On the road in Lyon, Ecole des Trois Ponts, and Provence

Looking forward to your posts.

Margie & Larry, have a wonderful, wonderful trip! I hope that you will have time to "post from the road" - it would be fun to hear your comments. voyages sûr

Bon voyage and feel free to stop by if you have the time. We are just across the valley from Bonnieux...

Give us a call at 04.90.75.46.31 -

-Kevin

Dear justretired,

I studied at Ecole des Trois Ponts for three weeks last fall, and loved every minute of it. I'm sure you will too.

Please say hello from Sandy H to Rene, Valerie, Pascal, Marie-Eve, Catherine, Julien, Marianne, Danielle, and everyone else. I'm sorry that I haven't kept in touch with them as much as I had hoped, but I have such fond memories of being there, and do hope to go back some day.

Sandy H

Sandy- I printed your meassage and will say hello to our your friends at Trois Ponts. I'm a bit nervous about the week, in that I'm a bit language impaired and my husband is fluent. I'm hoping to improve, but it's only a week, so I don't expect much. Thanks for the note, Margret

Kevin, we also noted your phone number, and will give you a call if we get a chance.

Leaving for the bus to the airport in an hour and a half.

- Larry

Live from Lyon, it's Saturday night!
Well, Saturday afternoon, et nous voici à Lyon. All transportation worked as planned, but it was still nearly 15 hours door to door (from our house in a Boston suburb to l'Hôtel des Artistes in Lyon).

Lyon is a wonderful city that we think many Americans miss in France. hanl, we've been following all your recommendations with great success. Dinner tonight will be at Le Caro de Lyon. The reservation was easily made, because our mobile phone is working fine - no trouble with the eBay SIM card.

I have a lot of details about the TGV connection, but don't have the time to type it all now on this French keyboard. They won't let me switch to the US layout.

Off to Roanne tomorrow, and the Ecole des Trois Ponts. Much more later, as time allows.

- Larry and Margie

Arrival at Ecole des Trois Ponts
But first, back to Lyon: I had to struggle with a French keyboard there, and didn't type much in my last message. But we had a terrific day yesterday. The weather was gorgeous; We spent the morning in the old city touring old passages and courtyards called "traboules". Then a funicular up to the basilica, and a walk down through gardens and parks. Then we took a boat ride down the Saone and up the Rhone. Dinner at Le Caro de Lyon was excellent. So far; the food's been great.

Today we picked up our rental car, and drove to Roanne. Since it was a Sunday, and we had to pick up the car early before the office closed, we had plenty of time, so we wandered off the main road and wandered through some small towns. We stopped to eat in a small village called Amplepuis, in one of the few open restaurants we were able to find. We were served by a charming 12 year old girl named Celine. The food in this random roadside restaurant was quite good.

On the way out, Margie started chatting with the chef, Celine's father, in French. He and a group of three friends then engaged us in a political conversation. They had strong feelings about US politics and the war in Iraq, and fortunately we agreed with them. This led to a long set of animated discussions in French. One of the men happened to mention to me that I was the first American he had met in 12 years (Amplepuis is not a major tourist destination). I don't think anyone spoke much English except Celine, who is learning it in school, and wanted to practice on us. This is the sort of interaction that we study French for. It was a fascinating and delightful experience.

We're now at l'Ecole des Trois Ponts, where we've been given the orientation tour, met the group, and had our first dinner. We chose a larger room, and it is quite large and nice. The grounds are attractive, and the dinner was very good. The chef, Daniel, explained all the cheeses, as well as how to cut them.

I also have good internet access, a DSL line, and this keyboard can be switched to an English layout, so I can touchtype. So you may hear from me more this week than later in the trip (for better or for worse).

Classes start tomorrow, and I'll let you know how it goes. There are only 9 students, only about half the maximum capacity, because the dollar is not doing well, and perhaps because there is less travel to France for political reasons. But six of the nine students here are Americans. Two are Canadian, and one is German. There are no beginners, but various levels above beginner, and we all spoke only French at dinner.

More to come; any comments will be appreciated.

- Larry

Loving your postcards from the Road. Wish I were back.

Look forward to your post, just.

>...it was still nearly 15 hours door to door (from our house in a Boston suburb to l'Hôtel des Artistes in Lyon).<

It wasn't that long ago that it took weeks.

Hello
Glad to hear you enjoyed Lyon and have been eating well so far!!
(We've just returned from a cold, wet and windy week in Scotland - we were so glad to see the sun shining in Lyon!)

Good luck with your course at the Ecole des Trois Ponts.

