This is Join Us in France, episode 569, cinq cent soixante-neuf.

Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.

Today, I bring you a conversation with Abigail Carter, who left everything behind and bought a chateau in rural France.

She's a writer, widow, and creative spirit who turned a life-altering tragedy into an inspiring new chapter.

After losing her husband in the 9/11 attacks, Abigail eventually found herself drawn to France and to Chateau de Behory, a historic property near Agen.

An incredible story.

This podcast is fueled by chocolatine, coffee, and the generosity of listeners like you.

You book itinerary consults, take my VoiceMap tours, join the boot camp, or hop in my electric car, or even chip in on Patreon, and I am so grateful.

Want to keep me going and skip the ads?

There's a link for that in the show notes, and you'll find everything at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

If you'd like to find out more about the Bootcamp 2026 and actually join us in France, browse to joinusinfrance.com/bootcamp2026.

For the magazine part of the podcast after my chat with Abigail today, I'll discuss the new entry system being rolled out in France, and some very good news about cigarette smoking in France.

If you'd like all the links and the full episode transcript, go to joinusinfrance.com/episodes.

And if you'd like a handy summary of the podcast conversation, also with links, subscribe to the newsletter, joinusinfrance.com/newsletter, because it's the best way to stay in the loop.

Bonjour, Abigail Carter, and welcome to Join Us in France.

Merci beaucoup.

So, you have had, what a story, you have had such a life!

You are the creator behind The Chateau Chronicles, which I watched a little bit of your YouTube videos a few days ago, and I was just ...

really taken.

It's really, really fantastic.

Thank you.

We're going to have a conversation about your unexpected life and your journey into rural France, because it's really not something everybody...

you're quite the woman, let's put it this way.

Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you've done.

Okay.

It's sort of hard to know where to start in some regards.

But I suppose the more interesting aspect of my story is that my husband died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

So this is where the Unexpected Life comes from.

After he died, I, you know, obviously had many, many stories to tell, and I wound up telling them in the form of a memoir, which I published in 2008.

And later I published a fictional story also about the loss of a husband, told from the perspective of him in the afterlife.

Where he's not a very good spirit, he's a very inexperienced spirit.

So, it was kind of a little more tongue in cheek.

How old were you both when this happened?

I was 36.

We had two kids.

We had a two-year-old and a six-year-old.

He was just about to turn 40, so he was 39.

And he was just at the building for a trade show.

He didn't work in the building, so he's at the restaurant, almost at the top of the building.

Hmm.

Tragic.

Yeah, yeah.

It was kind of unbelievable.

And as I say, the stories were pretty incredible.

At the time we were living in New Jersey, and I ultimately, like about four years later, the kids and I moved to Seattle, where I was a little closer to my family, who were living in Vancouver, and I had some really good friends in Seattle.

So, it just seemed like I needed a clean start.

So, raised my kids basically in Seattle.

And then, you know, COVID hit, and like so many people, we were all sort of reassessing our lives, and nothing like spending two years alone, alone with yourself to reassess a life.

And it kind of corresponded also with the 20th anniversary of my husband's death.

And it was actually my daughter who sent me a video.

It was actually another YouTube, a YouTube channel of a young couple that were renovating a chateau in France.

And they reminded me so much of my husband and I with our two young kids, and, you know, we renovated a lot of houses together.

And somehow it just caught my fancy, and I thought, "What a fun way to go to France as a single woman of a certain age." I thought it would be really fun to go and look at properties, so it combines kind of my two favorite things, which was travel and properties.

I really thought that it would just be, you know, kind of a lark, and that I would see these properties and just think, "Oh my God, no way." "No way can I buy a chateau.

There's no way I can manage that on my own." But unfortunately, kind of the opposite happened.

It just kind of revved...

revved the desire even more, because I kept thinking, "I think I could do this.

This could be really cool." And a lot of it came as well from this sense that I needed to find a community.

I felt like, particularly after the pandemic, obviously, we kind of lost our communities, and I was really feeling like the need and a desire to put people together in some way, some form.

And the more I kind of thought about it, the more I thought that doing it in France, in a beautiful spot, in the form of a retreat, would be really wonderful.

And I had been on the board of a kind of a retreat center near Seattle, and so I had had sort of 10 years of experience kind of, not organizing the retreats, but being a part of that kind of world.

So it was kind of familiar to me.

And so I came on a second trip to France to do the same thing, again kind of thinking, "Eh, it's probably, the right one's probably not going to come along." And I saw a bunch of properties, and this one wound up being the very last one I saw.

And I was with my niece, she came with me on the trip, and she was about 20 at the time.

We were walking through, we hadn't even gotten to the second floor, but we were walking through the dining room.

She just turned to me and said, "This place is unreal." And I thought, "Ah, okay.

I think this could be it." So how did you do this?

Like, you called some realtors in France and you said, "I want to see chateaus?" Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did a lot of research online.

So there's quite a number of websites that show properties, so I got to know them all.

And I'm pretty adept with a spreadsheet.

Right.

So I had a very elaborate spreadsheet going of all the places, you know, sort of...

