A Few Travel Tips

For those readers who have not had a lot of experience traveling in France, I thought I’d offer a few pieces of advice and general reflections. First of all, despite what some folks might try to tell you, French people are quite friendly and welcoming. Just learning and using a few simple phrases of their language can help to make things go a lot easier. Learning to say bonjour is number one; meaning “hello,” “good morning,” or “good afternoon,” it is, in my estimation, the most frequently employed word in the language as well as one of the most important. (Bonsoir, by the way, is used after dark for “good evening.”) One of the hardest things for Americans to grasp is that greeting people is extremely important in this culture and in other Francophone areas. This includes saying “hello” to people who are serving you in any capacity: the clerks at the hotel, bus drivers, ticket takers on trains, all salespeople, workers in a fast food restaurant or a bookstore, etc. In fact, you should greet practically everyone you make eye contact with, particularly in small towns. Not hearing “hello” from others feels very offensive to French people and the same is true in the case of “good-bye”—au revoir. Once you have the greetings down, just add s’il vous plaît (for “please”) and merci (for “thank you”) to your vocabulary and voilà, you’re well on your way to becoming a model tourist.

Train travel is one of the most comfortable ways to see the country. An easy thing for inexperienced travelers to forget is to composter le billet—you have to stamp your ticket to validate it in one of the many small yellow machines found inside the train station and on les quais, the platforms, before boarding the train. Le TGV (the high-speed train whose acronym comes from the phrase train à grande vitesse), which serves most French cities, can cover very large distances in a short amount of time. For example, you can travel the 490 miles from Paris to Marseille in just over three hours. On the high speed trains, you have assigned seats and before the train arrives you can consult an electronic sign which indicates la composition des trains; that way, you can be standing in the right spot on the platform when the train pulls into the station. It’s a good idea to keep your used TGV tickets on any given trip in case you need to change to an earlier or later train on the return. We learned the hard way that stamped right on the tickets is the phrase Conservez vos billets. Whether taking the TGV or the smaller train express régional (TER), it’s always a good idea to pack light…very light. Many stations are not equipped with ramps so travelers end up having to carry their bags up and down flights of stairs.

My final topic, if I may be so bold, has to do with public restrooms. There are very few, it seems, especially in small- to medium-sized cities and towns. We were just in Montpellier over the weekend and had to really scour around to find les toilettes. Nearly all department stores, bookstores, supermarkets, and the like do not have facilities freely available. Cafés and the large shopping mall had des WC, and there were some free-standing port-o-potties (that you have to pay for, of course) at the beach. While train stations have bathroom facilities, they, too, are often payant. Thus, the intelligent traveler is forewarned and has to plan ahead for such eventualities.