Just wanted to tell you of our experience with collecting post while in France. You can have mail sent to any post office using the Poste Restante system, and they will keep it for you. So far it has worked well in Rouen, Paris, Epernay etc.

A few weeks ago I looked up post offices in Chalon and chose one which looked fairly close to the river, not knowing where we would be moored. I duly instructed people to address their post for is to this office, and when we arrived on Monday afternoon we unloaded the folding bike (now partly recovered from being dropped in canal by bike thief), and my eBay bike complete with new tyres that cost almost as much as the bike, and clutching a local street map, we set off for this post office, which seemed a little further away than I envisaged. in fact it was on the very edge of the map, on outskirts of town! But there were good cycle paths, it was flat, and we eventually found the road, which was in a quiet residential area, not close to town centre as I had hoped.
After a search, we accidentally came across a closed down shop, a bit like a village general store, with a tiny post office sign displayed. A sign on the window in French told us the shop was closed indefinitely due to family illness.
Oh dear! Where are my letters? What's happened to my OK magazine that Kate threatened to send me? Where is the paperback I bought from eBay for 99p (plus £5postage!).
Ok, let's ride to the main post office in town, lovely husband suggests. On the map it appeared we had to ride half the way round the ring road, negotiate a huge road junction etc to get there. Luckily we could use the bike lanes, and after about another two miles cycling, we got there. I'm not a bike rider, never ridden so far in my life! My thighs are still burning!
But we did manage to get our post. Four little packets waiting for us. Cycles round the remaining half of the ring road, along the riverside, over the bridge, back to marina. Then we collapsed in the nearest bar to administer alcohol for
recovery purposes.......