What I was looking for in a chateau, what each chateau had, where it was located, you know, number of bedroom, all the sort of criteria that I was looking at.

Were you mostly finding chateaus that had, like, were completely decrepit?

Or were you mostly finding some that were livable?

Definitely some that were livable.

The super decrepit ones I was staying away from, for the most part, just because, you know, I kind of knew my limits.

I knew that I couldn't, you know, I wouldn't be able to muster a full tear-down renovation.

Yeah.

So I knew that I had to have some semblance of there being somewhat of a working building.

Right.

And your plan was always to live in it while the renovations were happening?

Yeah.

I'd kind of not renovate it any way else.

Okay, okay.

You always have to live in it somehow.

Right, right, right.

So you live in it, and were you doing a lot of the work yourself?

Were you doing, like, plumbing and electricity and roofing and...

Yeah.

Again, it just, it came down to who was around to help me.

And the things that we couldn't do, we farmed out to contractors or whatever.

So it just depended on the project.

It's just project by project.

But a lot of stuff I did myself.

Certainly, you know, all the decorating, the painting, and scraping up of floors, and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, which sounds like it's doable, but it's hard work.

Hard work, very hard work.

And getting harder as we get older.

I don't climb a ladder quite as adeptly as I once did, you know?

Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

Once you settled on this chateau, with inspiration from your niece, which I find adorable...

how fast was it for you to make an offer and purchase it and all that?

It was actually really fast.

It was kind of surprisingly fast.

And it was sort of impulsive.

You know, I saw it on a Thursday, and I really wanted to come back on the Friday, but nobody could show it to me.

Nobody was available.

And then I was flying out on Saturday.

And so, I really just saw it for an hour and a half.

But on that Friday, I decided, "What the heck, I'll just make an offer.

I'll make a low-ball offer and see if they go for it." And they went for it.

And then I was like, "Oh, uh-oh." Oh, so you went for something that you considered to be low-ball?

I did, yeah.

Right, because we discussed the price a little bit.

And, you know, it sounds like, I mean ...

Do you mind sharing that, the details of that?

Yeah.

I wound up paying 610.

And I think at the time it was listed at 650 or 660, somewhere in there.

Okay.

And I think I low-balled that at 6.

And then they came back at 620, and I went 610 in there.

Yeah, and, you know, while it might sound like a lot of money, really if you're trying to buy anything in Paris or in a big city, yeah, that's kind of the money you're going to pay on the Riviera, anything decent is going to be that kind of a price.

Yeah, I mean, it's partly the location.

I'm not in Provence.

I'm kind of an off-the-beaten-path place.

And yet, it's super convenient.

So I'm in Agen, which is in between Bordeaux and Toulouse, and it's on a TGV line.

And so all of those things played a part in my decision, because I knew it was important to be near a TGV line, just because I knew I wanted to run retreats, and I knew people would be coming to visit internationally.

So I needed to be near some airports.

And being on a direct train line from Paris was also really key.

I'm far away enough from the town to have it be really peaceful and quiet.

But I'm close enough to the town where I have every amenity I could possibly need.

Right, so Agen, I did look it up, it's a city of, how many, like, 50,000 people?

It's about 35,000.

35,000 Okay.

Yeah, so it's a good size.

For me, you know, the sweet spot starts at about 10,000.

That's where you get high schools and doctors and a hospital, you know, and it makes it easier.

If you're close to a center of about 20,000, 30,000, then yeah, you're going to have a lot of stuff not too far.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was important to me as well, you know.

I didn't want to...

There was a couple of places that I loved, but I kept thinking, "Oh my goodness, this is 35 minutes to get to any kind of town of size." And I just kept thinking, "That's a lot of driving for a Home Depot run," you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You really have to consider that.

There are a ton of places for sale in the center of France, you know, like...

Exactly.

If you go around Limoges and around that area, if you spread out around that area, lots of places for dirt cheap, really.

And the reason is, it's empty a lot.

And also, the weather isn't great.

Like, Limoges really gets cold.

Whereas Agen, eh, not so bad as like Toulouse or Bordeaux.

It's not too terrible.

Yeah, exactly.

So you put an offer in very, very quickly.

Yeah.

So that was the end of May of 2022.

It was a bit of a scramble, but I was signing the documents in France on August 12th, 2022.

To be clear, you didn't have a building inspector or anything of the sort?

I did.

I did.

I had a building inspector.

So I mean, the thing about this house was a lot of the systems were new.

New electrical, new plumbing, new septic, relatively new heating system.

I was told, although it turned out not to be entirely true, I was told it had a...

a relatively new roof.

So because of all those things, you know, I knew it was in good shape.

And I knew that because, also because I'm pretty adept at looking at a property and knowing.

Like, I can spot a cracked foundation kind of thing.

I know what to look for, because I've done this a lot.

What I didn't anticipate, and kind of the only regret is that there's a cliff really close to the house, and I didn't know that the cliff was kind of pretty badly compromised,...

and now I've lost a chunk of the cliff, it's fallen into the garden.

Ooh.

And there's more that has to come down.

And I didn't know that it was being compromised.

