Dordogne & Paris...trip report
Jun 16th, 2006, 09:44 AM
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Dordogne & Paris...trip report
G'day, all....just got back last night from fifteen days in the French Republic, spent cycling in the Dordogne and kicking around the usual tourist spots in Paris. I'll be posting a trip report in blurbs, probably on a daily basis. That way, it won't become a chore for me, and will probably make for a more entertaining and informative post.
First point...are Americans on this board aware that, because of the large number of forgeries in circulation, French banks and la Poste will not accept US $100 bills in payment for Euros? Any other denominations are OK, but not C notes! Or so I was told at the cashier at la Poste in Souillac. Kind of a bummer for me, given that I'd brought cash to finance the trip, and given that my bride and I had our three teenagers in tow, the US $300 daily limit on my debit card really wasn't going to make it. Fortunately I have a couple of different cards, so no hardship, really, but still something of a surprise.
First point...are Americans on this board aware that, because of the large number of forgeries in circulation, French banks and la Poste will not accept US $100 bills in payment for Euros? Any other denominations are OK, but not C notes! Or so I was told at the cashier at la Poste in Souillac. Kind of a bummer for me, given that I'd brought cash to finance the trip, and given that my bride and I had our three teenagers in tow, the US $300 daily limit on my debit card really wasn't going to make it. Fortunately I have a couple of different cards, so no hardship, really, but still something of a surprise.
Jun 16th, 2006, 12:38 PM
#2
True. Banque de France particularly always posts that hundred dollar bills are not accepted. But I would be very surprised if at least some of the main commercial banks did not accept them. Better to take twenties, though.
Jun 17th, 2006, 05:20 AM
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Interesting, Crazy....you'll love the place. The Dordogne and Lot are among the world's most naturally beautiful regions, I think. I envy St. Cirq...I'm scheming about how to join her.
OK...to business..
I. The Journey
Originally the concept was to spend approximately a week cycling in the Dordogne and then some time in Paris, taking our three teenaged children around the usual tourist spots. This was to be their first trip to Europe, and would plant the larvae of the 'travel bug' into them, hoped my DW and I. Whether we suceeded remains to be seen....but they claim to have had a blast!
I use my credit card to purchase considerable inventory for my business, and a few years ago decided that I was smokin' crack not to get an airlines reward card and get something tangible as reward for all the bucks the banks were making off of me. After eighteen months or so I realized that I had enough miles for free tickets for the five of us all the way to Paris. Well, not exactly free...airport taxes etc. came to around $750 or so, but still a wonderful deal. If you like to travel and don't have an airmiles awards card, get one!
Kudos to British Airways, by the by. Our LA to Heathrow leg was the longest part of the trip, of course, and the airline and their employees did an excellent job comfortably and in reasonably good spirits. I've taken similar trips on US airlines, and, imho, BA shows them how it should be done. <grin> Of course, that government subsidy they receive probably helps.
Once at Heathrow, we had to switch to Standsted to pick up a Ryanair flight to Bergerac. When I first made the arrangement the layover was four hours; a rescheduling by the airline turned this into eight. Bummer. But it worked to our advantage. Ryanair's prices change from day to day; when they first posted their summer schedule the airfares were a hundred pounds per person; when their price dropped to eighty, I booked. But about a month or so later, it had dropped to forty! Since the airline's scheduling change required them to offer me a refund, I took it (it was speedily processed, too), and rebooked at the new lower price with, incidentally, a higher baggage weight limit (from 15 to 20 kg) as a bonus. Additionally, the extra time gave us the opportunity to see a tiny bit of England. A train station under the Standsted airport makes it possible to visit the little town of Bishop Stortford (sp?), about ten minutes by train from the airport station (trains run every half hour on the quarter hour) for about three and a half pounds a person. Easy and convenient, and a whole lot better than hanging out at yet another airport. If you find yourself at this airport and have maybe three hours plus before your checkin, it's worth the trip. Not a great deal to see, but then you won't have a great deal of time, and there are any number of pubs and cafes at which to lunch...or drink, if the trip's been a rough one so far. I chose to drink, thank you. 'Rough' is, after all, a matter of definition.
Seeing that there were five of us, taking the regular Nat'l Express shuttle between Heathrow and Standsted airports would have cost us pretty close to a hundred pounds...pretty much what a private van was going to run! So we elected to use Eddie Manning's van service, recommended to us by someone on this board. Mr. Manning collected us on schedule, got us to Standsted expeditiously, and provided an amusing local commentary on the way. A good service, well worth the few extra pounds it costs over the National Express autobus, if you have four or five folks in your party.
