Podcast #058: A Week In France

Moody cloudy skies in the background lurk behind an image of the Eiffel Tower, a toer made of a framework of metal, starting at arches and tapering to a point at the top. In front are a busy street, some low trees, and, in the foreground on the left, a couple of small geyser-like water sprays near where some people are sat on grass.

Welcome to Episode 058 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast.

This episode is all about my recent week in France. I’ve not long returned from around 10 days going around Annecy, Lyon, and Paris with my friend Laura, and I thought it made sense to do a pod about it. Partly this is because it was my first trip abroad since both Covid and full Brexit had kicked in. And partly because it was an easy episode to do that didn’t require any real effort or sourcing contributions, because obviously I didn’t record a pod in advance. Because I’d just had a week in France. /me blinks.

Topics discussed include:

  • Hair Dye – I have purple hair again
  • The background to why I went, and how it’s weird two of my good friends have the same birthday
  • Getting proof of Covid vaccinations, and how we didn’t need them in the end
  • Baguettes for breakfast and kebabs for dinner
  • Local food from Lyon and Senegal
  • I don’t like sharing beds
  • The joys of cheap hotels on the edge of nowhere
  • Flying in the age of delays, cancellations, and being a third-country national
  • Bus stations are ugly and unhelpful
  • The Paris Metro has unhelpfully-named stations
  • Finding flowers but not water-lilies in Giverny
  • Getting sunburn in Annecy
  • French old towns are quite pretty
  • Loud music in Roman ruins
  • Cities with rivers running through them
  • Disused railway lines and gold-covered buildings
  • A million dead people, but in a good way

You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice. Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do. In addition, a PDF transcript of this episode is available.

As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. I now have a newsletter you can subscribe to, containing extra content, and it’s where I’ll be mentioning future podcast episodes if you want to make your own contribution.

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