Ecole des Trois Ponts

hanl, welcome back, and thanks once again for all the tips on Lyon.

Things are going well at the Ecole des Trois Ponts here at the Chateau Matel. Of the nine students, two are taking private lessons, and the rest are divided into two classes. As expected, I'm in the more advanced class, and Margie is in the less advanced class. But everyone speaks French to some extent - there are no beginners this week. As a result, conversation at the table is entirely in French for all three meals, with only occasional lapses.

As a result of the classes and the immersion, Margie in particular is making rapid progress after only our first two days. For one thing, she's becoming more fearless about using her French, out of necessity. Then at the end of today's class, she realized she was understanding sentences directly for the first time without thinking of the English equivalent. I was surprised she was able to start doing this so quickly. She has been studying French at a once-a-week level for several years, on top of her long-ago High School French, but as an artist, she's more visual than auditory, and it doesn't come to her particularly easily. Thus we're very pleased with her progress.

The meals here have been good. The breakfasts are pretty basic, but the lunches have been quite interesting, and the dinners have shown a good deal of imagination. I think this is because there are students taking cooking classes in the afternoon (as there usually are), and they help prepare the meal. Thus, the chef always wants to prepare something particularly interesting at dinner.

At both lunch and dinner, there is always an excellent cheese selection, and as I've already mentioned, the chef explains each cheese and how to cut it, and the order in which to eat them (milder cheeses first, stronger ones later). New cheeses are always being introduced. The wines at dinner are chosen for the meal being presented, and I've enjoyed them all. And the bread ... well, we're in France, so I needn't say more.

The classes are tailored to each group. In the first class, we were asked what our individual objectives were. Of course, in any group, there are some compromises. But the instructors are knowledgable and energetic and engaging, and arrive well-prepared (they've been doing this for a long time).

In short, we're enjoying our stay, and making good progress with our French, so we're very happy so far.

- Larry

Travel with a PDQ

I think I've mentioned before that I travel with a PDA, a "Personal Digital Assistant", meaning a pocket computer. Mine is a Pocket PC type; the other operating system, the Palm OS, runs on Palm Pilots. I love it, although it makes people look on me as a techno-geek, but that's their problem.

All PDA's bring your Outlook records with you. That means when we got a message that there was trouble with a credit card payment back home, we had the number of the vendor, and could call and straighten it out. It was not a number I ordinarily would have carried, but on the PDA, you have everything.

Once you've got it, the idea is to put everything possible on this compact, lightweight device. I use if for:

An alarm clock (no separate clock needed)
An English-French dictionary (separately purchased software)
What the heck - three other dictionaries:
- English-Spanish
- English-Italian
- English-German
Microsoft "Autoroute" mapping software
Dozens of files of information, e.g."
- hanl's restaurant recommendations for Lyon
- All the Provence recommendations from Fodorites
----- Margie made a file which we'll share with you later
- Lots of other recommendations from Fodorites
- French food dictionaries downloaded from the internet
- All sorts of tips about France, from the internet
- Emergency contacts in case of credit card problems

And so on.

I use the English-French dictionary the most. It's faster to look up a word than in a paper dictionary. I just write it on the screen, and there I am. If I then want to look up one of the definitions in the other direction, I just double-tap it.

But I've also used the mapping software, only in Lyon so far. A woman stopped me on the street and asked if I knew how to find a particular restaurant. I said I didn't but I'd look it up. I did a location search on the restaurant name in Pocket Streets, from the Lyon Center map I'd loaded up from AutoRoute, and there it was, shown on the map, two blocks up and one block over.

And I've consulted my two French Food files numerous times, and information about our itinerary too. It would be hard now for me to go without it.

For this trip, I didn't buy the Michelin Red Guide for France, partly because of all the recommendations we got from all you Fodorites. And I haven't yet added a GPS unit, which would tell me where I am on the map. Someday.

As I said, I'm a techno-geek, so this might not be of interest to everyone, but I love it.

- Larry

Highway signs

sandyh, I haven't mentioned yet that we printed your greetings to the staff at 3 Ponts, and they passed it around to all involved. They remembered you.

Let me mention a few points about driving in France. Fodorites who have done so are probably familiar with all this, but somehow I still get confused even though I've driven here before. There are certain things about the signage that are taken for granted here that are not obvious to the foreigner.

There's a common sort of sign indicating a direction to somewhere which is more or less a wide rectagle with a single name in it, which might be the name of a city or town (such as "Paris"), or a place ("La Gare"). But a triangular projection on one side turns the shape into an arrow.

