork belly for the main.
And it's just, you know,you can't go wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that's wonderful.

And one thing I do when I travel to them,
like give me the local wine.
Give me your local red wine, or whitewine and let them pick, and it pairs
so well with what they're doing there.

Fantastic.
So you've talked to me about some ofthe things that you learned in France,
because, I mean, you live in France.
For people who aspire to spend more timein France, perhaps live in France, do
you have encouraging words or thingsthat you want to share about that?

Well, you know, one thing I've discovered about France,
and this is why I'm a Francophile,compared to the US it's not a big
country, land wise, but in termsof what it has to offer, it's huge.
And what I love about this countryis, every place you go, two hours
this way, two hours that way, it'ssomething very, very different.
Culturally, architecturally, food wise,wine wise, there's so much to see.

(44:30):
So really explore.
Point one.
Point two.
Yes, see all the big things, the EiffelTower, all the big name chateaus I was
talking about on the first visit, butfind some of the off the beaten path
sites to see as well because you're goingto find something really extraordinary
and unique, and something different.
Like on this trip, you know, it's what?
We saw the Castle of Sleeping Beauty.

(44:51):
In Angers, we saw this medievaltapestry of the Apocalypse, which
is this giant, giant tapestrythat it's amazing, it's huge.

Angers is a wonderful town.
We recorded an episode aboutit, I went and loved it.
I thought it was a beautiful town.

Yeah, really beautiful.
Every place you go, even if it's not abrand name, you find something really
extraordinary because there's this,such a long and rich history, you
know, so this is so much stuff to see.

Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
And one word of caution that youmentioned in your write up is double
check opening times, don't expectthings to be open 24-7 the way you
might think they are in the US.

Yeah, and like some of the places like Angers and that
walking tour we had hoped to hit.
It's like some museum we walk up to andit's only open on like the third weekend
of school vacation and from 2 to 4 PM.
So it's like, okay, that's a bit specific.
And watch out for Mondays.
Mondays, traditionally, places areclosed, especially outside of Paris.

(45:48):
On Monday night we actually struggledto find a restaurant to eat at.

Yeah, Sunday nights and Monday nights can be a problem.
Yeah, definitely.
You need to not be picky those nights.
If it's open, go eat there.

So we found a Chinese, Chinese restaurant, which is fine.

It's fine, it's fine.
You're not going to gohungry or anything, but...

I would say the last advice too, some places require
a reservation, so take a look before,like, in Angers, we had hoped to
visit, cause it was included in thecity pass I was talking about, the
Cointreau factory, so it's like thatorange liquor they was part, you get
a free visit with that Angers Pass.
But they were sold out, we'dhave to have booked several days
in advance, but c'est la vie.

Yeah, sometimes things do get sold out, so...
All right, Paul, you area delight to talk to.
I can see the enthusiasm aboutFrance and chateaus, and stuff
like that, that's wonderful.
You're going to make alot of people jealous.
They're like, oh, that'swhat I want to do.

Well, I'm happy to share it.
I had a great experience on thistrip and like I said, I love France.
It's a magical place.
It's so rich.

When you moved here did you have the job before
your move or did you okay?
Yeah.

I did.
And they helped me with the move, and myhusband was French, so it was easy, it
was easy to, you know, 'easy to do it'.

Right, right.
Well, it was the same for me, itwas 20 years ago, but my husband
and I'm French, but I was like, oh,I don't know, you know how we're
going to do finding work in France?
Because, especially backthen it was pretty difficult.
And so he asked his boss if hecould transfer and, yep, he did.
And it worked out just fine,and then I found work as well.

(47:26):
But it was really good that one of us hada job anyway, you know, I think if you can
pull it off, it's the best way to do this.

We were lucky because we were working for this French company
in the US and get transferred toParis, so it worked out quite nicely.

Wonderful.
Well, thank you very much, Paul.
I hope that everybody's goingto enjoy this episode and go
visit some of these places.
I might have to do that myself.

There's some gems.
Thank you so much, Annie.

Merci beaucoup.
Au revoir.

Au revoir.

Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving
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(48:23):
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(48:44):
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Well, thank you very much.
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Podcast listeners get a big discountfor buying these tours from my website,

(49:04):
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(49:25):
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(50:11):
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(50:53):
Let's talk about phone safety.
Two friends are hiking in thewoods when they encounter a bear.
As the bear notices them andstarts approaching, one friend
quickly drops to the ground andbegins tightening his shoelaces.
The other friend, panicking,says: What are you doing?
You can't outrun a bear!
The friend calmly replies.

