It’s unlikely we will be travelling anywhere overseas for at least another few years but thankfully, we have an abundance of wonderful videos, programmes and other resources to do virtual trips instead.

Some time ago, during the pandemic lockdowns I created a Virtual Tour of France where I created an itinerary for 5 days that took me to some regions of southern France. I used YouTube, Twitter, Google Maps and other resources to PRETEND that I was actually travelling there. If you want to read them, check out:

Tour 1: Les Hospices de Beaune

Tour 2: Guedelon Castle

Tour 3: Do You Know the Way to Vezelay?

Tour 4 : Une Ganais a Lyon

It felt “so real” that I had the Beaune Tourist Office contact me to tell me to drop in and say hello next time I’m PHYSICALLY there – in person. They had a lot of fun reading my jaunt pretending that I was visiting the sights, staying at some awesome hotels and chateaus (you can do this when you don’t care about prices). I was ordering the best wines, the most expensive foods in Michelin star restaurants and had brought along my best friends on Twitter to my journey. Basically, I made up all our conversations and adventures. As if we were all really travelling.

One of the highlights was that I had a lady (unknown) contact me on Twitter to say that she loved my idea and had created her own pretend itinerary that she gave to her grandmother who was lamenting that she couldn’t travel together in person – so they created a virtual tour instead.

I’m at a point where I’m now reassessing a lot of things about how I spend my time – and I need to spend more time talking in French to ensure I maintain my fluency. Language learning is a lifelong endeavour.

I’ve been thinking of changing Universities of the Third Age to move to another one at a different location that focuses only on French conversation (as opposed to the one that I was going to which focusses on grammar and songs). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy these but I prefer to be speaking. I found only through speaking (with feedback) can you actually improve in a language.

As such, this new U3A has asked me to take on next week’s topic of French conversation. Each class member has to come up with an idea for a topic of conversation for the group to participate.

I was racking my brain as to what to talk about and I recalled my virtual tour. Maybe we can go on a tour together?

I’ve never been to Lyon, so I thought we’d do a virtual tour of the city and use that as a basis of conversation.

Here’s what I came up with for the class. They’ll have to watch the various videos and read the articles and then we will just chat about what stands out for us.

Who knows, when the time comes for me to travel again, I’ll know Lyon like the back of my hand!

Traboulons! Rendez-vous `a Lyon

On ira aujourd’hui à Lyon – une visite virtuell! Peut-être découvrirons-nous son histoire, sa gastronomie et sa culture? Regardez les videos (si tu veux) et nous les discuterons. Bon voyage!