Journey to France | A Soft, Meandering Escape

In The Insomnia Project – Season 8, Episode 1: A Journey to France, Marco and Amanda gently guide listeners from the East Coast of Canada to the quiet charm of St. Pierre, just off the shores of St. John's. What begins as a simple travel recap becomes a softly meandering reflection on ferry rides, electric bike adventures, seaside picnics, and scenic coastal drives. The pace is unhurried, allowing each detail — from salty air to small café discoveries — to settle comfortably.
Rather than a high-energy travelogue, this calming podcast offers a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or quiet racing thoughts. The gentle rhythm of their storytelling makes it perfect for background listening at bedtime or during middle-of-the-night wake-ups. There’s something soothing about imagining narrow streets, ocean views, and the quiet novelty of visiting a little piece of France in North America.
Settle in, let the steady cadence of their voices carry you across the water, and drift peacefully toward rest.

​A Journey to France
(Original airdate: Sept 20, 2023)

 Welcome to the Insomnia Project, season eight. This is episode, uh, one of season eight. Uh, we hope you enjoy our podcast. We want you to listen, relax, sit back and enjoy. And hopefully this podcast will help you find your way to peace, sleep, rest, or just chill. I'm your host, Marco Timpano.

Amanda:  I'm Amanda Barker. I can't believe it's season eight.

Marco:  It's actually if you think about it, Amanda, we've been doing this since January of 2015.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  So that's how many years?

Amanda:  I don't know.

Marco:  That's more than 8. Anyways, I can't think at the top of my head.

Amanda:  I don't do math. Oh, eight years, yeah.

Marco:  Is it eight? 15 to 23?

Amanda:  Well, eight and a half now.

Marco:  Eight and a half, sure. So, um, almost nine. Is it?

Amanda:  Yeah. January 2015 is a very specific time that I remember. So my memory is an interesting thing. I was reading, uh, something about Julia Lewis Dreyfus and how she doesn't remember things and I'm like, oh God, I think that's me. Sometimes with podcasting, I don't remember what I've said or done.

Marco:  Fair enough. But I do want to mention, since we're starting the season, if you haven't already given us a five star review, please do so. That certainly helps us. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. And if you can, please give us that five star review.

Amanda:  It supports us in so many ways. It takes but a minute. And, uh, it would just be a nice thing to put on your list of things to do today. So thank you. Also, um, you know, word of mouth is still the best marketing. We are wired for story, aren't we? All of us as humans. So tell your friends, let them know what resonates about this podcast. I do that with all of my favorite podcasts, um, and books, because as we know, I read.

Marco:  You do. You certainly do.

Amanda:  Uh, and I think, like I said, we're wired for stories. So if there's a story or a place that we've talked about or a thing that we've talked about on the podcast that you've connected with, or something that really soothed you, helped you to sleep, or helped you relax, let people know. Word of mouth, uh, is the best marketing and it always will be.

Marco:  Uh, speaking of journeys, Amanda. So we took a few weeks off, as we do at the end of each season, and we were able to sort of focus on things that we wanted to do.

Amanda:  We did.

Marco:  And we had the opportunity to go on a most wonderful trip. And I thought I'd share this with our listeners because I posted on Instagram photos of where we were, but I didn't say where we were because I wanted to wait.

Amanda:  Were people guessing?

Marco:  People were guessing. People could sort of tell that we started off in eastern Canada, the most eastern part of Canada. So I did get some people clue into certain aspects of our trip, but not all. So we had an opportunity to fly from Toronto to St. John's Newfoundland. And people recognize St. John's so I was getting a lot of, um, comments on the Instagram posts about St. John's kudos. M to you who recognized St. John's

Amanda:  we booked this trip, I just want to say, two days before we did it.

Marco:  So last week.

Amanda:  That's how we roll, kids.

Marco:  And part of the reason of the trip was Amanda just got her newest citizenship, which is Italian citizenship, because she's married to me and I'm an Italian citizen.

Amanda:  Last week of August, that's what happened.

