Tea or coffee

Travel Tips: 5 ways to enjoy France more

2009-07-21T06:52:52Z

France isn’t like anywhere else. I know this might sound obvious, but traveling in the Hexagon can be a frustrating if you don’t keep in mind some of the subtle reasons that France is different. So here are 5 tips to help you get the most out of next trip.

Things close

Small shops close at lunch and at least a day and a half a week, often Monday and Sunday. Some museums are closed on Mondays (Versailles), others on Tuesdays (Louvre), even in the height of the tourist season. Some smaller monuments are closed in winter. So plan accordingly and don’t leave your souvenir shopping until Sunday.

Eat at meal times

The French still abide by pretty regular meal times. Don’t think you’ll be able to get a sit-down lunch at 3 in the afternoon or eat dinner at 5PM, unless you’re willing to go the fast food route. The alternative is to grab a snack (quiche, slice of pizza) from a boulangerie and picnic (related post). In bigger cities you’ll find city markets with a wide range of packaged sandwiches.

Drink less

After two weeks in Washington DC last winter I realized that France doesn’t have anywhere near the same number of public restrooms as the US. So limit your intake of fluids accordingly. Ditto for baby changing rooms.

Avoid driving around Paris

Easier said than done, but you really need to plan when you are going to drive around the capital. Please see one of our recent posts on the subject.

Not wheelchair friendly

A few years ago we visited Yosemite and were stunned to see that there were paved paths everywhere, even up to the foot of the waterfalls. This isn’t the case in France. There are still lots of cobblestones (the courtyard of Versailles), gravel paths and high curbs. Very few Metro stations are wheelchair accessible. Very few chateaux have elevators. So if you’re traveling with someone who has mobility issues, plan accordingly. And don’t assume you’ll be able to rent a wheelchair when you get here. You need a prescription to rent one in France, otherwise they’re horribly expensive.

July Fireworks

2009-07-18T06:07:44Z

A couple days after Bastille Day, Mother Nature hit us with her own fireworks: an early evening storm.

Driving Trips: Avoiding Paris with a GPS

2009-07-15T09:51:10Z

The recent experiences of some of our guests prompted this post. GPS navigation has made getting around France much easier. But the cold-hearted logic of the navigation software doesn’t take into account the reality of Paris traffic.

If you are driving down from the Channel, Belgium or Holland, you really need think about how and when to get around Paris. If you type our address into your GPS it will most likely try to route you through Paris on the péripherique ring road, a source of much misery.

Pick the right route

From the Channel: Tell the GPS to take you via Rouen. No matter what your GPS tells you, don’t go near Paris. Use the route shown here:

View Calais-Jonvilliers in a larger map

From Netherlands/Belgium: It’s hard to avoid the Paris area. But we highly recommend the western route around the city rather than the eastern one.

View Larger Map

Another suggestion is try leave home early enough to get to the north edge of the capital (Charles-de-Gaulle airport) before 4PM to avoid evening rush hour traffic. Finally, avoid Paris on Friday evening, especially in summer. If you have web access on your smartphone, try using the Sytadin web site to see what traffic is like in real time.

Now Available: Secure Reservation Form

2009-07-06T12:05:53Z

We’ve have finally found a way to let potential guests send us credit card information securely when booking. We ask for a credit card number to hold a reservation. It’s the best we’ve found of dissuading no-shows.

It’s something that we’ve been wanting to put in place for years, but it’s proved harder to do than we ever expected. Up until recently, we’ve been able to work around the problem using fax machines and phone calls. But it seems that fewer and fewer people have access to fax machines. So it was time to put in place some kind of online solution.

The snag was that we didn’t want to charge the card; we only wanted to hold on to the number. Because we weren’t making a transaction, traditional e-commerce shopping carts were out of the question. Encrypted email was another option, but it was too complicated for for mere mortals like you and I.

After much searching, we’ve found a solution that protects the information you give us in two ways:

First, our web site is now SSL protected. This means that the communication between your computer and our web server in encrypted. In other words, no one can eavesdrop while you’re fill out the form.
Second, the information collected through the web form is encrypted and delivered to a special encrypted email account. This means that the information is never sent over unsecured email channels.

As of today, we’ll be providing this service for all future reservation requests. When we reply to a reservation request, we include a link to the secure web page. We’ve tested it a number of times and it works like a charm.

Selected for a new guidebook

2009-06-07T12:40:47Z

We have been included in the latest edition of the “Frankrijk Logeren in Kastelen” Dutch-language guidebook published by Hobb Guides.

We get a lot of Dutch guests, and maybe some of them recommended us to Hobb. In any case we are delighted to have been picked. And according to the Dutch guests that ate here last night, the write-up is very nice, but just don’t ask me to translate it!

You can find us on page 87, in the Loire Valley section (even though we could be considered part of the Paris region).

It can be ordered from here.

Update: Evening meals

2009-06-01T13:12:34Z

After a month of providing evening meals and getting feedback from guests, we’ve decided to simplify the offering.

Instead of two formules, with different prices and different days of the week, which guests found a bit confusing, we’ve settled on a single sit-down meal served at 7:30 PM.

The most important change is the disappearance of the buffet. While on paper it was a good idea, in reality we had a very hard time making it work, for a variety of reasons. The most important of which was the fact that Virginie likes to cook, so a cold buffet just isn’t much fun for her. A buffet didn’t fit in with the way she manages her kitchen and plans the week’s meals. And to paraphrase a famous cowboy saying: if chef ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

To learn more, click here.

Spring onions

2009-05-31T13:53:04Z

The potager is coming along nicely. The weeds are under control and we’ve begun eating strawberries and lettuce.

The first of the season

2009-05-19T17:31:10Z

Rhubarb meringue pie

2009-05-18T06:32:49Z

I couldn’t help but take a picture of Virginie’s rhubarb meringue pie, which she made for dessert yesterday. It capped off a dinner of chicken paté and salad for the starter and roast duck legs, mashed potatoes and sautéed carrots as the main course.

Unexpected house guest

2009-05-14T12:14:03Z

Yesterday Victor and a couple friends (and the friends’ dog) stumbled upon this little guy in the woods. He probably fell out of his tree a couple days ago during the high winds we were having.

The kids wanted to protect him from the dog. In retrospect, they should have left him, because parent owls will continue feeding young ones, even if they’ve fallen out of the nest. But once the chick has been touched by a human, they stop feeding.

Happily, one of Victor’s friends is an apprentice falconer. He’s my source of information about owls and other birds of prey. He’s also found this little guy a home at the falconry school.

He moves to his new digs on Friday, but in the meantime we’re taking turns caring for him. We’re on duty today while junior falconer is at school. Victor wanted to take him to school. Shades of Harry Potter.