A well-connected northern suburb of Paris, Saint-Ouen is famed for its flea market: The Marché aux Puces is absolutely gigantic, running on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, hosting thousands of stalls and pulling in more than 100,000 shoppers per day. Transport-wise Saint-Ouen is a dream, sitting right on the RER C and Line 13 of the …
Northwest of Paris, Colombes is a suburb with easy access to the centre. All around Colombes there are reminders of the industry that engulfed the area in the 19th and 20th centuries. These old factories and warehouses have since been turned into offices, shops and luxury apartments. Colombes has attracted high earners and the service …
In the foothills of the Vosges, Épinal is a historic town noted for its printing pedigree: There are workshops here that mass produced colourful woodcut and lithographic prints for hundreds of years. You’ll have a rare chance to see these old techniques in action at the Imagerie d’Épinal and browse a huge library of prints …
Up to the year 1678 when it was annexed by France, Maubeuge had been sacked and looted an amazing 20 times. So once the town was under French control Maubeuge became a fortified border town with walls designed by Vauban, who was Louis XIV’s decorated military engineer. Large sections of these walls, ditches, water channels …
Divided by the River Vienne, Châtellerault is a quiet town with more going on than meets the eye. On the right bank is a historic quarter of Renaissance townhouses where the philosopher René Descartes studied as a child. And across the river via the dignified 16th-century Pont Henri-IV is Châtellerault’s old industrial quarter. For 150 …
On the northwest coast of Reunion, Le Port is the island’s main harbour. As ports go it’s unique in France as the only one to include an industrial port, naval base (the third largest in France), passenger port, fishing port and marina. For tourists the marina is the source of most of the excitement as …
On the leeward side of Reunion, Saint-Leu is a somewhere to get in touch with the island’s abundant nature. There’s a sanctuary for sea turtles, a botanical conservatory and rocky promontories on the coast. You can go underwater to see tropical fish, or watch whales and dolphins breaching above the waves and. And along the …
The small town of Armentières is right on the Belgian border, 15 minutes from Lille and just 20 minutes from the Belgian city of Ypres. If you’d like to keep your holiday local there’s a lake with an activity centre and beach, as well as an assortment of open farms and quaint, rural museums to …
The Auvergne region’s second largest town is an endearing medieval settlement on the banks of the Cher. Looking out over Montluçon from a hilltop is the regal Château des Ducs de Bourbon, a seat for the Dukes of Bourbon for hundreds of years. This sets the tone for a medieval centre of timber-framed houses, Romanesque …
At the confluence of the Oise and Seine Rivers, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine is only half an hour from Paris by train, but things move much slower in this town. At a sedate river’s speed in fact, because Conflans has long been the capital of France’s inland waterways. There’s a fabulous museum and venerable boats on the riverside …