Marco:  Yeah, so I'm a Canadian citizen. I'm an Italian citizen, thanks to my parents or my dad in particular.

Amanda:  And uh, now on the form I had to fill out as actors, sometimes we have to fill out these forms and it asks for your citizenship and uh, you don't have much room in the box, so. So it's us can eu because now I'm an Italian citizen. I'm so proud of it too.

Marco:  So based on that, I said to Amanda, let's see if we can get an inexpensive trip to Italy or Europe.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  And we couldn't. Not to mainland Europe anyways, which is not a shocker.

Amanda:  I mean, who has an expectation of, let's see what the cheap flight to Europe is.

Marco:  But sometimes two days before.

Amanda:  Yeah, I mean, sometimes you can strike gold with that. And if there's one thing that we love and we've always been aligned with in our relationship, it's travel, particularly cheap travel, last minute travel, extemporaneous travel for sure.

Marco:  So we sort of said, okay, no to mainland Europe. But then you had this brilliant idea and this is where we're going to let you know where we were.

Amanda:  I did. So I have noticed in the last few years, Canada, our place of residence, has, um, it was something we've never been able to experience that Europe has and certainly the United States has, which is sort of cheap flights. It's never really been a thing. But we're in a point in aviation where there are some cheaper budget sort of carriers that are offering us cheap flights to destinations we couldn't otherwise go. So I found these cheap flights to St. John's Newfoundland. And that's when I had an idea. Let's go to the islands of, uh,

Marco:  Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Amanda:  Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which are two islands I've always wanted to go to for a very long time. They are off the southern shore of Newfoundland. And I say shore, but coast, I mean, they're Far. You have to boat to them.

Marco:  We ferried actually. Not that far.

Amanda:  Well, they're an hour and a half

Marco:  ferry, which isn't far.

Amanda:  I know, but I'm m making it sound like you could row a boat over. They're not that close.

Marco:  You probably could. I think it's 17 miles or 17 kilometers.

Amanda:  Okay. In any event, back in the 1700s when Canada was forming, um, and I shouldn't say when Canada, but what we know today as Canada was forming, obviously the indigenous culture was here for a long time. Ah. And it was a beautiful country. And um, you know, the Europeans did what they did. And so uh, the French and English particularly were battling over territories. And in that time in the 1700s, France gave over Newfoundland. And again, I don't know the actual history on this, but that became part of English territory, British territory. Consequently, Newfoundland only joined Canada proper in the 19. I think it was 1949. Yeah. So, um, relatively recently I guess for country forming that is especially around here. But um, France held onto these two small islands off the southern coast, St. Pierre and Miquelon. And you know, a lot of Canada became Canada, Quebec and Canadian territory. However, France, France itself held onto these two islands. And these are French territory from France. So when you approach these islands, you are in Europe, you are in France. They use French, uh, European outlets, uh, and voltages.

Marco:  Electrical outlets.

Amanda:  Electrical outlets, they use the Euro. Um, you definitely have to bring your passport and you are definitely entering France when you enter in, believe it or

Marco:  not, it is France, 45 kilometers from the coast, uh, of, of Newfoundland to France in this case.

Amanda:  And people had speculated to us it'll be like a French Newfoundland. And I'm here to say it's not.

Marco:  It was France, it's France. The moment we stepped on the ferry, which was a French ferry.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  Which I found tricky because you know, we're used to how North Americans schedule trains or ferries or planes. There's a very obvious sort of you take this train, then you connect here, you take this plane, it'll arrive at this time. It didn't quite do that when I was trying to figure it out because we wanted to go From Fortune to St Pierre to Miquelon, Fortune, Newfoundland.

Amanda:  That's the ferry town.

Marco:  Yeah. And uh, there weren't uh, fairy times that correlated or worked in that way. And it wasn't obvious of whether you could take your car on the, on the ferry schedule. You had to email them to let them know you wanted to take a car and then they would email you back. So it was a little bit not what I was used to. It was. It felt very much like when I lived in Europe.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Marco:  So the second we stepped on Amanda, uh, those electrical outlets were the European style, the 220v. On the ferry. Uh, everyone spoke French from France. France. French.

