On the serene Dordogne River, Bergerac is a medieval town of corbelled houses surrounded by green countryside with vineyards and farms. You’re in an eminent wine region here, and have days-worth of châteaux, cooperatives and museums to tour, while the wine council for the entire region meets at a dignified renaissance cloister in the town. …
Fair to say that Limoges has always been good with its hands: First with its luxuriant painted enamels in the middle ages, and then later when the city became one of the world’s porcelain centres. The Museum of Fine Arts and Adrien Dubouché will bring you face to face with this extraordinary legacy. Limoges’ Quartier …
The administrative centre of France’s new Grand Est region, Metz has been a base of power for more than 2,000 years. The Cour d’Or museum, which illuminates eastern France’s late-antiquity and early middle ages, will help you to come to terms with the time when the Merovingian kings of Austrasia ruled their kingdoms from this …
Grasse, on the French Riviera, is the fragrance capital of France and can be an olfactory odyssey if you have a passion for perfumes. The town has an international museum for perfume-making, three perfumeries to tour and if that’s not enough you go to the farms where sweet-smelling flowers are harvested for fragrances. When you’re …
If you want to get the most out of Le Havre you have to come ready to experience somewhere that differs from a normal, picturesque French city. Le Havre looked to the future and hired the modernist Auguste Perret, a mentor of Le Corbusier, to rebuild the centre following the destruction of the Second World …
The mere mention of Provence conjures some the most idyllic images of lavender fields, sunflowers, olive groves, cicadas, vineyards and that indescribable light that inspired the post-impressionist painters like Cézanne. You can follow in their footsteps, lounging at the cafes in Aix and heading out into the countryside to find medieval abbeys and dreamy villages …
In northwest France Brittany is a region with an identity, landscape and even a language, all of its own. It is one of the six Celtic Nations and has a maritime climate that can sometimes make it feel more like Ireland than mainland France. On the coast the scenery is at turns awe-inspiring and quaint, …
The Château of Versailles is the pinnacle of 17th and 18th-century luxury. It’s a manifestation of the excess of the Ancien Régime and is dumbfounding in its opulence, with grounds so large that you need a bicycle or golf cart to stand a chance of doing everything in a day. Much of what you see …
Alsace is right on the border with Germany, and having been contested by France and its neighbour for centuries, this region has been left with a character that combines the two. This fusion of cultures goes for everything, from architecture to cuisine and language. The ball-shaped peaks of the Vosges dominate the region to the …
The cliffs, mountains, gorges and towering pinnacles in Corsica’s extraordinary landscapes can almost look impenetrable. But if you’re persistent and love hiking rocky trails or driving precarious mountain roads your sense of adventure will lead you to some of the most beautiful locations imaginable. You can hire a boat and set sail for tropical-style beaches …