There's a lot of small ...

like a subdivision up above, on the plateau above the cliff, and that's been causing problems for many, many years, on the cliff face, because their storm system doesn't work adequately and so it pours over the cliff and that's what's been eroding it.

Yeah.

So do you have a solution in the works for that?

Yes.

It's been an ongoing issue.

We'll just put it that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Huh.

All right.

So this château, describe the château a little bit.

How big is it?

...

Yeah.

So it's not your typical château.

I think, you know, a French person would call it a maison de maître.

But it's very grand.

It has 12 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms.

So it's about, I think it's about 600 square meters, all told.

And then on the exterior, as I say, I have these cliffs, and there are sort of three outbuildings that are literally dug into the cliffs.

Oh.

So I have caves.

I don't have, you know, I don't have sort of outbuildings, I have caves, literal caves.

Oh.

And then I also have a guardian's cottage, which is the renovation is going on right now.

And it's a building, it's a three-story house that's literally built into the side of the cliff.

Wow.

So one whole side of the interior is cliff.

Ah-huh.

Cliff wall.

Ah-huh.

So it's pretty cool.

It's really unusual.

Then as well, there are all these pools.

It was a whole drainage system that was built, you know, at the turn of the 19th century.

And so there's these beautiful pools that all fill when it rains and...

It's just, it's really picturesque.

So they look like ponds, I guess?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

So have you been able to secure insurance for this property?

Because it sounds like there's some difficult hazards, like with a cliff.

Yeah.

Yeah, I have insurance, but you know, obviously they're not going to pay for anything around the cliff.

It doesn't include sort of acts of nature, basically, which they consider the cliff to be.

That would be, yeah, that would be it.

All right.

So, yeah.

Okay.

So twelve bedrooms, twelve bathrooms.

I suppose you have a bit of a yard, garden?

Yeah.

It comes with...

I actually have five acres.

So it has quite a bit of property.

But a lot of it is wooded, so it's kind of I don't really have to manage it other than, you know, the tree falls down or something, but...

Wow.

Wow.

So, and you run retreats already?

I do, yeah.

I've run four, I think, already.

You've run four retreats already?

What sort of retreats do you do?

The first one I did was with a friend, and we did a sketchbook retreat.

So we took people, obviously people sketched around here, but then we took people to different locations to sketch as well.

But it also included fun things like wine tours, and restaurant visits, and brocanteing and that sort of thing.

And then I did another one that was a writing retreat, because I'm a writer and I know a lot of writers in Seattle, so that was another ...

It was about writing about love, which was really lovely.

I did one for a woman who used to be my financial advisor.

And so she helps women with financial education basically.

So I did that one last October.

And then this coming year, I'm doing a pastel painting.

I had a lot of people on my YouTube channel just saying, "I'm not an artist, I'm not, you know, I'm not a writer, but I still want to come." So I organized this one called, it's called The Château Life with Abby.

Nice.

They're just going to come and hang out with me.

And we'll do, again, wine tours, brocanteing, that kind of thing.

And then, we're doing a wellness one in September, again with some friends and we'll do some kind of real healing kind of things because we recognize people need to heal.

And then in October, we're doing one called A Move to France because so many people are suddenly interested in moving to France.

Sure, yes, yes, yes.

Wow.

Well, it's going to keep you busy.

So you don't plan on opening it like a B&B or things like that?

No, but I'm thinking about in the off season of opening a few rooms to people who would like to come and spend a residency here.

You know, come and spend a couple of weeks just to write or just to have a place to write.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

I'm working on that for this coming winter.

Wow.

Wow.

Sounds like you have beautiful plans.

So the tactical stuff, like how do you, like when you have a group of 12 people, I assume some people come with a spouse or a significant other?

Yeah, a couple of people have come with a spouse, so it really varies, yeah.

Right.

So you might have, like, 16 people in a group or something like that, right?

Yeah.

For the first one I had 12 people who came, but then there were five of us who were sort of facilitating.

You know, me and my friend, we had another friend of my daughter's who did yoga, and then another friend, Bruce, who does construction here, he was kind of part of it as well.

And then for all of them, I hire a chef.

So there's kind of a big gang.

Right.

Right.

So how do you move around?

Do you rent vans or do you own a van perhaps?

I don't own a van, but I rent one.

You rent a van?

Yeah.

Or two even if you have that many people.

Perhaps it's two van.

Sometimes.

Yeah.

The first year it was two vans.

Do you have, like, a grand kitchen?

Can you cook as a group?

Yeah.

It's a little bit difficult as a group to cook.

But it's a big enough kitchen that it's easy to cook for a large group out of.

But I do have cooking demonstrations because I have a back kitchen, like a breakfast room and then a main kitchen.

And both of those are rooms that I did actually renovate.

So they're pretty new and they function really well.

Right.

So tell me about the places around Agen because we haven't talked about Agen very much.

What places would you recommend people visit when they come to Agen or when they come through the area?

There's so many places.

It's really amazing.

It's a really kind of a, it's a foodie center, so if you like food, there's some incredible food.

So in Nérac there is, it's a really beautiful little town right on a river.