Amanda:  France French. Not Quebecois French, which is different. Is different.

Marco:  M. Equally wonderful, but different.

Amanda:  Just different. And, um, we felt it. And we've both spent time in France, so we had that comparable. And we both spent time in Quebec and in other French pockets in Canada, certainly. Um, so we had all of that to compare it with. And we definitely were like, no, this is France, man.

Marco:  From the baguettes they made.

Amanda:  Yeah. To the lack of ice in the

Marco:  drinks, to the, uh, pastries, the French patisseries that I enjoyed.

Amanda:  And they were great.

Marco:  They were fantastic. And we. So St. Pierre has about 5,000 people on it. And, um, Miquelon, which is a larger island and it's connected to, uh.

Amanda:  Langlade.

Marco:  Langlade.

Amanda:  It's called Miquelon. But then when you look at a map, they sort of have. The island of Miquelon is Miquelon and Langlade.

Marco:  So Langlade doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Amanda:  I know you never hear St Pierre, Miquelon and Langlade.

Marco:  And Langlade and St Pierre are connected by a land bridge.

Amanda:  Yeah. So it's one island, but sort of, um. I think we said it was like a figure eight or like. Ah. I think you compared it to glasses. Yeah.

Marco:  Like specks. Like John Lennon specks.

Amanda:  Yeah. Two sort of circular land masses with a.

Marco:  With a bridge. A land bridge.

Amanda:  A land bridge.

Marco:  Or a glacis bridge that I don't think was created.

Amanda:  I think it was always there.

Marco:  500 people live on those. Those connected islands. It's very rural.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Marco:  So when we got there, we went to the tourist office, I guess you could call it.

Amanda:  But I want to say something before we get into the step by steps of both. And that was that entering into. Because we first entered into St. Pierre and then the next day went to Miquella. Right. But entering into that space, into that world of St. Pierre, Miquelon, was magical. I don't have another way to explain it. They are special, special places.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  They're beautiful. They're tranquil.

Marco:  Yes.

Amanda:  They're remote. The people are lovely.

Marco:  Lovely.

Amanda:  A little more lovely than in France proper, but certainly in parts of rural France.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  Um, I just. I. You know, everyone has different experiences of Paris. I did live in France, so I have many different sort of versions of comparing it to. And I would say it was comparable to like an island in, off the coast of northern France.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  That's what it felt like. Yeah.

Marco:  Of course every big city, the people aren't as friendly as in rural areas. And of course Paris being one of the biggest cities in Europe, you're not going to find the, you know, care and time that people put into it.

Amanda:  There is a French way of doing things, a French way of thinking about things. And that is absolutely present on these islands for sure.

Marco:  So we hop on the ferry and head to, from St. Pierre to Miquelon the next day.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  It's once again about an hour. Felt like an hour plus ferry.

Amanda:  Longer than I thought it would be actually.

Marco:  Definitely. And we get there, we go to the tourist office and there's really not much to do in, on this island

Amanda:  you step off the island. In both islands you step off the island and there is a presence of a big church which is pretty typical for French ah, communities. Right. So Miquelon is much the same. You step off and there's a big church on the right side. And next to the church is um, what I would call a canteen. Um, but like a little shack, like

Marco:  a, like a wooden shack, a wooden food structure. So yeah, picture you, you, they did it. And by no means is it um, not look nice. It's a nice looking.

Amanda:  Yeah, it's lovely.

Marco:  Food stand.

Amanda:  Yeah, I know. Shack. It's not ramshackle.

Marco:  No, it's not ramshackle.

Amanda:  It's newer looking. Like it's called Adrian's.

Marco:  And you go there and that's where you get a coffee or you get the coffee at the tourist office. And those are the two places I found where you could get a coffee.

Amanda:  By the way, the shack, they all call the food truck. Go to the food truck. So you're expecting a truck, but it's not a truck.

Marco:  It's not truck. It's a wooden structure that has seating.

