A few years ago I chatted to Kate Veach on the Loulabelle's FrancoFiles podcast and since then (like a number of guests!) she has become a beautiful friend. I stayed with her and her husband Nathan recently in Burgundy which was such a wonderful time and our stay with her absolutely illustrated why we are now lovely friends. Kate and Nathan have become part of their local community in Lucenay-L'Eveque with artist events, aperitif sessions in the village square and more important that anything...

It's getting to that time of year when Christmas is on our minds, although I'm a little obsessed about all things Chrissy all year round! So when I had the chance to chat to Lucie Brocard and Anne-Sophie Pink about the Alliance Française Melbourne's upcoming Marché de Noël, I jumped at the opportunity!Lucie is the Cultural Events Manager and has done an amazing job with the AF Christmas Market being held at the Abbottsford Convent on the weekend of Saturday 30 November & Sunday 1 December...

Nadège Alex knows Paris inside and out! After growing up in the Champagne region, she moved to the French capital in her early twenties and fell in love with the city. She is now a travel planner and assists travellers from around the world to put together their itineraries for their Paris visit.Chatting to Nadège was like having a conversation with an old friend. She gave me tips of places to photograph the Eiffel Tower and lots of little tips for visits to Paris. We spoke about her fave spo...

Kyong Millar has been having a love affair with France for ages, which prompted a purchase of a wonderful village home, 500 year old Maison de Frédéric in the south of France near Avignon and Uzès, in the beautiful Provence region.What followed was an amazing experience which was more than Kyong and her husband expected at the outset, but the end result is better than anything they could have imagined.Kyong takes us through her story including how they found their home, what criteria was on t...

Daniel Alexander is an Australian Fashion Designer now living in Paris. Chatting to him after his second Paris Fashion Week show, I was fascinated to hear about his passion for fashion, the things that inspire him and how he hopes to inspire the next generation of designers.From a young age in Brisbane Australia, Daniel was making clothes out of his mother's drapes (a la Sound of Music!) and he continued to work hard to pursue a career that has taken him to live around the world and now in Pa...

Recently I spent a couple of months in France, road-tripping through gorgeous historic villages, passing majestic châteaux, immersing in village markets bursting with brocante and eating my way through the special dishes from a variety of regions! This podcast episode follows my journey with my friend Trudy Walker as we travelled from Normandy westwards, to a couple of plus-beaux-villages-de-France in the Pays de la Loire, then turned back to the east and headed to Burgundy before going throu...

Friend of the Loulabelle's FrancoFiles podcast, Ruby Boukabou has a new project working with French director Clément Reboussin, The Paris Plan!Whenever I spend time hanging out with Ruby in France we have so much fun with loads of original, sometimes classic, must see and sometimes quirky, out of the box things to do!For anyone planning a trip to Paris, potentially for residents living in the French capital or perhaps for those elsewhere around the world who just want to stay connected to wha...

I have just returned from 2 months in France, road tripping through various French regions and loads of plus-beaux-villages. Regular listeners to the podcast will know how much I love a road trip! Every chance I get I will take off from Australia and drive around France!The first road trip I took this time was with my husband Paul across Normandy and Brittany, with the second road trip through more of Normandy, the Pay de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire, Burgundy and the Champagne region with a...

Currently I am in France! I have escaped the Aussie winter and returned to my fave destination! This time however, my husband Paul and I decided to couple our visit to Paris and other regions of France, with a stay with some dear friends who live near Prague.There were some unexpected issues we encountered, such as the fact that our internal European flight weighed every single carry on bag before boarding which rarely happens in Australia! After a walk of shame to the overweight baggage desk...

Alex Lalak is an Aussie born and bred travel journalist who now calls France home. Growing up in Sydney, Alex was gifted many cook books, many of them French and also studied French at school. A part of her always thought she would live there one day. After a few trips to France over the years, Alex moved overseas in her thirties, first to New York, then London and eventually Paris. She then met Pierre, her now husband and that changed everything!When Alex first moved to Paris, she had ...

Elaine Lewis was always interested in books. So when she made the decision to move from Australia to Paris to open a book store on the left bank of the Seine, her family gave full support. Other opinions were mixed, but regardless she moved to France and spent quite a long time preparing for the opening of her Australian book shop.There were challenges along the way, such as deciphering info being rattled off to her over the phone! But after months putting together a dossier to provide to the...

Danielle Overton Chambers was born in London but moved to Saint Malo as a small child to live with her great-grandparents and after a life around the world she has returned to her favourite place.Saint Malo has fascinating history from the 1950s post war to the pirates of the 15th-18th centuries and even earlier with monks and religious living a hermits life there in the 6th century, before they decided to build a cathedral! From a medieval cathedral town, Saint Malo became a very rich p...