We got back to the airport in plenty of time, only to find that our flight had been delayed for some hours due to a crew shortage, and there was some question of whether it would happen at all. Some anxiety there! We had no wish to have to book at a local hotel, and we had someone awaiting us at the other end. A crew was finally located, we were herded onto the plane, and a very tired family arrived at Bergerac airport after thirty hours on the road...or on the wing, I suppose...to be collected by one Christine, the local representative of the cycling company whose tour we'd booked. Despite the late hour (it was after 2300, and we'd originally been scheduled to arrive in Bergerac at 1720 or so), she handled us with charm, competence and good humor, and got us to our hotel in Les Eyzies, where the staff had actually waited up for us!
More later....
OK...to business..
I. The Journey
Originally the concept was to spend approximately a week cycling in the Dordogne and then some time in Paris, taking our three teenaged children around the usual tourist spots. This was to be their first trip to Europe, and would plant the larvae of the 'travel bug' into them, hoped my DW and I. Whether we suceeded remains to be seen....but they claim to have had a blast!
I use my credit card to purchase considerable inventory for my business, and a few years ago decided that I was smokin' crack not to get an airlines reward card and get something tangible as reward for all the bucks the banks were making off of me. After eighteen months or so I realized that I had enough miles for free tickets for the five of us all the way to Paris. Well, not exactly free...airport taxes etc. came to around $750 or so, but still a wonderful deal. If you like to travel and don't have an airmiles awards card, get one!
Kudos to British Airways, by the by. Our LA to Heathrow leg was the longest part of the trip, of course, and the airline and their employees did an excellent job comfortably and in reasonably good spirits. I've taken similar trips on US airlines, and, imho, BA shows them how it should be done. <grin> Of course, that government subsidy they receive probably helps.
Once at Heathrow, we had to switch to Standsted to pick up a Ryanair flight to Bergerac. When I first made the arrangement the layover was four hours; a rescheduling by the airline turned this into eight. Bummer. But it worked to our advantage. Ryanair's prices change from day to day; when they first posted their summer schedule the airfares were a hundred pounds per person; when their price dropped to eighty, I booked. But about a month or so later, it had dropped to forty! Since the airline's scheduling change required them to offer me a refund, I took it (it was speedily processed, too), and rebooked at the new lower price with, incidentally, a higher baggage weight limit (from 15 to 20 kg) as a bonus. Additionally, the extra time gave us the opportunity to see a tiny bit of England. A train station under the Standsted airport makes it possible to visit the little town of Bishop Stortford (sp?), about ten minutes by train from the airport station (trains run every half hour on the quarter hour) for about three and a half pounds a person. Easy and convenient, and a whole lot better than hanging out at yet another airport. If you find yourself at this airport and have maybe three hours plus before your checkin, it's worth the trip. Not a great deal to see, but then you won't have a great deal of time, and there are any number of pubs and cafes at which to lunch...or drink, if the trip's been a rough one so far. I chose to drink, thank you. 'Rough' is, after all, a matter of definition.
Seeing that there were five of us, taking the regular Nat'l Express shuttle between Heathrow and Standsted airports would have cost us pretty close to a hundred pounds...pretty much what a private van was going to run! So we elected to use Eddie Manning's van service, recommended to us by someone on this board. Mr. Manning collected us on schedule, got us to Standsted expeditiously, and provided an amusing local commentary on the way. A good service, well worth the few extra pounds it costs over the National Express autobus, if you have four or five folks in your party.
We got back to the airport in plenty of time, only to find that our flight had been delayed for some hours due to a crew shortage, and there was some question of whether it would happen at all. Some anxiety there! We had no wish to have to book at a local hotel, and we had someone awaiting us at the other end. A crew was finally located, we were herded onto the plane, and a very tired family arrived at Bergerac airport after thirty hours on the road...or on the wing, I suppose...to be collected by one Christine, the local representative of the cycling company whose tour we'd booked. Despite the late hour (it was after 2300, and we'd originally been scheduled to arrive in Bergerac at 1720 or so), she handled us with charm, competence and good humor, and got us to our hotel in Les Eyzies, where the staff had actually waited up for us!
More later....
Jun 18th, 2006, 08:19 AM
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I look forward to the rest of your trip report. I hope to go cycling there someday, but my next one will be to Loire Valley (3rd time) and Normandy.
I had a friend who experienced the same problem with exchanging $100 bills last year. In his case, one bank would not exchange at all, in another bank, it was just the older bills that would not be exchanged.
