A 2nd month of full-time travels in France.
I mentioned in my April summary that we were loving France. May was a 2nd month in France, continuing our time in Provence and then in Lyon.
It was an interesting month and again we’ve had only good experiences. It’s funny the perceptions that people have about the French being “dicks” (as one commenter told me on our FB group). They’ve been anything but, we’ve made some good connections in our short time in France and have had conversations that we never had over 5 years in Spain. France has had an impact on us…although of course nothing is perfect as the riots in Paris (and other parts of France) demonstrate. Most French people will tell you that those rioters are not French, which highlights one of the major issues in France. In fact, go to someplace like Marseille as we did in May and you start to wonder where you are…
I touch on that in this post, cover the highlights and lowlights of the month (including experiences with demonic spirits), cover our costs for the month and tell you about our plans for June.
Highlights and lowlights of May
The first half of the May was spent completing our month-long stay in Avignon. We loved our stay there despite not sleeping very well (more on that soon). There was a reason we chose Avignon for a long stay: if you don’t have a car, it’s the perfect base for exploring the region. During the month we used the train to visit Orange, Nimes and Arles, walked across the river to Villeneuve-les-Avignon, and used Avignon as a starting point for tour taking us to the most beautiful villages of Provence (Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Gordes, Roussillion, Les Baux de Provence, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence) as well as the Pont du Gard. We saw lots.
I’ve previously written about the Avignon apartment we stayed in: a very nice, large place situated right next to the market. The only problem was that there was some kind of evil spirit. On the 1st night Lissette had dreams of big thorns and leaves sprouting out of her legs. On another night she was in a chokehold, her assailant wearing thick rubber gloves. On one of the last nights, she had a dream of being on a dock, her legs in the water, when something with claws tore at her legs and started to drag her under.
They were the worst dreams she’s ever had in her life. Our Airbnb host, a nice young guy, had weird posters of swirling cesspools and skulls hanging off trees. Maybe that played with her mind.
We loved the apartment and Avignon but not sure we would go back to that apartment…
Highlights during our time spent in Avignon? Well, Avignon itself which has a nice vibe and, while touristy, is still a French town full of locals going around doing their business. All of Orange, Nimes and Arles are must-see’s and if you have your own wheels (or take the tour we did) you should prioritize the towns of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Roussillion, and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence as well as the Pont-du-Gard. There’s so much beauty and history in this region.
Mid-month, we moved on to Aix-en-Provence which would be our base for 10 days. Everyone seems to love “Aix” but it doesn’t rank high with us. LOTS of tourists – most of them young and looking to party – and overpriced restaurants. My original plan had been to visit Aix as a day trip and I think I should have stuck to that. On the other hand, it was a good base to explore Marseille which is just a 30-minute bus ride away.
Marseille? I think the first 10 minutes summed it up well: we had walked from the train station to the Porte D’Aix (Marseille’s version of the Arc de Triumphe). As we were taking our photos, a man of North African descent decided that he had to take a piss within the arch. There was no shame, in fact he seemed to be enjoying himself. Marseille: Dirty and gritty. Where are the French? It takes walking one block off a main boulevard to feel like you’re in some kind of 3rd world ghetto.
The above sounds racist. In fact, what we like about France is that it is multi-cultural. You walk the streets of any city like Montpellier or Lyon and you’ll see a rainbow of colours, style of dress and cuisine. You walk past a school when the kids come out and you see a mix of races and lots of kids that obviously come from mixed marriages. The French don’t seem too fazed by this, on the contrary it’s made them mostly open to different races and cultures. Lissette for example has been welcomed so warmly here in France, it’s been one of her favorite-ever destinations. No judgement. And in public it’s heartwarming seeing people of different races being friends and work associates.
The problem are those who don’t fit it: the mostly North-African young men you see hanging around together on street corners seemingly looking for an opportunity or the Africans strung out on something and acting in a threatening manner. We’ve seen a bunch of instances of that in our 2 months in France. But really Marseille felt like the one place where you really had to watch your back, even in broad daylight, even in the touristy downtown area (in fact we passed right by 4 policemen putting a youth in handcuffs while on our way back to the train station).
Despite the above, Marseille is worth a visit. Highlights: “Le Panier” district, the archaeological museum at the Centre de la Vieille Charité, the Cathedral and walking around the old port. From there we took the little tourist train which circled the port before taking us to Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde (which is very impressive).
We finished the month in Lyon. We were really impressed by Lyon: a beautiful city of hills, rivers and bridges, and pastel-coloured buildings. We stayed in the neighbourhood of La Croix-Rouse, a neighbourhood that reminded us of Le Plateau Mont-Royal, the area where we had lived 25+years while in Montreal. We also stayed in one of the best Airbnb apartments that we’ve ever stayed in. Very much recommended.