What Claudine Hemingway doesn't know about the history of Paris probably isn't worth knowing! But as I plan to take off to France for the European autumn, arriving somewhere amongst the shenanigans of the Olympics and the Paralympics, I am picking her brain for what to expect in the Paris of today!It is exactly 100 years since Paris last hosted the Olympic Games, and what an amazing amount of history has occurred since then in the French capital. Paris is quite changed since 1924 and it will ...

In 2023 my dear uncle Carl Putt and his best mate Paul Steinfort embarked on a life changing experience walking Le Puy Camino, a huge pilgrimage trail through France.I have obviously known my Uncle Carl my whole life and with a shared love of France it was wonderful to share this chat with him. I have known Paul mainly as Carl's best mate through my life (but just prior to COVID I took on the role as President of a large football club in suburban Melbourne for a number of years, with Paul hav...

A short while ago I chatted at episode 152 with Clare Needham, Curator at the Bendigo Art Gallery all about their amazing current exhibition Paris: Impressions of Life 1880-1925. This exhibition finishes on Bastille Day next week, so I popped back yesterday to see all the fabulousness there with friends who are just as crazy about all things French as I am! I had a petit chat with mes amies afterwards which is included in this episode.The Paris: Impressions of Life 1880-1925 exhibition takes ...

Alex Ganipeau is a native of Bordeaux who is now a skilled French teacher residing in Australia with her business The French Hack. I check in with Alex weekly to improve my French chatting skills and I also love her tips on lots of things to do, places to go and cultural matters we might stumble across when visiting France. She is always a wealth of info for me when I'm planning my next French escape! So much so that we thought a chat about her faves from a local perspective would assist the ...

I got out from behind my desk in the Loulabelle's recording pod and met Pierrick Boyer in his Prahran Rêverie Café. For someone who has so many accolades and awards, who is always excelling and noted as being at the top of his craft, he is an exceptionally grounded and genuine person. I have spent time in his café before, always a place that is warm and welcoming, filled with French dreams in every dessert and dish served!After growing up in France, Pierrick lived a number of years outside of...

Recently I followed with great interest all the excitement of the Cannes Film Festival, which got me reminiscing about when I was there for the 2023 Festival last May with friend to the Loulabelle's FrancoFiles podcast Ruby Boukabou. I also loved the chat I had with Ruby back then while we were in Cannes with loads of insights into the local customs, the sights, the weird and the wonderful happenings of the most famous film festival on the planet!Tune into hear all the insider views on ...

Melbourne local Catherine Deveny has a career I have followed for decades. She is a writer, a comedian, an inspiration to many and she has provided many a belly cackle for me over the years. She is irreverent, intelligent and loads of fun and I loved unpacking the French angle of her story. Catherine describes herself as a professional MILF!!! Seriously though, she is the founder of the Gunnas writers retreats and since its inception she has had 10,000 writers or "gunna-be" writers throu...

English born Kylie Lang has lived all over the world, but it wasn’t until she gave her husband the next choice of where to live, that she even considered a move to France and now she is fully in loooooove with every thing about her new adopted home..Kylie now lives in rural France in the Charente department on the border of the Dordogne, 2 hours from Bordeaux. In south-west France, Kylie’s area is known for its sunflowers and is a beautiful part of France (although who am I kidding, all of Fr...

Aujourd'hui I escaped into the real world to get my Frenchy vibes fluttering at the Bendigo Art Gallery, chatting to curator Clare Needham about the current Paris: Impressions of Life exhibition.This extraordinary exhibition was sourced from the Musée de Carnavalet in the Marais in Paris as well as fashion items from the NGV. Clare took me through all the 7 zones of the exhibition taking me through the story of the history of Paris from that time.Tune in to hear our petit tour and check out t...

Claudia Stahl is the creator of French inspired fashion brand Jac Cadeaux. Claudia lived in Paris for a number of years after inheriting a love of all things French from her mother. She went for a year and stayed for five years!Claudia loves the language and the culture but clearly has been affected by the fashion too. Being there for 5 years, she got to learn the language, to meet and make French friends, travel a lot and study the effortlessly chic French women. We chatted about her experie...

Ruby Boukabou is an author, performer, tap dancer and Paris resident with whom I have had numerous wonderful French experiences including attending the Cannes Film Festival last year. The films selected for 2024 have now been announced with loads of Aussies set to be gracing the red carpet. (Bonjour Chris Hemsworth & Cate Blanchett!) Ruby and I are particularly impatient for the global premiere of George Miller's new Mad Max movie. Ruby has been reporting on the famous Cannes Fest fo...

April Pett is a breath of fresh air keeping the Frenchy vibes fluttering for many tourists in Paris. She hosts custom tours in Paris, Versailles, Chablis and Champagne and does so with such a lovely vibrant positivity! Coming to live in Paris from a small town in Canada, April first visited France when she graduated high school and her love affair with the French capital began. After more than a decade living there, she still hasn't lost the wonder in her eyes every time she sees the iconic...