Amanda:  Yeah, it's a wooden structure, yeah. With sort of um, open to the elements. But then you could probably batten it down when it got colder, I think

Marco:  with French soft drinks and beverages and

Amanda:  iced teas from France.

Marco:  And water.

Amanda:  Yeah, like French iced tea, which is different. Sure it is. Yeah.

Marco:  So we go there because we were informed by the tourist office that if we wanted to rent a bike we should go to the food truck.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  So we go to the food truck and I'm using air quotes because like Amanda said, it wasn't a truck and we Said we'd like to rent bikes. And the gentleman says to me, Adrian says to me, do you want a, uh, traditional bike or an electric bike? And I say, let's go for the electric bike, thinking it was more like a moped. But the electric bikes they had were just bikes that would assist you with a little electrical burst, but you still had to pedal.

Amanda:  And that might be a Toronto thing, because I think when we say E bikes, we are often thinking of a scooter kind of apparatus, like a moped that you plug in. That's what I had. I had two of them at one point. Um, but I think I know our friends in LA when they say E bikes. They're thinking of bikes that have an electrical assist, right? So this was the ladder?

Marco:  No, this was the ladder. And so he's like, I'll call Morgan. He calls Morgan. Morgan shows up 10 minutes later with some bikes, pulls them out, we hop in them, and away we go.

Amanda:  And I have never ridden a bike on a road, so this was a bit of, um, a leap for me. When I was 10, I rode one. And when I was, um, years ago, backpacking in Australia, I attempted to, and it was not successful, so I was a little worried. But after doing a couple, because I've done scooters and mopeds now, um, maybe my sense of balance is different. So I adjusted the bike and off we went. We decided to go to the northernmost point on the island, which wasn't far. Um, and I just felt a sense of serenity. I felt like the breeze was blowing and it was just shoreline. And if you can imagine, just, um, a shoreline that's at times rugged and at times very tranquil, but just breezes, fields and shoreline and no one else.

Marco:  And we found a little picnic area by a small beach, and we had packed baguettes that we had got from a boulangerie in St. Pierre. In St. Pierre before we.

Amanda:  There wasn't much on St. Pierre, and there certainly wasn't much in Miquelon, we discovered. But I had a feeling, and knowing there wasn't even much in St. Pierre and knowing that was more the hub, I said, we found this bakery. Who knows what we'll find? Who knows what will be open? So let's pick up these sandwiches, and then we know we have lunch.

Marco:  So we had lunch. It was wonderful. And then we scooted around the island more and more, and, uh, we just enjoyed ourselves. We saw an old shipwreck boat that was kind of, uh, on the land with some historical markers, and, uh, then it was time to go home. We went back to St. Pierre. And when you say St. Pierre doesn't have much. It does have the. What you need. It does. That's my phone. Sorry. It does have what you need. So there are a few bakeries. We went to both of them. There are restaurants.

Amanda:  You know, the thing about it is the thing I found about St. Pierre and again, Miquelon, it could be more like this, but because there's just less people. But both islands have a sense of, you know, they may rely on tourism, but they're certainly not touristy islands.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  I've been to a lot of islands. I love islands, by the way. They're kind of. I just have a very, very much an attraction to islands. So I've been to many. And an island that is visited by tourists even somewhat tends to have a. You know, there are gift shops, um, there are shops in general, there are restaurants. Now, it's not to say St. Pierre doesn't have this, but you kind of have to hunt and peck. You kind of have to know where you're going. You kind of have to look for them. Um, and like anywhere in rural France, um, everything shuts down for lunch.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  So 12 to 1:30. Don't try to do much other than maybe going to one restaurant that does a lunch service. Um, the other one's open at night and then back at 2. Some shops only open from 2 to 6, and that's their day. So, you know, it's not necessarily on your time, it's on theirs. And it's that type of feeling. I will say both islands were incredibly quiet. And maybe that's because we live in a city, so we're not used to that level of quietness. But, you know, just walking around St. Pierre and, you know, some of the streets are cobblestone, others are, you know, roads. And certainly there's cars and they, they're driving them. Um, but even with that, it had a quietness. It was almost like, are people living in these homes? You know, everyone at dinner, um, goes inside and they're making themselves dinner. There's only four or five restaurants on the island, which, when you think about it, for an island of 6,000, is actually about right. Because you don't expect people to eat out every day or whatever.