We stayed in Lyon a week, on June the 1st we took the train to Paris. That’ll be covered in next month’s summary 😊
I’ll be writing in much more length on all the destinations I’ve mentioned on the blog.
May 2026 Costings
This was our 2nd month of travels in France so I was curious to how it would compare to our April costings. Well, I guess we’re consistent: our costs were 462 Euros higher than April’s (5072 Euros vs 4610 Euros) but almost all of that was due to higher accommodation costs (2321 Euros vs 1767 Euros = a 554 Euro difference). Meaning that everything else was basically in the same ballpark.
Accommodation costs: I mentioned that we had a sweetheart deal in Avignon (1,110 Euros for a 30 night stay = an average of 37 Euros/night). Great, great apartment (except for the demonic spirit that tormented Lissette).
Then we went on to Aix-en-Provence where we had a very modern yet very uncomfortable apartment. There we paid an average of 103 Euros/night (for 10 nights). We finished the month in Lyon where we paid an average of 110 Euros/night (for 7 days) for a great apartment. As I mentioned up top, one of the best Airbnb apartments we’ve ever stayed in.
Averaging it all out, we paid an average of almost 75 Euros/night for accommodation in May. That’s an average of 16 Euros/night more than in April, accounting for almost all of the difference between the two months.
One thing we’ve definitely noticed is that find good quality accommodation on Airbnb has been harder than it was during Full-time travel 1.0 (2014 – 2020). There seem to be less options and higher pricing this time around. One of the reasons it’s higher is also the way we’ve travelled: in the past we would always stick to 1 month stays. You always get better rates on long stays on Airbnb. This time around it’s been a mix of shorter stays with longer stays. We’re also visiting countries that we’ve always avoided because they’re so expensive. But as I’ve previously written, we’re older and we really wanted to see more of Western Europe this year. We’ll make up for it later in the year and into next year.
Long distance travel. I mentioned it previously: France is more expensive than Spain for almost everything. We had one long distance trip in May, that being the 2-hour trip from Aix-en-Provence (via Marseille) to Lyon. That cost us 84 Euros each (ie the total of 168 Euros I have on the spreadsheet).
Short-distance travel. We did a lot of short distance trips as well and were surprised by the cost. Examples: 7 Euros per person taking the bus from Aix to Marseille (30 minutes away), 11 Euros each for a 15-minute train ride from Avignon to Arles, 22 Euros each for the 1 hr 15 minute bus ride from Avignon to Aix. Maybe we just got used to Spanish pricing. As the bus driver on the Aix-Marseille bus said when looking at my shocked face “Yes, everything is expensive in France”.
Groceries. Groceries is where we see the biggest difference. Again, our grocery bill for the month topped 1,000 Euros. Groceries have easily been over 65% more expensive in France than in Spain and the biggest culprit has been meat (wow! Meat is expensive) and fruits and vegetables. I wrote more about that in our April summary. It’s been surprising just how expensive groceries are.
Restaurants & Cafés. I also previously wrote about that and the need to be more selective. Our best value (and best food!) meals to date were at Grand Café Barreta in Avignon where we would go for the 3-course lunch time special and pay – including a bottle of wine – about 75 Euros. We spent a month in Avignon and would go there once a week and loved it. But we haven’t found similar deals in Aix or Lyon, in fact we’ve had a few very disappointing eating experiences with the worst being our Airbnb host’s recommendation in Aix (Chez Charlotte, Urgg. A waste of 120 Euros). We had a decent 3 course lunch experience in Lyon (at Restaurant Albert) which cost 100 Euros with wine. But it didn’t rival the food at Grand Café Barreta. I should mention: an excellent and inexpensive Lebanese restaurant if you’re in Aix-en-Provence is Aux Delices du Liban (the bill there would come out to about 30 Euros). Another, for an inexpensive lunch, is La Popote de Nicole.
Tour. We had mentioned that we’d take more tours going forward and we did a very good tour from Avignon: a full day tour taking us to some of Provence’s most beautiful towns (Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Gordes, Roussillion, Les Baux de Provence, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence) as well as the Pont du Gard. It cost 280 Euros plus tip for the two of us but it was worth it because of all we saw (all of which we otherwise would have needed a car to see).
The balance of the costs for the month aren’t really worth getting into in detail being relatively minor and similar to those we had last month.
The month ahead
June will be the last month in France, the entirety of it to be spent in Paris. I’ll be writing about that next month. Then we’ll be moving on for 3 months to the UK. Really, it’s been hard to believe that we are now in our 5th month of full-time travel 2.0. It’s almost gone too fast and we haven’t really had time to ponder the big questions: Is Spain still the place we want to call home? Do we need a physical base and if so where should it be? We love travelling but it always makes us nervous not having a place to come back to. Maybe I’ll write more about that when we hit the 6 month mark 🙂
Related: April 2026: A first month in France
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