You might be driving along towards Paris, for example, and as you pass over a cross street, you see one of these to the right of the street you're on, on the far corner with the cross street. It says "Paris", and it points to the left. As an American driver, my impulse is to interpret this as "Turn left here for Paris", and I have often done so.

That is NOT what is intended. The sign is pointed to the entrance to the street right in front of you, and it means "Go straight here for Paris". Sometimes it is angled slightly into that street, but basically, it points left. But don't TURN left, or you'll be on the wrong road.

Another quirk of signage: On the highway, you'll see a white sign indicating an exit to somewhere, let's say "Amplepuis", with an arrow pointing up and to the right to indicate the exit. Right under it is a blue sign containing one or more names, such as "Roanne". That sign has no arrows on it. I have interpreted this as specifying additional places served by this exit. This is not the case. The key is that the sign is blue. That color indicates "highway", so the signs mean "exit here for Amplepuis, but stay on the highway for Roanne".

- Larry

Thanks for the note on the signs, Larry.

If you find other interesting quirks, please let us know.

Bonsoir!
I'm enjoying your posts - hope there are more to come. You're right about the confusing signs here. I still get caught out by those "arrow" signs

I'm enjoying these reports immensely. I loved the one about signage. My personal favorite sign is the huge one in Le Bugue (small town in the Dordogne) that says "bis ESPAGNE" - as though there might be a lot of people passing through wondering how to get to Spain - I don't think so!

TGV from CDG

Thanks for the replies! If I don't hear from anyone for a while, I wonder if I'm just typing into the void.

I was thinking back to the TGV from Charles de Gaulle to Lyon that we took, which was a subject that was discussed before we left. Here are some thoughts:

Signs to the "Gare" in the airport are not that easy to find, but the map is clear on the general direction. It's about a ten minute brisk walk, but the luggage carts are free.

In many cities, there are different stations for the TGV than for other trains. At CDG these are all together, but nothing tells you this.

There's a specific window to pick up tickets if you have come in by air, and your ticket is part of a multi-part air ticket (that is, the train is considered a continue "flight", sort of).

I had a "non-fumeur" ticket waiting for me, pre-printed for a specific train. It was marked "non échange non remboursé". I'm not sure what would have happened if the plane were late and I'd missed my connection.

As has been previously noted on Fodor's, you have to watch the big electronic sign to determine your track ("la voie"). The destination shown may not be yours (ours said "Marseille", the ultimate destination, when we were going to Lyon), but the train number on your ticket matches the sign.

You can descend to the tracks from either side of the waiting room, via the "Acces Nord" or the "Acces Sud". It wasn't clear to me if this took you to two different areas (one for trains going north, the other for trains going south) or if both went to the same tracks (which is in fact the case).

Also as noted here, you must "composter" (validate) your ticket before going down to the track.

At the track, you have to consult another monitor to see where to stand for your car (the car number is on your ticket). It tells you your "repère", or "mark", where you will "répérer" (spot) your "voiture" (car).

The number of the car is on a small LCD display on the side of the car. Don't be confused by the big "2" on the side of the car, which means "second class". You need to spot your car fast, as the train will only stop for a short while. The cars in our case were two-level, and you can only walk through the train on the second level, and it would be very difficult dragging a lot of luggage.

There's not enough space in the cars for a lot of luggage - it was all over the place near the doors.

The elevator from the platform in Lyon was very small - we waited five trips or so before we could get on it.

The TGV really moves! I don't want to sound as if I'm complaining. It was a pleasant trip, and given that it came in at the station Part Dieu instead of at the airport, I don't think it took much longer than flying.

- Larry

Justretired, Glad you are having a wonderful time. Did you eat at any on the Bouchons in Lyon?
Did you notice in the Dordogne area the figures on wood painted black along the roads to show where someone died. In other parts of the country there are bouquets of flowers atop a bamboo pole.

Hi Cigal,

Interesting.

Here in Georgia, the accident spots have crosses and flowers.

Sounds like a lovely trip you're having.

Now, this is what the message board is all about. Excellent and useful information. Much appreciated. Hope the trip is going well.

This is great! Thanks so much for the deatiled information on the TGV. I hope you continue to have a wonderful, safe journey, and thank you for taking the time to share it here with us.

Larry,
As I recall, you previously mentioned that you'll be dropping off a rental car in Lyon. Please post any details on the experience; I've read that this can be a thorny task in Lyon these days.
I returned a car at the Part Dieu station a few years ago and would have never found the facility without detailed directions from our concierge. Next month I'd like to drop off a car before checking into my hotel.
Thanks,
j.