Can you spell that?

N-E-R-A-C.

Okay.

Nérac.

Yeah.

They have a food festival.

They have an incredible market, like a farmer's market.

Agen itself has two, three farmer's markets every week, which are great.

Another favorite place we go is Lectoure, which is also a beautiful town.

It has a Friday market, and then it has a huge brocante market called The Village, Le Village.

I take people there a lot.

They also have this great museum, which is really interesting all about the Lectoure Blue.

They make the blue dye out of woad flowers.

And so they do a whole little explanation of how they make the dye, and then they have a little gift shop there where they sell articles that they have dyed, and it's beautiful.

Mm-hmm.

So that's Lectoure, L-E-C-T-O-U-R-E, right?

That's the right one.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Where else?

Sometimes we go as far as Dordogne or Cahors for the wine.

I've taken people to Château Milande where Joséphine Baker has a museum.

It's a really fun excursion.

They have a restaurant there.

And where else?

Gosh, there's so many little teeny weeny Bastide towns.

Pujols is a beautiful little town.

It's really fun for just a little afternoon excursion.

You just sort of walk around, it has incredible views.

And then Monflanquin is also a beautiful Bastide town where I take people quite a bit as well.

And there's a zillion of them all over the place.

Yes, yes.

There's always a lot of plus beaux villages and things like that.

This is not a particularly, an area that makes a lot of wine, is it?

We're sort of right between, we're sort of between Bordeaux and Cahors.

So if we go east, we do Cahors.

If we go west, we go Bordeaux.

Bordeaux.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we kind of get the best of both worlds because we're not sort of stuck to one region.

So depends if we feel like Merlot or Sauternes.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have some of both.

You have some of both.

Wonderful.

Any advice you want to share with people who might be inspired to do something like this?

I mean, like, recently I was talking to a couple who bought a house in Provence, in Var, sight unseen....

and they did this because they had been interested in a few other houses that got sold from under them because they weren't fast enough.

But this is not a château, obviously, this is a house.

But it's in the Var, so you know, it might be a similar kind of budget.

So they just made an offer, just like that.

Wow.

I was kind of stunned.

I was like, "You did?" Like...

"people do that?" They do, sometimes.

I felt pretty reckless making my offer.

But by then, I'd seen probably 15 to 17 properties.

So I kind of knew when I saw this one, like, "Okay, I think I can handle this one." So I think it's knowing your capacity, and it's also knowing what it is you want to do with it.

Because that really clearly defines...

you know, if you's wanting to spend time and relax in this place, that's going to be a whole list of things that you're going to be looking for.

But if you're like me and want retreats, I needed a whole bunch of bedrooms, because I wanted to do groups.

I knew that a good retreat is sort of 8 to 12 people, so I knew ...

And if everybody could have their own room, that would be ideal.

Mm-hmm.

So that's kind of what I was looking for.

I think it's being clear on what it is you're going to use the house for, and then, you know, being pretty strict on those requirements.

You know?

And I had to let go of certain things.

Like, I really wanted a turret.

I so badly wanted a house with a turret.

But I had to kind of let that go, you know.

I don't have ...

It's not the traditional château with the turrets, it's not the Disney castle.

But in its own right, it's so beautiful with the cliffs and the pools and the ...

you know, it's just such a unique property.

That kind of made up for it, for me.

Right.

So you mentioned maison de maître earlier.

I should perhaps explain a little bit that maisons de maître were usually built by people who had plenty of money but were not nobility, per se.

They would build very nice houses, and often had very beautiful grounds as well, but they didn't include a lot of the visual aspects of houses that you would find with the nobility, you know.

And this was typical of that.

It was a doctor's house.

And it was actually ...

originally, it was a wine estate, and it was actually, my theory is that the original house was a mas, which was like a long, narrow, stone, low building.

That was the house.

And in the early...

well, I think it was 1880s, they essentially stuck this huge façade on, with high, high ceilings and big windows, and they kind of made it into this, you know, much more grand house than it had originally been.

Mm-hmm.

And how old are these windows?

Are they from the 1800s, or have they been redone?

Yeah, all the windows are original, I think, to the 1800s, anyway.

Wow.

The caves themselves, there's actually a keystone over one of the caves that says 1774.

So it's a very old property.

You can find a lot of these grand houses, you know, maison de maître I would call a grand house, in a lot of cities and villages.

There's one in the village next to me that is falling apart.

And I think they've left it unused so long that it's going to be really, really hard for anyone to take over, because the roof is gone, and so everything just if they had started on this 50 years ago when the roof was still okay, it would have been a lot of work but not a demolition project.

I think at this point ...

When the roofs go, yeah, it's usually a lost cause by then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so you had ...

You mentioned that you had done a lot of renovations in the US.

Did you find it's very different in France, or were there a lot of similarities?

There's definitely differences.

You know, you have to learn how to ...

All the electrical system, obviously is different.

Plumbing, different parts.

Sometimes it's just as simple as, like, knowing which store to go to to get what you need.

You don't realize when you're in the US or Canada or wherever you are, you have that basic knowledge.