I likewise used rewards credit cards to buy inventory for my business. Anyone in business should explore this option with their suppliers.
Like you, I have had delays getting to Europe. That is why I never plan on any activity on the first day except to go to the hotel.
I had a friend who experienced the same problem with exchanging $100 bills last year. In his case, one bank would not exchange at all, in another bank, it was just the older bills that would not be exchanged.
I likewise used rewards credit cards to buy inventory for my business. Anyone in business should explore this option with their suppliers.
Like you, I have had delays getting to Europe. That is why I never plan on any activity on the first day except to go to the hotel.
Jun 18th, 2006, 08:37 AM
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One of the few job perks I have is a corporate credit card than accumlates frequent flyer miles. I manage two tickets per year...our last trip we paid taxes and service fees of CAD368.00...like you say..not exactly free but a far cry from a regular ticket. I can't wait to hear about the Dordogne.
Jun 18th, 2006, 04:57 PM
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II. Planning
A couple of years ago my wife and I cycled around Provence; I've posted about it on this board. We found the experience wonderful, and decided to do the same thing again, but this time in the Dordogne, and with our kids. I suppose we chose that region because of its reputation for medieval architecure and fortification, military history being an interest of mine, and its celebrated natural beauty. Of course mention 'castles' to any American kid and you'll light up their face, so my kids were in full agreement.
In retrospect I don't think that it was a particularily good choice. I'm an enthusiastic cyclist, and didn't have any troubles with the topography, but my kids, despite warning after warning after warning from Dad (and I never once said 'I told you so', to everyone's surprise!), just weren't in good enough physical condition to handle it day after day. The hills were frequent and steep, and even I found them challenging. My kids found that they had the strength but not the necessary stamina. Unless you and everyone in your party is in above-average physical condition, are willing to get that way (and the only way to get toughened up for cycling is to cycle), find a flatter region, or schedule your trip to cycle only every other day.
I'll take a moment to congratulate French drivers on their courtesy and civility to cyclists, FAR greater than one finds here in the United States! Here, the attitude amongst motorists is one of doubt that a bicycle has any right at all to share the road. Yet, at no time did we find drivers in France to be anything other than considerate of and patient with us.
We elected to use a small company based in Beaune to plan our route and arrange our hotels. DiscoverFrance had done a good job for us in Provence, but the price offered by Detours-in-France (Florent LeRoux, prop.) was about two thirds of theirs. M. LeRoux had cycled the area and was familar with the highways and biways, and I asked him to set up a route as unchallenging as possible, given that my kids, my daughters especially, were not experienced cyclists. He may have done so, but it was still a bit much for them.
I'd asked M. LeRoux to set up simple and unpretentious accomodations; despite our international reputation, not all Americans are comfort-mad. He did us well in this respect; those hotels he booked us into, which I'll name later, were perfectly adequate and quite comfortable without being luxurious. I was well satisfied in this respect.
Part of the service was the arrangement of about half of the evening meals. Most of the dinners set up were quite nice, if a bit hightoned; I think that, after fifty or so kilometers of toiling up those hills, we would have been happier with simple but good country fare, and a lot of it, than experimenting with haute cuisine. <grin> And just how much duck can a body stand, anyway? Usually the menu was preset, but always seemed to include the great specialities of this region, duck, duck, goose, and more duck. A little more care in arranging those menus would have been appreciated. I amused the server at a rather hightoned place in Rocamadour by asking for cheeseburgers all round; her reply was a smile and 'Well, you've come to the wrong place for that...how about some duck?'
OK...more later....
A couple of years ago my wife and I cycled around Provence; I've posted about it on this board. We found the experience wonderful, and decided to do the same thing again, but this time in the Dordogne, and with our kids. I suppose we chose that region because of its reputation for medieval architecure and fortification, military history being an interest of mine, and its celebrated natural beauty. Of course mention 'castles' to any American kid and you'll light up their face, so my kids were in full agreement.
In retrospect I don't think that it was a particularily good choice. I'm an enthusiastic cyclist, and didn't have any troubles with the topography, but my kids, despite warning after warning after warning from Dad (and I never once said 'I told you so', to everyone's surprise!), just weren't in good enough physical condition to handle it day after day. The hills were frequent and steep, and even I found them challenging. My kids found that they had the strength but not the necessary stamina. Unless you and everyone in your party is in above-average physical condition, are willing to get that way (and the only way to get toughened up for cycling is to cycle), find a flatter region, or schedule your trip to cycle only every other day.
