best french cell phone company for le puy route

[cdoug1946]

i am getting ready to go on le puy camino and would like to know which cell phone company works best on this route. I am wanting to buy their sim card.....would also love to buy it online before i go if possible.....less work to do when i get there.....finding a store in a strange land can be trying and i would rather be walking. thanks so much.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

I have found that Orange works well.

 

[Kitsambler]

Yes, another vote for Orange, since Orange = France Telecom. Good coverage in all those out-of-the-way places on the Le Puy.

 

[newfydog]

I used MaxRoam sim cards last month which I bought before going----those phone stores frequently have hours of wait time.

The phone sims worked great, roaming on Orange or SFR cheap and efficiently. The data sim would only work on occasion, and usually just on SFR.

 

[ranthr]

I guess it is much cheaper to buy an orange simcard in a shop in Le Puy then on internet. There is an orange shop near the markedplace where you start walking up to the cathedral and at least two other shops in center of town. Took me 3 minutes to buy a simcard there and they put the card into my phone and controlled that it worked as well.
This spring I bought a simcard from Le French mobile on internet. You had to take your first call in France to get a number and to use it more than 2 weeks you had to fill in a form and post it to the firm which I did not do.
Next time I will choose Orange.
Buen camino.
Randi

 

[KiwiNomad06]

I used Orange because it does have very good coverage in out of the way places. However, it does not come cheaply, in that its pre-pay minutes expire quite quickly. Depending on how much you pay when you top-up, there might only be a week or ten days before your time expires.

I landed in Paris and went to several Orange shops there and queued for service- then left as I was waiting so long. But then someone at the hostel I was staying at told me to go to Darty, a big electronics chain store- there was one just near Republique where I was staying. Their service was excellent. Take your passport, as you will need ID to buy a SIM and phone- Darty got me all hooked up in the shop and I was able to use the phone immediately.
Margaret

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Orange now operates in Spain, too, so you may be able to use the French chip in Spain. Ask when you visit their store.

 

[JALAN JAUH]

Margaret wrote:

Darty got me all hooked up in the shop and I was able to use the phone immediately.

She wrote an amazing full blog with pictures with her iPod and you can see the results of her using the Orange SIM. I need say no more, but thank you Kiwinomad for sharing your first hand experience.

 

[KiwiNomad06]

Actually, I only used the phone to reserve accommodation and speak with some French friends, especially while I was on the Cluny part of the route where there weren't many other pilgrims around. I used wifi when I found it to update my blog, using my iPod Touch. I only found wifi once on the route from Cluny to Le Puy; but found it often once I was doing part of the Camino Frances.

I do intend to do a 'retrospective' blog to cover the Cluny section mainly- and I'll post on the Forum once I get going on it.... but normal life and work calls again on Monday, so progress will be rather slow!
Margaret

 

[André Hospitalet]

Hi. I agree with KiwiNomad06. Orange is the best for the coverage all along the way.
Think when you come back from your pilgrimage that you can have contact with a pilgrim association and sold you phone to a starting pilgrim. That will be interresting for you and them. It is easy and cheaper arriving in France to buy only a new Orange sim card.
Please excuse my bad english: I am french.
André
Gite Hospitalet Saint Jacques

 

[ranthr]

About Falcons comment that Orange now operates in Spain.
Last spring when I walked the Via de la Plata I bought a Spanish Orange sim card because that was the first shop I found in Sevilla. It did not work very well. Very often I got ONLY FOR 112 on my phone, while people with a French Orange sim card had connction. I many times tried to ask why in an Orange shop on the way in Spain, in Merida, Salamanca etc. but they blamed my phone. Other people told me that Foreign cards had better connection because they earned more money on them.
Next time I buy a simcard in Spain it will be a Vodaphone card that I have had no trouble with on earlier caminos.
About cost. Even if you have to fill up the card regularly it will be cheaper if you get a lot of calls from home which is free.
I get local simcards because then you can let familymembers and friends talk as much as they want without giving you a shock when you get your telephonebill on return.
Randi

 

[Thornley]

We only use Orange in France and it worked the whole of Le Puy route.

Not so good in Spain.....in fact terrible

 

[André Hospitalet]

In Spain I think that the best and the cheapest is to use prepaid cards (15€) in public phone. You buy these cards in "Tobaccos" (tobacco shop). There are many public phone in order all along the Camino Frances. I always do that to book and to call my familly. In each public phone you have a telephone number. For few seconds you give it to your familly and they call you back in the public phone.
ULTREIA
André
Gîte Hospitalet Saint Jacques

 

[Deleted member 3000]

public phone

Public phones are the lightest and cheapest way to make calls, particularly local calls. It is my observation that the phone booths are disappearing, but that the ones that remain can be found in the hottest, least sheltered spot in town so that the inside temperature can rise to 120F! The plastic of the booth and on the phone is usually opaque from sun exposure, so nothing on the phone or on the screen can be read even if you can find a way to shade it from the glare of the sun. The public phones seem to be an object of abuse, so many of them have been vandalized.

However, you can get phone cards in post offices and tobacco shops, so that is convenient.

 

[grayland]

I used LaBara earlier this year and it could not have been worse. :evil:

I have used it a couple of times on the Camino Frances with good results but it is worthless on the LePuy route.

Orange seemed to be the most used Sim and others almost always had service. If I go again it will be with Orange.

 

[irishgurrrl]

Hi

Due to fly out to France on April 12th to start the Le Puy Route - I will be bringing an old Nokia phone for the trip and hope to buy a pay-as-you-go type SIM from Orange or similar - anyone know how I ask for this in French?

 

[kwmetz88]

Where are you from? Free Mobile is ridiculously cheap in France. 20 euro/month, unlimited talk/text in france, unlimited talk to USA/CANADA....I couldn't believe it and gave it a shot last year for 7 months. It is absolutely all it's cracked up to be...

 

[Breugel]

Laposte.fr

 

[Breugel]

Lapostemobile.fr.
Those are the cheapest and the best.

 

[biloute]

Hi

Due to fly out to France on April 12th to start the Le Puy Route - I will be bringing an old Nokia phone for the trip and hope to buy a pay-as-you-go type SIM from Orange or similar - anyone know how I ask for this in French?

Je cherche une carte SIM prépayée.