Like, "Oh, if I need this, I go here." Mm-hmm.

Whereas in France it's like ...

I mean, I still to this day drive around, you know, going, "Huh, I wonder what that store sells over there." Because there's no ...

It'll just say the name of the store, but there's no hints as to, like, is that home goods?

Is it electrical?

Is it plumbing?

You have no idea until you actually just go into the store.

So sometimes I do, I'll just walk into a store going, "Ah, okay, this is what this place sells." So sometimes it's just knowing where to get things, can be half the battle.

Yeah.

Have you used a lot of delivery types ...

since you were there during the pandemic, you must have used ...

Oh, no, I bought it after the pandemic, so.

Oh, you bought it after the pandemic?

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, I shop a lot on Amazon.

I hate to say it, but ...

Yeah.

Well, it's so handy.

It is very handy.

Yeah.

I've decided that, I can look on Amazon and see if I can find it somewhere else local.

You know, if it's a European product, perhaps I can buy it directly from the vendor, but it just adds a lot of time.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I'm in the country here, so there are still, even though it's pretty...

I can get pretty much anything, there are still a number of things that are just hard to find.

So often we just wind up having to do the Amazon thing.

Yeah.

We haven't discussed language.

Do you speak French at all or did you learn?

How was the process for you?

Yeah, it's ongoing.

Yeah?

You know, I grew up in Canada, so I had some French, some basic French.

And then my husband and I spent a couple of years in Brussels and I was unable to work, so I took a lot of French classes then.

But that was in 1991.

So then I didn't speak French until kind of, you know, 2021 when I came back over to France and was like, "Aah." So I kind of have a multi-pronged method, I guess.

I use apps on my phone.

Which ones?

People are going to want to know which ones.

I use Duolingo.

I've used Babbel.

Those are the main two that I've been using.

I can't keep up with many more than that.

But I also, you know, on TikTok and Instagram, I follow a lot of the influencers who teach French, and they're actually sometimes really great, you know, just because you're kind of getting more colloquial French.

But then also once a week I have a Zoom call with a French teacher, so I do an hour with her.

And then also once a week I meet on Zoom with a woman who ...

a French woman who wants to learn English, and so we spend half the call speaking English and half the call speaking French, so...

Oh, that's really good.

And how did you find that person?

Was it some sort of a online...

Through my French teacher.

It's actually the cousin of my French teacher.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then I have a young man who is kind of like my handyman here, he will constantly speak to me in French.

He speaks better English than I speak French, but to make me practice, he speaks French to me quite a bit.

So it all helps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the process of buying, did you run into difficulties, I don't know, moving money?

Meeting with a notaire?

Yeah.

It was a little tricky.

I got sort of ...

I went down the path of using one of those companies that help you transfer money, you know, and you're locking in a rate and all of that.

Like Wise or something like that?

It was actually a company, they're like an exchange company, like they do the exchanges for you.

Yeah.

And at the very last minute I just was like, you know...

They were like, "Oh, here, just wire your money to this random bank account in the middle of nowhere.

And then we just kind of pulled out in the end and just said, "You know what?

We're just going to wire it directly to the notaire, because this is crazy." Like, we don't know where this money is going, and what's happening.

It just seemed all a little too sketchy.

So we just went direct in the end.

In the end it didn't really cost me that much and it was, I just went through my bank.

Yeah.

It's pretty normal to wire money to a notaire.

There's nothing strange about that.

But yeah, I got caught up.

You know, there's a lot of companies who will try to sort of like, "Hey, you can get a better exchange rate if you go with us." Right.

You know, I don't know.

Well, but you know, exchange rates, they change all the time.

Like right now it's not great for Americans coming to France.

When we bought our house, we sold a house in the US, bought a house in France a few years later, and we didn't do great on the exchange at the time either.

So it just depends, you know?

Yeah.

I was lucky.

It was pretty par for me.

It was almost exactly.

Cool.

Did you have any difficulties opening a bank account in France?

Yes.

I learned not to try and open a bank account in August.

Ah, yes.

That would be problematic.

So yeah, it was definitely a problem.

Well, the thing is if something doesn't get done they can just tell, "Oh, the person's on vacation." Whether that's really the reason or not, you don't ever know, but it's the perfect excuse and so they use it.

It was crazy.

Yeah.

I just like, I could not...

Like in the US you can just walk into a bank and say, "Hey, can I open a bank account?" And off you go.

But no, in France, okay, you have to make an appointment.

And so I walk into a bank and they're like, "Okay, well we'll give you an appointment in three weeks from now." I went to five different banks probably, and they all told me that an appointment was only available like in two weeks or three weeks or something, until I finally found a bank that was able to give me an appointment right away.

And who was that?

Which one was that?

It was LCL.

Okay.

And that's who you ended up with?

Yep.

Hmm.

Very good.

Very good.

Yeah.

Banking is very different though.

I still struggle because the banks in France set daily limits, daily and weekly limits as to how much you can take out.

And sometimes, you know, I'm paying a whole bunch of people cash, and I can't take out enough cash out of my bank to pay them.

I'm like, "But I have so much money in my bank.