Marco:  But we only saw that in the center of town. We don't know if in the, in the, like, burb areas if there were restaurants that we could encounter.

Amanda:  Yes, we do.

Marco:  There were on the map. There were more little, um, croissants.

Amanda:  And things, I mean, convenience store perhaps that we didn't see or. We explore that island, Marco. Uh, no. Yes, you do. We definitely explored it.

Marco:  Well, was there not a restaurant on the balloon near the boulangerie that we went to on the other side of the island where the, where the kids clothing store was? There must have been a restaurant there.

Amanda:  No, I mean, we went to it. It was the boulangerie.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  My point being that, you know, French people cook, as most people do, but you know, you're walking and it has a bit of, um. Because it's European, it has that sort of, you're saying suburb. But my North American definition of suburb is a very specific look.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  This isn't. I mean, there is no suburb, really. You're just talking about like up on the hill versus not up on the

Marco:  hill versus what I do want to say that the homes there were very reflective of coastal homes in North America, in Newfoundland, in that they were brightly colored.

Amanda:  Okay.

Marco:  And they were. They were, uh. They didn't really have a French style to them, but more of a Shaker style or. Ah. You know, coastal, um, style homes.

Amanda:  Yeah, I would say it was a mix.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  Um, because you did have. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. But you do have that French colonial vibe.

Marco:  Only in the government buildings that I saw. Not in the homes though, like that one government building that we went to that had the potted plants in a wheelbarrow that looked very.

Amanda:  Well, they weren't, I guess what they weren't. They weren't all stone with like, you know, the stone French cottage with the light blue shutters, that kind of thing. They weren't that, uh. The French countryside. No, you're right. They were bright orange, brightly colored, lime green, wooden siding type of clapboard houses. I think that's what you're trying to say.

Marco:  Deep sea blue. Yes.

Amanda:  Clapboard houses. Yeah.

Marco:  And there were a surprising amount of horses on both islands.

Amanda:  There were, but it makes sense. I don't think it. Is it surprising? I mean, at one time that would have been your transportation. So there's probably a long lineage of raising horses.

Marco:  Sure, at one time. But our mode of transportation when we went to St Pierre was we rented a car off a wonderful person. If you happen to go to St. Pierre, go to Marie and Fils. Yeah, Marie and Sons. Um, they're an auto body shop or a mechanic shop. And they have a couple of cars that they'll rent.

Amanda:  They do. And it's that type of place. Right. Like he. He has a small Business. His name's Jerome. So the feast. Feast, meaning sons. Jerome. Jerome is amazing. Go see him. Go to St Pierre, by the way. Like, go to these islands. They are truly incredible. And those who, um, live in North America, they're actually pretty accessible right now if you want to go to Newfoundland. I mean, there are more accessible places in the world, certainly, but it was doable. Here's my point.

Marco:  Here's how you can get there. Just before we forget, you can fly from Montreal, From Halifax, from St. John's and from Ile de Madeleine, which is

Amanda:  another island I'm dying to go to.

Marco:  Or if you're in Paris, you can fly from there direct to St. Pierre.

Amanda:  Mhm. Or so there is an airport. What he's saying is there's an Airport in St. Pierre, and those are where the direct flights come from.

Marco:  Otherwise you have to. Or you can drive from St. John's Newfoundland.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  About three and a half hours south, right, Amanda?

Amanda:  Uh, yes, sort of south.

Marco:  Um, west, southwest to the town of Fortune.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  And you hop on a ferry from there. An hour and a half later, you're in St. Pierre.

Amanda:  Which is what we decided to do because Marco hadn't seen. Well, for starters, we got the cheap flights to St. John's and also Marco hadn't seen St. John's and I only had been there once, quite quickly for a wedding. So I was definitely happy to spend more time there. We do have some friends there.