I'll take a moment to congratulate French drivers on their courtesy and civility to cyclists, FAR greater than one finds here in the United States! Here, the attitude amongst motorists is one of doubt that a bicycle has any right at all to share the road. Yet, at no time did we find drivers in France to be anything other than considerate of and patient with us.
We elected to use a small company based in Beaune to plan our route and arrange our hotels. DiscoverFrance had done a good job for us in Provence, but the price offered by Detours-in-France (Florent LeRoux, prop.) was about two thirds of theirs. M. LeRoux had cycled the area and was familar with the highways and biways, and I asked him to set up a route as unchallenging as possible, given that my kids, my daughters especially, were not experienced cyclists. He may have done so, but it was still a bit much for them.
I'd asked M. LeRoux to set up simple and unpretentious accomodations; despite our international reputation, not all Americans are comfort-mad. He did us well in this respect; those hotels he booked us into, which I'll name later, were perfectly adequate and quite comfortable without being luxurious. I was well satisfied in this respect.
Part of the service was the arrangement of about half of the evening meals. Most of the dinners set up were quite nice, if a bit hightoned; I think that, after fifty or so kilometers of toiling up those hills, we would have been happier with simple but good country fare, and a lot of it, than experimenting with haute cuisine. <grin> And just how much duck can a body stand, anyway? Usually the menu was preset, but always seemed to include the great specialities of this region, duck, duck, goose, and more duck. A little more care in arranging those menus would have been appreciated. I amused the server at a rather hightoned place in Rocamadour by asking for cheeseburgers all round; her reply was a smile and 'Well, you've come to the wrong place for that...how about some duck?'
OK...more later....
Jun 18th, 2006, 05:11 PM
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Really enjoying this, Jeffrey. I would have cautioned you about cycling in the Dordogne, but I guess you had a great time anyway.
And doesn't the duck, duck, goose just get a bit tiresome? As good as it is, and as amazing a gastronomic region it is, at the core, the cuisine really is rather limited. I hope you and your kids found Le Mentalo in Les Eyzies. My kids live there and at the takeout pizza place in St-Cyprien.
I'm going to be doing some fairly big renovations at the house over the next few years. If you're a handy guy, maybe we can strike a deal..
And doesn't the duck, duck, goose just get a bit tiresome? As good as it is, and as amazing a gastronomic region it is, at the core, the cuisine really is rather limited. I hope you and your kids found Le Mentalo in Les Eyzies. My kids live there and at the takeout pizza place in St-Cyprien.
I'm going to be doing some fairly big renovations at the house over the next few years. If you're a handy guy, maybe we can strike a deal..
Jun 20th, 2006, 09:00 AM
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Jeffrey,
I just returned from two weeks in the Dordogne too and have to confess that I thought sympathetically of you and your plans every time we passed bicyclers toiling up the many hills.
I look forward to reading the rest of your trip report while I work on compiling mine and organizing my photos. Thanks for posting!
Jeffrey,
I just returned from two weeks in the Dordogne too and have to confess that I thought sympathetically of you and your family plans every time we passed bicyclers toiling up the many hills.
I look forward to reading the rest of your trip report while I work on compiling mine and organizing my photos. Thanks for posting!
I just returned from two weeks in the Dordogne too and have to confess that I thought sympathetically of you and your plans every time we passed bicyclers toiling up the many hills.
I look forward to reading the rest of your trip report while I work on compiling mine and organizing my photos. Thanks for posting!
Jeffrey,
I just returned from two weeks in the Dordogne too and have to confess that I thought sympathetically of you and your family plans every time we passed bicyclers toiling up the many hills.
I look forward to reading the rest of your trip report while I work on compiling mine and organizing my photos. Thanks for posting!
Jun 21st, 2006, 06:12 AM
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"I'm going to be doing some fairly big renovations at the house over the next few years. If you're a handy guy, maybe we can strike a deal.."
<grin> We might at that, St. Cirq, as long as you promise to serve up something other than duck once in a while!
"just returned from two weeks in the Dordogne too and have to confess that I thought sympathetically of you and your family plans every time we passed bicyclers toiling up the many hills."
Well, Moolyn, if a group of the bicyclers you passed were wearing identical, dorky-looking, but highly visible road-crew-style safety vests, that would have been us.
<grin> We might at that, St. Cirq, as long as you promise to serve up something other than duck once in a while!
"just returned from two weeks in the Dordogne too and have to confess that I thought sympathetically of you and your family plans every time we passed bicyclers toiling up the many hills."
Well, Moolyn, if a group of the bicyclers you passed were wearing identical, dorky-looking, but highly visible road-crew-style safety vests, that would have been us.