Why can't I take it out?" But I'm limited.

Right.

That was something I didn't understand that I was going to have to contend with.

Yeah.

And you couldn't pay these people with a wire transfer?

I probably could've, but, you know, it's just...

Well, if they ask for cash, it's because they don't intend to declare the work.

You get a discount because you don't pay VAT tax.

Right.

Right.

But then it makes your life more difficult.

Yeah.

That's something to...

I mean, I've had the same problem in Spain.

I've had workers in Spain just say, "Okay, only pay a portion of this with the wire, everything else is to be cash." And then you don't pay VAT on the cash part.

And sometimes I go along with it.

Sometimes I just say, "Look, I don't, I can't withdraw that much cash." ...

Yeah.

Yeah.

It gets difficult.

Tips for people who want to do something like this?

I don't know, like inspiration or like "watch out." Inspiration.

Well, for me the inspiration was about creative community.

It was all about community.

And that honestly has come back to me in spades.

It's just been amazing.

You know, the very first year I had people contacting me saying, "Can we come and help you?

We just want to be volunteers." And I kind of was like, "Well, all right.

We'll try this out." And that, for the most part, has been an amazing experience.

In fact, some of those original volunteers are here right now.

And I just get so much done obviously when it's not just me, but there's other people here.

Yeah.

So that's been, that's just probably been the most pleasurable aspect of this experience.

And then creating the retreats as well, it's a kind of another form of creating community.

And with every retreat, you know, there's this ...

I set up a WhatsApp group for the retreat.

Right.

And honestly like from that very first year, they're all still going.

You know, every now and then somebody will send something or a celebration like they've accomplished something or whatever it was, you know?

I have the same thing.

I do a bootcamp every year, called a bootcamp because they do visits as well as French lessons.

And yeah, people stay in touch.

They sometimes go on vacation together, not even in France, you know, they make long-term friendships.

They do, yeah.

Which I think is really important because, as an adult, like some of us, I mean, I wasn't, obviously you neither, when we were young, we didn't have any way to stay in touch.

We didn't have Facebook or any social media like that.

And so there are people ...

Like the other day I was thinking about this guy, all I remember is his first name.

I bought a computer from him in London and he helped me, he helped bring it down because this was a big old computer, like heavy, heavy monitor, whatever.

And he helped me bring it down to Toulouse.

And then he went with me for a few days in Spain.

And so I have plenty of memory.

And this is a guy, I just bought a computer from him.

I didn't know him from Adam, okay?

But when I told him, "Well, that's big.

How do I take it to France?" He's like, "Well, I'll go with you." Oh.

Yeah.

So which was really...

anyway, I don't remember anything but his first name.

And I wish I had, I could have stayed in touch.

I'd love to know what happened to him.

Like what has he become?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And today with these groups, like with WhatsApp or communities like that, you can stay in touch and you meet people in ...

But it's important to meet them in real life.

Like, you know, if it's only a digital kind of connection, it doesn't feel the same.

But once you've met them in real life, it feels like, you know, a real community.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean, my first retreat, I had 12 people come and the second year, of those 12, 7 came back.

Right.

It was amazing.

Right.

The same thing happens with the bootcamp.

People come back for another year.

And just because they enjoyed the company of other Francophiles and people, in my case it's people who listen to the podcast and it's people who like to visit France.

But for you it's probably people who, also want to visit France, I guess.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

And even some people who didn't...

You know, there was one, it was a couple and she really wanted to travel, but her husband was like, "No, I don't want to travel.

No, no, no, no." Yeah.

But he, you know, he was kind of creative.

And so she saw this retreat, and so she managed to convince him to come.

And now like he has got the travel bug.

They came back the second year, and it was just like all his buddies were here and, you know, it was just- ...

super fun.

And now he wants to travel all over the place.

It's so cute.

That's great.

That's great.

So I suppose if people are interested in joining one of your retreats, they could go to The Chateau Chronicles, your YouTube channel?

Yeah.

It's both my YouTube channel and my website.

So chateauchronicles.com or Chateau Chronicles on YouTube or on Instagram I'm all over the place, so ...

Good.

Even on TikTok?

Even on TikTok.

Yep.

Well, that's one thing that's like, oh ...

I know.

It's hard work.

Yeah, the video I really admire you because it's hard work doing video.

Like, do you do your own editing and stuff?

I do, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a lot of work.

See, that's the thing, I don't know how, so I'd have to learn all ...

I mean, I learned audio editing, which I'm really glad I learned.

Eh, I can do all sorts of...

It's not all that different, actually.

Bigger files.

Yeah, bigger files but, honestly, you know, you could easily hire, just hire a 20-year-old.

That's true.

I could do that.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

But then I'd have to have a camera with me everywhere I go.

I just use my phone, honestly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Phone will do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have like a GoPro and things like that, that I sometimes use in my car because I like driving video.

I just like to watch ...

But I think, "Well, if I put driving video to a conversation about, like, The Chateau Chronicles, it doesn't make any sense." Like, it's not related.

You have to have content that you ...

Anyway, it complicates things.

It does.

It does.

But you enjoy doing it?

