RS Loire to South of France starting May 20...Bonjour fellow tour members!

We did this tour a few years ago and it was great! Great food, a mix of interesting chateau and towns, the canoe trip, the caves with prehistoric paintings, Pont du Gard, and much more.

You might want to plan something the Sarlat market day. It is a great market but even walking slowly and looking at everything (in France look, don't touch!) I still had most of the day left. In retrospect I wish I had either planned for a train trip out of town or to rent a car to visit another one of the prehistoric caves in the area.

It's interesting your tour starts on a Monday instead of Sunday. Most start on Sunday but Monday will work out better for you in Chartres because your full day in Chartres will be on Tue and shops will be open. In small-town France most shops and even restaurants are closed on Mondays and our free time in Chartres was pretty boring.

Thank you Bill for the advice about Sarlat, I will do some research about other things to do, I've seen this mentioned in reviews that the market does not fill the whole day, especially if it's raining! Our market day and canoe trip days are reversed because our tour starts on a Monday so that we can actually see the market on the Saturday!. There was another tour that starts the day before on Sunday and I picked this date specifically because I knew Monday everything is shut and it's also a public holiday so seemed the better option for both reasons. I will be in Paris for 3 days prior and getting the train to Chartres Monday. :)

Hi Lynn, you will have such a great time. I went on this tour September 2022, my first solo trip. It's fantastic.

My suggestion for your free afternoon in Nice is to visit Lascaris Palace. It has a large collection of antique musical instruments. Very interesting if you like something different from the art museums.

Thank you for the Nice suggestion Horsewoofie. I have an extra couple of nights in Nice so I'll definitely have time to see this. Solo travel with Rick Steves tours is the best!

Today must be your flight day! I took this tour in June 2022 and absolutely loved it. It was such a great mix of experiences and places and we had a really wonderful group. I second the advice about thinking about what else you want to do on market day in Sarlat. After exploring the market with my mom, I rented a bike (an e-bike) in Sarlat and spent the afternoon biking on the Voie Verte (a bike path) and it was at great way to explore the area. An e-bike was nice since it allowed me to cover more ground and I also wanted to ensure I could return my rental on time. Also, don't miss Chartres en Lumieres: https://www.chartresenlumieres.com/en/. Even though I was a bit jetlagged and tired, I am so glad we saw it. Hopefully you will report back on how the tour goes!

A quick update as I just finished this tour.

Had a great group of fellow travelers and tour guide. The weather was not so great, chilly and wet until we got to the south of France and out of our group of 27 about 24 of us got very sick. A nasty virus/covid that spread quickly and caused missed events and doctor visits for some.

For me the weather and sickness did impact how much I enjoyed the tour. Although I had a great time, despite being sick and shivering and wet some days! Sickness and weather aside I would put this as my #6 preference out of the 6 RS tours I have taken. Not as many 'wow' factors for me, especially in the first half of the tour. I did however love the southern region from the Dordogne to Nice, the scenery and villages in those areas I found much more picturesque. There were two of these tours starting with a day of each other and our May 20th tour had different hotels to those that most have mentioned. I think we were in the 'back up' hotels. Several multi tourers like myself found some not to be as nice as others we have experienced with RS. Something to look out for when booking in the future!

lynn3374, so sorry you and most of the group got sick, plus the bad weather. What an awful time for you. Maybe this tour is jinxed. I hope not. When I took it in Sept 2022, 14 of the 24 people left the tour because they got Covid (9) or were traveling with someone (5) who got Covid.

As a tour survivor, I can say it was a great tour. (Edit: Whoops! That didn’t read right. I mean the tour is great. Sadly people got sick and had to leave.). The only thing I found a little disappointing was Carcassone, too many tourists shops in the fortress, had a Disneyland feel. I loved the Loire castles; they were why I chose this tour.

Hope you're well now.
Kathy

Lynn, I, too am sorry for the time you had. Being sick on tour, no matter what the cause, is awful. Hope you are feeling better now!

I'm glad you were able to enjoy the Dordogne and the caves...aren't they fabulous?

I agree with trying to avoid back up tours. I have also experienced not quite as good hotels and yes, not quite as good guides. It's hard to tell what is a fill in tour though unless you have the original tour dates printed out.

Thank you Horsewoofie (Kathy) and Pam for your responses.