Cigalechanta, yes, we ate at several Boucheries. We ate at Le Mercière (Quennelle de Brochet, Souris d'Qgneau), which we found good, but not outstanding. Lunch at the Sol Café (I had moules, and Margie had a salad with smoked salmon and avocado). Dinner at "Le Caro de Lyon" (Filet de Rouget, Thon aux cepes). We found it better than Le Mercière, at about the same price, although the portions were smaller. We were not in the Dordogne on this trip.

Josh, we'll let you know how it goes with the car, but that won't be for a week (October 4, to be exact). Actually, we picked up the car at Part Dieux, and intend to drive into Lyon for our last night, and then return it at the airport, where I hope the return area will be well marked. But we are getting a little nervous about driving into and out of Lyon.

We could possibly change our plans. One choice would be to return the car a day early to Part Dieu. Since we've been there, it might be easier for us to find the return location, but I'm not so sure. Driving out of it is easier than finding it on the way back. In that case, we'd take a cab to the hotel, and to the airport the next morning (leaving the job of getting us to the airport on time to a professional).

Another possibility is to return the car to Avignon, and take the TGV to Lyon for our last night.

We also thought of changing our hotel for the last night to one at the airport. But we enjoyed Lyon so much that we'd rather go back, walk around, and have one more great dinner on our last evening in France.

We asked at the car pickup if there would be any problem returning it a day in advance, and there is not. Just drop it off at any office and the contract is terminated, But I don't think we'd get a refund for the unused day - we pre-paid through Auto Europe.

- Larry

Hi,
I was just wondering, which rental company are you using? There may be other drop-off points that are easier to access than the airport or Part-Dieu. I could certainly find out for you if you like.

Your mention of Caro de Lyon has got my mouth watering. I think it may be time I went there again for dinner - it's been a few months now!

Where are you planning to eat on your last night in Lyon?

Driving in France
The joys and woes of the rond-point

But first:
hanl: we pre-paid through AutoEurope, and they arranged the rental through EuropCar (which I think is different from the "EuroCar" that has gotten some bad press on Fodor's). We got a free upgrade one car level, and got a really nice Peugeot 407 diesel with low mileage.

We haven't decided yet where to have our last meal in Lyon. Any suggestions are welcome.

Driving: France is dotted with ronds-points, which is the plural of rond-point, which means "traffic circle" in the US, or "roundabout" in the UK. For some reason, in my home state of Massachusetts, we say "rotary". The first time in Massachusetts that I saw a sign announcing a "rotary", I didn't know what they were talking about.

The rond-point has its advantages and disadvantages. A major advantage for the tourist is that you can keep going round and round. That may sound silly, but remember that the rond-point is an intersections, and as such will have lots of signs indicationg which exit to take.

In a foreign country, the signs are hard to read. They are in a foreign language, and use unfamiliar conventions. It can be hard to make a snap decision as to whether an exit is correct, and if you take the wrong exit, it can be hard to reverse direction (and you can't easily go back to re-read the signs).

But in a rond-point, if you have any doubt, don't get off. Just keep going around, reading all the signs until you are satisfied with your choice. It's great!

Furthermore, once you are in the rond-point, you have the right of way. Nobody will (or at least should) barge in on you. The rond-point is an exception to the general French rule of priorité à droite (priority to the right). Occasionally, some elderly Frenchman will forget this and barge right on in, remembering the old way of doing it (which killed lots of people), but that rarely happens these days. At every entrance, there's a "yield" symbol, a downward pointing triangle, and just in case you don't get it, there's a rectangular sign below it that says Cédez le passage ("yield the passage").

The disadvantage of the rond-point is that it jams up under heavy traffic, which we discovered in Boston, where we're getting rid of most of them. But I've seldom found that to be a problem in France, at least in the countryside.

Another reflection on driving in France: in the US, a highway generally stays a highway all along its length. But in France, it's common for decent highways to suddenly turn into a narrow road that goes right through the center of a village, only to become a highway again on the other side.

I was driving back to the Ecole des Trois Ponts from the north yesterday, on the N7 (Route Nationale 7). Once I got onto the N7, I figured I had no problem, as I knew my exit. When I had come up from Lyon, I exited the N7 at exit 66. Job done, I relaxed my guard, following the N7, following the signs towards Roanne.

Well, the N7 wandered through a few ronds-points, and I kept following the signs to Roanne. And where did I end up? Duh - Roanne! Roanne CENTER, that is, right in the city, well off the highway.