I do.

I mean, sometimes, some days it's hard because as you've been able to tell in this recording that I have pretty flaky wifi.

I don't have fiber here.

And it can be really frustrating.

It can take hours and hours and hours to upload it to YouTube.

Oh, wow.

That gets really frustrating.

Yeah.

A lot of places in France have fiber optics, but not everywhere.

Not everywhere.

Are you far away from a village center?

A little bit, but everybody around me has it.

It's just, it's been really frustrating because they got it all the way up the road and we were all ready to have it connected, but then somebody somewhere said, "Oh, no, it's crossing a tree.

That tree is going to fall down.

So we're going to put it way down there now." So now I don't know how I'm going to get it.

Oh, dear.

It's one of those...

Yeah.

Yeah.

There are complications when you do projects like this, that's for sure.

That's for sure.

Yeah.

But then there's cheese and baguettes and rosé.

Yes, you can look at it that way, definitely.

There's always something to make up for the downfalls.

Wonderful.

Well, Abigail, it's a delight getting to know you.

I don't know, we might do a, some sort of, you know, Francophile retreat or a travel, you know, do, kind of boot camp-like things, but around there or, because there's, like you mentioned, I mean, I haven't even looked at very much around Agen but I'm sure there's hundreds of places that...

There's so much.

There's so much.

It's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Well, best of luck to you and thank you for coming on the podcast.

Thanks, Annie.

It was my pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me.

Merci beaucoup.

Au revoir.

Au revoir.

Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show.

Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that, you can see them at patreon.com/joinus.

And a special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champions, Sandy, Joe Huffman, Lauren Alspach.

And thank you also, Michael and Nancy Armstrong, for renewing your annual membership.

Long-term patrons are really what keeps me going.

And also thank you, Bet Giddings, Carol F.

K.

Newlin, Dianne Whitman, Ellen and Elissa Jarovski, for editing your pledge up.

In the past week, we had our Zoom meetings, and I also published the recording for patrons who couldn't join live.

I wrote a post with details about the Louvre Heist.

Aye, aye, aye.

I explained why a former French president, namely Nicolas Sarkozy, is now sitting in jail, and I answered a number of direct messages for patrons who need help with something specific.

This week has been very full of news, and I tend to hop on the news and discuss that with my patrons.

I would love for you to join them too.

You can do it for as little as $3 a month, but if you can afford it, I would love to have you pledge more so you have access to more of the rewards.

And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.

Many people left reviews of my VoiceMap tours this week.

Here are a few that caught my interest.

Ile de la Cite, this person said, "We have done a number of these tours, and this one was particularly lovely.

The guide was incredibly knowledgeable and very charming.

It's the kind of tour where you feel you are incredibly lucky to have this really smart friend that is taking you around her favorite places in Paris.

Truly lovely." Thank you so much.

Saint-Germain-des-Pres, "This tour is fantastic.

I did it two years ago while visiting Paris and loved it so much, I just did it again while staying in Saint-Germain." That's true, you can do it again, you own the tour, you can do it as many times as you wish.

About the Latin Quarter, "My husband and I had a great time on this walking tour of the Latin Quarter.

We saw places we never would have found on our own.

The app is easy to use, and we were easily able to pause and resume the tour anytime we took a detour or made a stop.

Highly recommended." You listeners get an exclusive discount when you buy these tours directly from the boutique on my website.

That's also the best way to support the show, because it means more of what you pay comes straight to me instead of going through Apple or Google, and they take a big cut.

And if you're planning a trip to France and want expert help, you can hire me as your itinerary consultant.

I will improve your plan if you already have one, or suggest one if you're at a loss.

You can book that at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.

All right, let's talk about the new entry system into France.

It's called the EES.

You've probably heard about it.

It's a new European-wide border control system called the Entry-Exit System, or EES, and it's gone live.

It's been in the works for years.

It's now finally happening.

The rollout began on October 12th, 2025, and France will phase it in gradually through next spring with full implementation by April 2026.

So what exactly is the EES?

It's a new electronic system designed to record entry and exit of non-EU travelers, meaning anyone who is not a citizen of a Schengen Area country.

If you come to France or any other Schengen country for a short stay, that's up to 90 days in any 180-day period, your entry, exit, or any refusal of entry will be automatically recorded in a central database.

The goal is to replace the old passport stamping process with something faster, more secure, and more accurate.

It will log basic passport information, as well as biometric data, a facial photo, and fingerprints.

This helps verify each traveler's identity and makes it easier for authorities to track overstays or document fraud.

When the system launched, France installed many self-service pre-registration kiosks and tablets at airports, train stations, and ports.

These devices are optional, but highly recommended because they should speed up the border crossing process.

But this is new technology being implemented, it doesn't work every time.

They have people on hand to help travelers who are finding it difficult, or perhaps just take over if the machines don't work.

You'll find all of these machines in airport like Charles de Gaulle, Orly, Nice, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nantes, Strasbourg and Beauvais, as well as the Eurostar stations in Paris and London, and the Eurotunnel terminals in Coquelles and Folkestone.