Carcasonne Kathy I agree, I felt like I was in Disneyland, unfortunately it has turned into an overly touristy location but beautiful to look at from a distance, especially at night with the lights on it. The hotel we had there for one night was a Best Western....not the usual type of hotel for RS, my room however was probably one of the nicest of the trip! And me s, the Loire castles were also beautiful. I am originally from England but now live in California. I think the weather we had and the countryside reminded me very much of England, so for me it was not enough of a contrast to a place I know very well! I especially love Italy because it is so different than anything in England. I think that is the main reason it is not higher up on my tour list!

We could not canoe on the Dordogne as the river has been flooded a while from all the rain, we did have a lovely boat ride instead though. I think most folks were too sick to canoe anyway! And yes Pam, that area is awesome. Also loved the Nice coastline, the weather was perfect and I had an extra 2 nights to explore Eze and Monaco, wonderful!

Managed to escape Covid for 4 years but I'm now trying to recover at home. Seemed like no one in France wears masks anymore and so many were coughing and sneezing, it was definitely going around and we had a bit of a 'tour pandemic' going on, just that no one gets kicked off anymore so it spreads!

Hoping my immunity will be stronger for my other 2 tours this year, Adriatic and Andalusia!

Thanks for the follow up, Lynn. It’s nice when folks come back to tell how things turned out. So sorry though you had bad weather and sickness to contend with. I’m signed up for this in fall of 2025. Out of the 24 sick folks, did everyone have Covid? Good grief! I sort of wish they still tracked the numbers even though it doesn’t mean you have to leave. Hope you feel better soon.

Ouch. Sorry you go caught in the creeping crud we had floating around France in May. My husband and I both got sick, too, and neither of us had Covid; we both did home tests. Our doctors didn't suspect because Covid has been under control for a long time for the general population living in Europe. We are old but not immuno-compromised.

However, it started with the POLLEN. Many people masked against the pollen this year. One day I was talking to a lost American woman who had landed a few hours earlier when she clutched her throat from the tree next to us. * see below.

Anyway, the allergies broke down our resistance and invited a virus. Many of my French friends got sick to various degrees, including a doctor friend. We had to cancel a trip to Italy for two weeks while my very sick husband recovered. I remained functional but ran into people everywhere who talked about their throat burning, and we were all coughing like cowboys chewing tobacco. So, it wasn't just your group and it's quite possible it wasn't entirely Covid. Warning about traveling during a bad pollen season.

*(Here's about the poor lady on the tram platform: her American husband rushed ahead into the tram and was screaming at her in a loud voice in English to get on the tram, but she was way behind struggling with a broken suitcase. The doors shut. He left her alone, in France on the platform as the tram left. I was on my way to the market, saw the whole thing and felt so bad for her that I offered to help. Just then one of my neighbors showed up for the next tram and rode with her to her destination. One spoke no French, the other no English but it worked.)

Hi Lyndash and Bets,
I think we had a mixture of Covid and a nasty virus with a fever. There were a number of doctor visits and prescriptions obtained. Sharing a diagnosis is of course private and no one wants to be labeled ''that person' with Covid. Folks were sick and it was what it was. We all made the best of it together, was a lovely group of travelers and now no one is asked to leave a tour it's the risk we take touring, if one gets sick there's a chance others will! I'm still trying to fight off my Covid symptoms now I'm home but I'm looking forward to my other 2 tours this year regardless!

Happy travels!

According to French media sources quoting health sources, France has experienced a notable increase in COVID cases in May as a result of the newish subvariant ‘FLiRT’. This has included an increase in hospital admissions for COVID as well.

From what I just saw and experienced while traveling north to the south of France I'm not surprised to hear this news. It was noticeable to all of us that not only were we all sick but so were the locals everywhere we went! Can only imagine this will increase with the influx of visitors arriving for the Olympics! Thanks for posting this information Claire!

You are welcome Lynn and so sorry this impacted your tour. I’m a regular visitor to France so have followed the data a bit. France gifted me with Covid last May and impacted my week in Paris. It wasn’t fun. We all want to not get sick when travelling both in terms of the money invested and the lost opportunity of enjoying oneself; prevention seems to be less in favour. Hope you feel better soon and that your upcoming trips are problem free!

Thank you Claire! As a single woman traveling in France it’s ironic I came home with the ‘FLiRT’ strain of Covid but unfortunately no handsome French man to go with it! Darn!! LOL

Lynn, looks like you kept your sense of humor! Hope your other trips go very well! I really enjoyed the Adriatic tour last year.

Thank you Jean, 8 weeks to go to my Adriatic tour, I've heard great things about it so really looking forward to another adventure, hopefully a more healthy one! I'm still trying to deal with what is probably 'long covid' symptoms and glad I have more time to fully recover! No more 'FLiRTing' for me on the next trip!