You see, I had to go past the bulk of Roanne to get to exit 66, and since I was following the signs to Roanne, and the N7 really ISN'T a highway north of exit 66, at some point I had deviated from the N7, and struck off towards Roanne centre.

My falut was to not carefully observe the REALLY SMALL square signs that said "N7", so as to stay on the "highway" (or what passed for a highway at that point). But even better would have been to follow the big signs to a destination further along the N7, such as Lyon, for instance. That would have kept me on the N7 until I saw my exit 66.

- Larry

You'll hear less from me next week

By the way, "falut" in my previous message should have been "fault".

We're leaving l'Ecole des Trois Ponts tomorrow morning, for smaller towns in Provence. Hence I'll lose my great high-speed internet access, and be at the mercy of internet cafés, and probably French keyboards. I won't be able to do as much posting as I have been doing. But I'll try to drop a line now and again.

- Larry

Hmm. Europcar have an agency at Perrache station too, but it appears to be in the station concourse itself. Parking round there is no fun at the moment and the whole area is a mess of roadworks as they are extending the tramline. So if you want to drop off the car in the city, it looks like Part Dieu would be your best bet after all.

As for dinner, apart from the places I mentioned before (and I admit, I'm a creature of habit - once I find a place I like I tend to go there a lot!!) ... you could try and get a reservation on the covered terrasse at Maison Villemanzy, on the slopes of the Croix Rousse hill. The food is good (though perhaps not amazing) and reasonably priced, but it's the view that people go for. If they don't have a table with a view, though (and these tables get booked up fast), it might not be worth the detour.

Another restaurant which is a bit of an institution in Lyon is l'Etage, on place des Terreaux. I've never eaten there but it's well known and popular here and has a good reputation. You have to go up a few flights of stairs to reach the dining room which overlooks the place.

Another place you could try (which I've never been to either!!) is le Petit Léon, which is the little sister to Jean Paul Lacombe's famous restaurant gastronomique, Léon de Lyon. They are next door to one another on rue Pleney in the 1st arrondissement.

Or you could just take pot luck... and perhaps you'll be able to give me some recommendations!

Thanks once again, hanl. We've printed your last message to carry with us, and we'll let you know what we do.

I'm about to go to bed here after our last dinner at 3 Ponts. The food's been very good. I need to write more on the forum about our experience here, which has been excellent, but I'm too tired now to do it justice, so that might have to await our return in a bit over a week.

One thought occurred to me regarding driving, which I missed in my earlier message: parking. Heading for a parking lot, a car right in front of us pulled out of a spot on the street, and we zipped right in. Hey, I thought, a free spot! There was no parking meter. But as we walked up the street, a sign caught my eye that contained the words "Stationnement payant", or words to that effect, so I looked around some more, and asked someone for advice.

It turned out I had to pay for my space, as with a parking meter, but the system is different. At intervals along the street are small machines called "horodateurs". You decide how much time you need, and read what it costs. Then you feed in coins (as for a parking meter, you'd better have them with you), and when the display gets up to the balance you want, you push a green button. The machine prints a ticket with a date and time of expiration on it, and you stick in on the dash board above the steering wheel.

I've seen this system in the US as well. What's a bit tricky in France is that you may have to look some distance along the street to see the sign notifying you that the parking must be paid (and you need to be able to read it, of course). If in doubt, you might look on the dashboards of other parked cars to see if there are tickets there.

Then, it took me some time to locate the horodateur. It's not that large, and it's set on a post on the sidewalk. I had to ask for help finding it, and I had to walk about 100 feet from the car to the nearest one. The problem is looking for something when you don't know exactly what it looks like. Once you see one, it's easier to find the next.

See what happens when you encourage me, luvtotravel? You get lots of detail.

But we're off to Provence tomorrow; you'll hear from me less for a while. I may have some comments from time to time, but more detailed reports from now on will probably have to await my return.

- Larry

Enjoying your reports, Larry. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate all your details regarding driving in France! I've driven there, but any hints are still very welcome. I'm glad to hear you had a good experience at the school. Hope you will write all about that in detail when you get home!

Good hint about paying for parking

Not too much right now. We've got a slow connection at this internet café, the first we've seen in a while. We're in St. Rémy de Provence, and we'll stroll around a bit, and maybe drive into the surrounding area, and later pick up a friend who lives in England, who's comin in to Avignon to join us.

Beautiful weather here, but with lots of wind (le Mistral). We saw the psychiatric hospital where Vincent van Gogh went after he cut his ear off, and we've been visiting a lot of places where the impressionists painted.

