Long distance calling
 

My wife and are traveling to France for the first time. Does anyone have any opinions concerning making long distance calls to U.S. What's the best way? Has anyone had any experience with prepaid cards from First Telecom or ekno? How do you get them? Thanks

It is very simple - I was amazed and impressed. You go into any Tobac shop (tobac shops are everywhere) and buy a 7.50 or 15.00 Euro international phone card.(they are called telecartes) These cards slide into the pay phones and you dial your #. The screen on the phone will tell you have many units you have left. There is also a little button on the phone that you can press to get the screen to appear in different languages. A 7.50 card seemed to have about 15 minutes of calling time on it.

In France we bought our France telecom phone cards from the post offices. Very easy to use and economical.

the phone rates vary, cheaper on Sundays. Not hard to use.

oops, forgot to mention that you can find the cards for sale everywhere. We bought one at Le Meridien Hotel in Nice so the front desk could help with the instructions, which were in French.

The cards that were not official seemed to have better rates when I went in January. you can also buy a prepaid here and call the company and get a French access code. Sams club is 12 a minute.

Diane's advice is correct. If you buy from a Tabac (they're like a US gas station market) the 7.50 euro cards will give you 35 minutes to call the US (well, I was calling California), and the 15.00 euro cards will give you an hour. I don't know why Diane only received 15 minutes, but all the US students I've talked with receive the 35 minutes if they bought the 7.50 card. I also hear that the Sam's Club/ATT cards work very well.

When we were in Paris, I brought with me a Sams Club AT & T calling card; it was easy to use. I also used it from airports in and out of the U.S. to call home.