And also the ferry ports, including Calais, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Dunkirk, Saint-Malo, Roscoff and Marseille.

So they are already in a lot of places but they'll be implemented everywhere pretty soon.

Using one of these kiosks is pretty simple.

You will scan your biometric passport, have your photo taken and place your finger on the reader.

The machine will walk you through each step, and there are staff on hand to assist, of course, if needed.

And once you're done, you just head to the regular passport booth for final verification by a border guard.

The same process applies if any officer helps you on a tablet.

They'll scan your passport, take your photo, and record your fingerprints, and this registration process is free and voluntary.

But of course, if you don't want to do it, yeah, I don't think you're going to get in.

The biometric data is mandatory for sure for entry into the Schengen area.

So if you refuse to have your photo or fingerprints taken, you won't be allowed to enter.

It's as simple as that.

And I should say, it's been that way in the US for a very long time already, so, we're a bit behind there.

For most travelers, the first time they cross into the Schengen area after October 12th, the data will be recorded for the first time, and after that, each new trip simply upgrades the file, logging the time, place, and date of entry or exit.

Minors under 12 don't need to provide fingerprints, but they may still need a facial image.

Accompanied minors can use the pre-registration kiosks while unaccompanied minors must go directly through a border officer.

And of course, to use the kiosk, you must have a biometric passport.

That's the one with the small chip symbol on the cover.

So if you're wondering about privacy, the French Ministry of the Interior is responsible for handling all personal data collected through these systems.

Your data is stored securely and deleted after six hours, if you don't actually cross the border during that period.

Only border officers can access it.

You also retain right to access, correct, or restrict the use of your personal data.

If you have concerns, there's an official contact address at the Ministry of the Interior, and complaints can be filed with France's data and protection authority, the CNIL.

The EES is a part of a larger European push to modernize borders.

It will eventually be linked to the upcoming ETIAS system.

That's E-T-I-A-S.

I think it's ETIAS.

I'm not sure.

And that will require visa-exempt travelers, like Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Australians, to apply online for travel authorization before visiting Europe.

But this is not rolled out yet.

In short, starting this month, traveling entering France or any other Schengen country will face a new process that involves electronic registration and biometrics.

The system should improve security and speed up border crossings once everyone adjusts.

If you're traveling to France next year, make sure your passport is biometric and allow extra time at airports during the early roll-out phase, as border agents and travelers must get used to the new system.

Some days at CDG, entering France takes 10 minutes, and some days it's, feels like it's 10 hours, when it's bad, it's usually 90 minutes, which is a very long time, if you ask me.

But honestly, entering the US as a European is just as long, so, you know.

Yeah.

It's something that happens when you travel.

Let's talk about smoking in France.

Very good news here.

You know, I grew up in Toulouse, but I lived in the US for almost two decades before moving back to France.

People often imagine that everyone in France smokes constantly, but that's not really true anymore.

It's not true at all anymore.

In fact, there's some fresh data on this.

Les Francais fument toujours, mais moins.

So French people still smoke, but less,  according to the Barometre 2024 de Santé Publique France, that's the public barometer of health in France for 2024, it was published on October 15th.

The share of adult smokers has dropped from 32% in 2021 to 24% in 2024.

That's a big decline in just three years.

Still, smoking is part of French culture in a way that surprises a lot of Americans.

In Paris, for example, it's very social and people step outside for a smoke, they grab a coffee, they chat.

It's less about addiction and more about taking a break, connecting, or even flirting.

There are also, plenty of social smokers in France, people who might have one cigarette in the evening or a cigarette every few weeks.

It's not the heavy constant smoking that people imagine.

And yes, in Paris some women still believe it helps them stay thin.

That idea hasn't entirely disappeared, it's not true but what are you going to do?

Some of these habits come from history.

During World War II, cigarettes were one of these few ways soldiers could relieve stress, since alcohol was banned at the front.

The association between smoking and stress relief stuck around long after the war ended.

Regionally, smoking is more common in the north of France, in places like Lille or Paris, than in the south.

The north is colder, wetter and more urban, so lighting up feels like a little warmth, comfort or something.

But further south in the Grenoble area for example, there are lots of people who go there because they're attracted to the outdoors and these people don't tend to smoke, as much.

And of course, Paris pollution, even though it's getting way better, doesn't help.

Between cars and gas heating, some Parisians half joke that breathing city air is worse than secondhand smoke.

That's not quite true anymore as well.

There's a fatalistic humor to it.

If it's not the cigarettes that will get us, it's the diesel fumes.

But again, you know, I think people operate on old information way too much, they learn about something 15, 10 years ago and they still believe it's true when it really, things have moved on.

But finally what's true and might not change for a very long time is that French people have a rebellious streak.

If you don't break a rule or two, they take your passport away.

My husband has been warned.

He better start breaking rules.

My thanks to podcast editors, Anne and Christian Cotovan, who produced the transcripts.

Next week on the podcast, an episode about visiting Versailles with children with Katie Danger.

She lives in Versailles.

She has children.

She does it like a local because she is a local with lots of great ideas.

Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together.

Au revoir.

The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent, and Copyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.

It is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.