Cigalechanta, we're keeping lists of everything we're eating, and will give a more detailed report when we return. At the rate we're going, we'll be ten pounds heavier. Each. Margie has particularly enjoyed all your suggestions about things to paint. She's starting to photograph doorways and windows, and we're noticing the lacy "campaniles".

We'll be in touch when possible, and as you know, we'll be home a week from today, at which point more detailed reports will follow.

Margie and Larry.

Larry,
I'm glad to hear that your trip is going well. It sounds like you enjoyed your stay at L'ecole des trois ponts. I can't wait to hear your final trip report!
Reading the report has taken my mind off the wait for the first of the Presidential debates. I'm hoping it goes well for the one from your part of the country.

I know what you mean, Larry. At home I don't eat three meals but there, it's three plus wine and apertifs, digestifs, and many pastis in between. I always can't fit into my clothes near the end of our trip.
I'm so looking forward to more pictures.

We're in Avignon, and nearing the end of a wonderful vacation. Our friend from England has been with us for four days, and we just dropped him at the train station in Avignon, where we still are (but not for long). It was a lot of fun having him along. He was eager to do whatever we wanted, and we also did a lot of catching up.

The weather has been absolutely perfect this week - sunny and warm every single day, and cool at night. The two B&B's were both great. Dinner at Le Mas de Cante-Perdrix a couple of nights ago was one of the best we've had in France, and that's saying something. We'll eat there again tonight.


We've driven around (and a bit through) Les Dentelles, and the Cotes du Rhone wine country. We visited Orange between the 2 B&B's. Today we went to our second large market, at Carpentras, before coming to Avignon to dance on the bridge.

Everyone talks about the Sunday market at l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which we visited last Sunday. The town is beautiful, and the market was a lot of fun. But the market in Carpentras on Friday is similar in size, or even a little bigger, minus the antiques. It was easier to walk through (l'Isle was packed shoulder to shoulder). We greeted several vendors we had bought things from in l'Isle on Sunday who we saw again in Carpentras.

Due to having to drop our friend at the train, and the pressure of time, we never got into the Palace of the Popes, where the Vatican was in Avignon.


We haven't seen the debate, and need to go buy a paper. Every French person we've talked to in France hates Bush, and quite a few have commented that they simply can't understand Americans. Same goes for us.

We haven't decided yet what to do on our last day in Provence, nor chosen our final restaurant in Lyon. But we HAVE decided to drop the car in Avignon a day early, and we'll take the TGV back to Lyon. This will save us a lot of driving, and we won't have to drive in and out of Lyon and park the car.

That's it for now. You may not hear from us until we return Monday night. I promise more detailed reports will follow, with menus, and of course more detail on the Ecole de 3 Ponts.

Larry & Margie

We're back, but just, from a great vacation. Long reports will follow, but not until tomorrow, after we've gotten some sleep. I've got lots to say, but it will probably take some time to get it all out.

(Dinner on our last night in Lyon was at Le Rond de Serviette. I had the crab and leek tart, followed by frogs' legs, which I hadn't eaten in about 30 years. A great tarte aux poires for dessert.)

More to come.

- Larry

Trip Report is in a new thread

We're back, and now somewhat rested, although still a bit jet-lagged and discombobulated.

I thought it better to start another thread for the trip report, so that the title would make it clear that it's a trip report, and that we're no longer "on the road". It's entitled, "Trip Report, France: Lyon, Roanne, Ecole des Trois Ponts, Provence (Luberon & Vaucluse)". You can find it at:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessages.jsp?fid=2&tid=34533499

Both Margie and I will add to it as time allows. Thanks again to all the Fodorites whose advice helped to make this such a wonderful trip.

- Larry

Thanks Larry for all the driving tips, heading to France in a week.

Welcome back (belatedly)!

I'd like to hear more about Autoroute. From the Microsoft site, it appears that it only covers the UK. What maps were you using in on your Lyon-Provence expedition?

Here's my PDA thread:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&tid=34474486

Robespierre, it appears that the full version of MicroSoft AutoRoute can't be bought in the US, or at least it couldn't be back in the late Fall of 2003. I can only guess that this is for legal reasons involving the map data (although the map data are now freely available at http://www.mappy.com).

So on my trip to Spain a couple of years ago, I bought a copy in a department store. I think it was around $60 (perhaps I can look it up later). It covers all of western Europe. You can select any rectangle out of the maps it generates, and upload them to your Pocket PC, to Pocket Streets and Trips. I brought it back home and loaded it up on my PC, and then on a subsequent trip to France, carried maps of the areas we'd be visiting.