Marco:  I love St. John's that we connected with. I enjoyed St. John's immensely.

Amanda:  Yeah. Why don't we talk about that? Or do you feel like we've.

Marco:  We have about three minutes left. Oh, I just want to.

Amanda:  Is that enough time to talk about

Marco:  St. John's well, we can give a little flavor of St. John's just to wrap up, uh, St. Pierre. It was really charming. It was very French. It was very wonderful and colorful, vibrant, calm and quiet.

Amanda:  There aren't many places in the world that I'm excited and happy to go back to. I would absolutely go back to St. Pierre and Miquelon. I found a magic in them I haven't felt in a while. Um, from places I've visited. They are special, they are unique. They're isolated. They are their own beautiful things. They're. They're gems. I love them.

Marco:  There's actually a small ghost town island that we didn't even talk about called Il o Marin, which is.

Amanda:  Which we didn't go to. Yeah.

Marco:  10 minutes from, uh, St. Pierre. And it's a little, little island that had Fishermen up until the 60s, they moved to St. Pierre. So the homes and the church remain there. And you can go visit that island.

Amanda:  You sail past it and you see an island that has a church and 10 homes on it. It's quite quaint.

Marco:  But St. John's first of all, the food that we had in St. John's was exceptional.

Amanda:  Ah, fantastic. Yeah.

Marco:  If you go m. Might I recommend the restaurant Portage?

Amanda:  Mhm. Talk about it.

Marco:  Yeah, yeah, it was wonderful. But St. John's is very charming. I love these, uh, towns and cities by the water in Canada. Always have St. John's Halifax, St. John. Uh, these are places, coastal cities by the water that I always love.

Amanda:  Mhm. Yeah. Um, yeah, Portage was. I found it on the Canada's 100 Best Restaurants list that comes out every year. And it's just a little guide for people who enjoy eating in restaurants. And um, it was the only one I could find this year in, uh, Newfoundland. It's a relatively new restaurant. We found out after that one of the chefs had won MasterChef Canada TV show. But yeah, it was incredible. We also went to a place called, um, Terre. Had a nice brunch. A terre, Light filled, beautiful. Brunch was actually the hotel across the street from Portage.

Marco:  We had the best fish and chips I've ever had in um.

Amanda:  Oh yeah, by the beach in St. Philips, a little about 10 minutes out of town. We have friends that live in St. Philips. So we went down the road and on the beach had an incredible cod and chips. Like fish and chips, lightly battered, beautiful.

Marco:  And I really enjoyed driving around St. John's and all the roads. There was one road in that was a hilly road called, uh, Hill o Chips.

Amanda:  Hill o Chips. That's right downtown in St. John's for those who know it. And of course the famous George Street. And we were there on a weekend so we got to sort of walk up and down George street and just enjoy the rowdy nightlife which it's so famous for.

Marco:  We went to Signal Hill, which was on top of the hill, and you could see for miles and miles. It was really beautiful. We went both at night and during the day. And of course we went to Cape Spears.

Amanda:  Cape Spear.

Marco:  Cape Spear. Thank you, Cape Spear. And that's where we posted a lot of photos that are our listeners.

Amanda:  So it's the easternmost point, I believe, in North America and in Canada, certainly mainland.

Marco:  Yeah, mainland Canada is the easternmost point. And it was wonderful. And you didn't think we were going to go there. And I'd like to. And I said, I'd like to go to Cape Spear. And then once we were there, you were entranced.

Amanda:  And then I was like, well, we have to go to the southernmost point and the northernmost point and the westernmost point. So just another box of, you know, me and my checklists with travel. I try not to obsess about them, but it becomes a mission for me. And I just wanted to add one more thing. It's never the mission is always about the journey. It's never about the destination. And it's just one podcast at a time. It's never about the end game.

Marco:  There you go. So that might be our next mission. But for our mission today, thank you so much for being listeners of our podcast. Thank you for sticking. Been sticking by us for eight seasons. Eight years. Uh, we wish you nothing but the best and of course we hope that this podcast helps you listen and sleep.