(51:14):
I don't need to outrun thebear, I just need to outrun you.
It's the same thing about phone safety.
You don't need to have the most incrediblephone safety protocol in the world.
It just needs to be better thanthat of most other tourists.
Do what you can not to be aneasy mark, because most thieves

(51:35):
are looking for an easy mark.
All modern phones are password protected.
Some have some lock, unlock,some do facial recognition.
Those things work great.
But you must get into the habit of lockingyour phone when you're not using it.
It'll save the battery too.
Set up your phone to backup constantly.

(51:58):
With iPhones, it'll be on iCloud, and withAndroid it'll be on your Google account.
My photos are alsobacked up to my OneDrive.
You could use any backup system you want.
There are many, but your device mustbe backed up, not a special backup that
you run when you think about it, but onethat runs all the time in the background.

(52:20):
That way, if you lose your phone, youcan get a new phone and restore the data,
and it's like, you never lost it at all.
It's a pain because you probably won'tget that new phone for a few days,
perhaps not until you get home, but atleast you'll find all your stuff again.
iPhones have somethingcalled Find My Phone.

(52:41):
Android phones have something called,I think it's called, Find My Device.
Enable it, set it up before your trip.
Should you lose your phone or haveit stolen, you'll need to log in to
your Apple or Google account, knowyour password, to do any number of
things, lock the phone, make it ringor buzz, wipe all its data, etc.

(53:06):
But you need to know your credentials tolog in to that Apple or Google account
from a computer or from another phone.
So, there are some passwords you needto know, your Gmail, or whatever email
you use, and your phone, either yourApple account, or your Google account.
Phones are getting more and moresophisticated and you'll get to the

(53:29):
point where stealing a phone will betotally useless and then it'll stop.
Apple is getting there,I think, but not quite.
And, you know, remember when peopleused to steal car radios until they
made it useless because you couldn'tuse a car radio in a different car.
And so that stopped.
It'll happen with phones, butwe're not quite there yet.

(53:49):
Beware of public Wifi.
This was especially true beforeGoogle forced every site pretty
much to go to HTTPS instead of HTTP.
But avoid accessing sensitive informationlike banking apps on public Wifi.
This is one good reason to purchasedata from your own phone provider.

(54:12):
Say you're with T Mobile orAT&T or any other provider.
If they are the ones giving you datain France, then it's just as safe as
if you were using your phone at home.
I suppose you could rely on publicWifi and use a VPN, that's a Virtual
Private Network, to encrypt your datawhen connected to a public network.

(54:34):
But that'll cost you some money as well,and it'll only work when you're around
public Wifi, so you might as well payfor data from your regular provider.
I know all American providers havesomething you can sign up for.
It probably won't be includedin your regular service.
By now, it's a must have when traveling.

(54:56):
I'm very lucky because my homephone plan is with Freemobile.
It's a French data provider.
And we've had free roaming for yearsall over Europe, and the US, and Canada.
It's not as fast sometimes as if I wereat home, but it's totally usable, and
it's safe, and in my case it's free.
Maybe it'll be free for youas well, you do need to check.

(55:18):
And then there's physical safety.
Use a good phone case, a good screenprotector, beware of your surroundings,
be city smart, and don't assume thatthat nice young lady asking you if
you speak English needs your help.
When you're not using it, yourphone should have its screen
locked and be in a zipped pocket.

(55:39):
And if someone is trying todistract you, someone else is
probably trying to rob you.
Don't do anything difficult like figuringout the RER system when you've just
arrived and are tired and jet lagged.
Don't be too trusting in newsocial situations, especially when
drinking, okay, I'm showing myage, but it's the reality, okay?

(56:00):
When you start drinking, you get dumb.
So it's easy, six steps, let's recap.
Lock your phone when not in use,and put it in a zipped pocket.
Number two, enable continuous backups.
Number three, enable 'Find myPhone' and know your credentials.
Number four, buy data from your provider.
Number five, protect your phonewith a case and a screen protector.

(56:23):
Number six, don't tackle complextasks like navigating the RER
when tired and jet lagged.
You are now less exposed to ruiningyour vacation because of a thief.
My thanks to podcast editorsAnne and Christian Cotovan
who produced the transcripts.
Next week on the podcast anepisode with Elyse on the city of

(56:43):
Bourges and its many hidden gems.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
produced by Annie Sargent andCopyright 2024 by AddictedToFrance.

(57:03):
It is released under a CreativeCommons, attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.

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