The only problem is that, having been bought in Spain, the program is in Spanish. This is not a big deal for the menus, but also affects the names of places, and I don't always know the Spanish spelling offhand. But this hasn't turned out to be a big issue.

I've got to go out now for the day - I'll post again later on this and some other issues (for example, the PDA dictionaries I use, and love, are no longer available in the US).

- Larry

A quick web search seems to show the same situation as the last time I looked two years ago: Microsoft's "AutoRoute" mapping software of Europe and the UK is only available in Europe and the UK, and the vendors there won't ship it to the US. I can find no reference on any Microsoft site as to if this is truly the case, or as to why this is the case.

TomTom (http://www.tomtom.com) sells GPS devices and mapping software for Europe at a much higher price (AutoRoute 2005 can now be bought from Amazon UK for only 39 pounds). I originally bought my Collins translation dictionaries from TomTom, back in November, 2003, for $35 each. TomTom no longer carries them, and as far as I can tell they, like the AutoRoute software, are no longer available in the US.

The Collins dictionaries were at the time available for English-French, English-Spanish, English-Italian, and English-German. I thought that was great, because these are exactly the foreign languages I speak (not surprising, since these are probably the most common foreign languages learned by English speakers).

I bought the first three, but hesitated on the German, because my German goes back to a Conversational German course in graduate school, in the late sixties, and I haven't kept it up. At one time, I was able to do a creditable job in a political discussion in East Germany, having crossed the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie. But over the years since then, my German has deteriorated drastically due to non-use (use it or lose it).

But in the end, I purchased the German dictionary as well. Now, finding it no longer available, I'm very happy I did. We'll be traveling to northern Italy soon, to areas that are full of German tourists. We'll also be visiting the Dolomites, including the South Tyrol region of Italy, where in fact German is more apt to be the native language than Italian. I'll be happy to have it.

One beauty of the PDA-based dictionaries is that I've always got all four of them with me. In the bad old days of paper dictionaries, I'd carry only one - in France, the French one, in Spain, the Spanish one, etc. But now I've always got all four. Thus, if, as happened on a past trip to Italy, I share a dinner table with a couple of German tourists, I've got the German dictionary with me as well, even though I set out in the morning not expecting to speak German that day.

Robespierre, the main problem with creating the device you speak of is the massive amount of "content" needed. For a previous trip to Spain, I purchased a "Lonely Planet" interactive map of Madrid for my PDA. This was a great map - infinitely zoomable and scrollable, and it calculated routes, like MapQuest. What was disappointing was its content on attractions, restaurants, and hotels - only a dozen or so of each. And it was only available for a few major cities, so I had it in Madrid, but not in Seville or Granada.

I can't find it now in a web search, but there seems to be a similar product offered by Rough Guides.

It seems that although you'll find a few enthusiastic potential purchasers like me, the market for these devices must be small. At least, that's my guess looking at the paucity of products being marketed in the US. Any bookstore will show that there's a market for guidebooks, but you then have to intersect that population with those who carry PDAs, and those who are interested in using them for more in-depth knowledge while traveling, and the market gets much smaller ("nobody here but us techno-nerds").

Perhaps, as your informal and unscientific survey of Fodorites (on another thread) seems to indicate, it's not a big enough market to justify the massive effort of generating the content. If you can't find a willing market for this product among Fodorites, I'm not sure where you will find it.

On the other hand, it will come eventually, I imagine. At one point, anyone carrying a cell phone was considered a techno-nerd. My younger daughter was intensely embarrased every time my wife was seen talking on one - she thought pulling out a cell phone in public was pretentious beyond belief. Now that same daughter uses a cell phone as her primary phone, and carries it everywhere. Some day, people may look back and wonder why anyone would have ever wanted to carry a heavy and hard to use paper guidebook. But you may be ahead of your time.

- Larry

This thread popping up to the top inspired me to post some of my photos of the Ecole des Trois Ponts, plus Lyon and some of our side trips near Roanne.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=lgb54rm.a8wws7iq&x=0&y=7kg5zj

If you want to get in to see these without having to register and sign in, just click on the link at the bottom-right, "View photos without signing in".

Enjoy!

- Larry

I'm thinking ahead to when I may retire and take another French course, so this thread caught my eye tonight. I'm wondering, Larry, how you decided upon Ecole des Trois Ponts? I took a 2 week course in Tours (at Centre Linguistique pour Etrangers--CLE) several years ago, and whereas it was excellent, I'd like to try a different place next time. I saw some info about Coeur de France (in Sancerre) recently and then came across this thread. I enjoyed reading your report and seeing your lovely pictures.(I've also stayed at Hotel des Artistes-several yrs.ago-and liked it!) Ecole des Trois Ponts sounds like a very good place to study and in a great location, in the bigger picture.

