I’d just settled into Seat 1A of the Airbus A350-900 when the captain came over the intercom. First in French, which made sense: This was AF159 bound for Paris, after all.
“There’s a security issue,” he seemed to be saying, assuming my comprehension was correct—this was a coin-toss, five years after having last used the language. “We’ll need everyone to disembark.”
Surely, I scolded myself as I sipped my welcome champagne, that can’t be the issue. The flight attendants must be walking around panicked for an entirely unrelated reason.
Unfortunately for me, his English refrain confirmed that I had understood correctly. Somehow, ground personnel at DFW had failed to do a walk-through of the plane prior to boarding; one of the cabin crew had found “items” in an overhead bin that couldn’t be accounted for.
Now, in a practical sense, this was a minor issue: The flight would be delayed by an hour at most, which was actually within the normal range for this particular departure.
In a personal sense, however, it felt existential. You see, this was set to be my first trip to France in almost five years, and my first to Europe in nearly three. It sounds crazy looking back, but there was a part of me (maybe the majority of me) that would’ve been totally cool if our journey had been canceled all together.
Instead, after a surprisingly quick arrival flow at CDG (the much-dreaded EES system had been deactivated; security personnel simply stamped everyone in like the old days), I had to rush across town to Montparnasse railway station where I walked (no ran) onto my TGV literally as it was about to depart.
My trip thus began with a contradiction: Although I had spent most of my time up to the point searching for an exit, I made a conscious decision to shut the door of the first one that appeared.
This tension would end up defining the nearly three weeks I spent in France, manifesting itself nearly a dozen times as I made my way around the country counter-clockwise.
In some cases, this was merely annoying. On my first full day in France, for example, I walked down to my rental car (which I’d parked in a lot just outside the city walls of medieval Saint-Malo) and, as I plotted out my course for exploring surrounding Brittany, noticed that a strung-out drug addict was tapping on my door.
There was a non-zero chance that her even sketchier male companion, who was pacing around a few feet away, could’ve assaulted or even robbed me had I engaged with her. Thankfully, I was wise enough to shake my head, smile and speed the fuck off.
Unfortunately, non-engagement was not an option less than 48 hours later, when SNCF emailed me to declare that one of the two trains that would take me southward to Bordeaux had been canceled due to the “heat dome” frozen over France. I actually saw this message hours after they sent it; only a single unclaimed seat on the morning’s only other train remained un-booked.
My TGV travails continued traveling back from France’s wine capital (which was fabulous, and had mostly canceled out the anxiety I’d accumulated up to that point); this train actually crapped out, leading to a cancellation rather than a delay, and me arriving to my destination (Lyon) nearly half a day later than planned.
Which was extra unfortunate, for two additional reasons: First, because I didn’t end up liking Lyon all that much; and second, because the city’s Hertz outlet (where I picked up a vehicle on my third day in town to day-trip to the French Alps) tried to charge me over €1,000 for damage I didn’t cause.
Annecy and Chamonix, of course, were life-changing in their majesty. And so by the time I got to Marseille the following morning, I had mostly shaken off the attempted shake-down (Hertz’s email had arrived in my inbox while I was onboard the train, this one—shockingly—on-time) and instead focus on how wrong I’d been about France’s worst-reputed city.
Which is not to say my time in Marseille was devoid of either crime or punishment. On a hike into the Calanques National Park on my second day there, a police officer (whom I’d assumed was a lifeguard on account of his tight speedo) confronted me just as I had dipped my toes into the waters of Sormiou Beach.
“You can’t be here,” he barked at me, claiming that it was a “red flag” day (even though a green one flew over us) and that I never should’ve been allowed to walk into the park, even though no one had stopped me at the gate.
“No,” he corrected me, after I told him I would head back as soon as I cooled off. “You have to leave now.”
As a result of the drapeau rouge, he explained, law enforcement would be unable to assist any hikers who ran into trouble en route. Which naturally meant that the safest way forward for me was to get back on the trail at the very hottest time of the day.
I wish I could tell you that I proceeded to and through my final two destinations—Provence and Paris—without any disruptions or annoyances.
Unfortunately, I arrived in Valensole to find the summer’s lavender harvest almost completely finished, more than a month earlier than average in some places; countless capital-area attractions ended up being closed, citing both the aforementioned heat dome, as well as France’s participation in the World Cup, which was unfortunately still occurring.
I bring all of this up—and now, take us back to the boarding debacle for my Air France flight—not to complain about my once-in-a-lifetime trip, nor to expose (inadvertently) what is probably a less-than-healthy emotional baseline, but to illustrate a larger point: At almost every juncture, my journey through France provided me with opportunities to throw my hands up and quit.
Instead, however, I dug my heels in—and, as the 30 pictures I’ve shared below hopefully end up illustrating, I’m so thankful to myself for having done so.