Did you find that one week was sufficient? I felt that with my 2 week stay in Tours that I was just beginning to settle in the routine, and then it was over. You didn't say much about homework; we had quite a bit at CLE. I'd be interested in hearing any additional info you may have about your experience, if you have time. Merci!

Hi, Grandmere,

For some more detail on our stay at 3 Ponts, you may or may not have already seen the continuation of this thread, which I posted back in October, 2004. It's entitled, "Trip Report, France: Lyon, Roanne, Ecole des Trois Ponts, Provence (Luberon & Vaucluse)". You can find it at:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessages.jsp?fid=2&tid=34533499

It's mentioned earlier in THIS thread, but there's a lot here to read, and you may have missed it (or not).

We found the Ecole des Trois Ponts on the internet at first, and then saw an article about it in the NY Times, and did some further research. What attracted us to it was that you lived at the school, and spent all your meals with the same group of students. At most other language schools, you have to arrange separate accomodations (although the school will generally help you find them), and they are separate from the school.

We enjoyed being together with the same group for a week. Our afternoons were free, so we made various side trips. On some, we were accompanied by another member of the group, who we had just met. Some people at the school had cars with them for the week, as we did, but others did not. Some borrowed bicycles from the school, and used them to get around.

As to whether one week is "sufficient": obviously, the more time you put in, the more you get out of it. It sounds as if your program at CLE was more rigorous than ours. We had homework, but it didn't take a lot of time each evening. The sum total of our classes during the week was 19 hours, and we had afternoons free.

My French was pretty good going in, and my level at the end of the course was rated "Professional +". I could take 1, 2, 3, or more weeks, and continue to improve, more or less in proportion to the time I spend.

Margie, on the other hand, is at an intermediate level. Although she made major advances for one week, I suspect two weeks would have more than doubled her progress, and three weeks would have more than tripled her progress. From my own experience when I was first learning French, lengthy immersions really build on themselves, and it starts to feel more natural and less forced.

Another thing that could have helped Margie would have been true total immersion - that is, not using any English at all during the week. We did not do that - the students all spoke only French at the school (during meals and other times), but Margie and I spoke English to each other during the afternoons. Margie was not quite ready for a total immersion experience - she needs to be able to express herself, and staying totally in French was just too exhausting. I'm quite capable of going a week without expressing any deep feelings or complex thoughts if I had to; I don't think Margie can do that.

Let us know how your plans work out.

- Larry

Thank you for getting back so soon; I was afraid that you might miss the post. It really sounds like a good place. My "sejour" would be over a year away, but it's always fun to plan ahead!

My experience at CLE was total immersion; I lived with a family for the two weeks,and the two other students who stayed there were non-English speaking, so French it was!

I was in the 6th level of 7 classes, and it was my grammar that got me there; I felt that my oral-aural skills (b/c of the way I was taught French years ago)were not up to par with the others in the class, but of course, I improved over the two weeks. But that was in 1994! Anytime I take a little test or quiz on line, I am rated Advanced Intermediate or Intermediate II, or whatever they call it, and that feels just about right.

Thanks so much for the info; lots to think about!

I did read your other post, and it was very interesting. I've been to many of the places you mentioned in Provence. I don't know how I missed your post the first time around!

Grandmere, it sounds as if your French is pretty advanced, but you suffered from the basically reading/writing emphasis in the French classes of our youth. I actually was lucky to have a teacher with a more conversational outlook in my first French course, way back in High School in the mid fifties.

In French, it is particularly hard to decipher a spoken stream - it's hard to separate the words. This is because of the lack of a tonic stress (individual words don't have a stressed syllable), the non-pronunciation of most final consonants, and the liaison.

You might tune up your French before your next trip by subscribing to Champs-Elysées:

http://www.champs-elysees.com/

or Fluent French Audio:

http://store.yahoo.com/fluent-french-audio/index.html

- Larry

Yep, we're of same vintage!

But weren't you lucky to have a teacher who was forward thinking enough to stress conversation!

And your explanation does make sense as to why I have more-trouble-than-I-think-I-should understanding French!

Since I've been directing some people to this old 2004 trip report lately, let me add to it a link to a version of the report on my web page. That has the advantage of having photographs:

http://lkrakauer.home.comcast.net/france04/

- Larry