Even though there has been a settlement in La Roche-sur-Yon since medieval times, the real story of the town began on May 24, 1804. That was the date Napoleon issued an Imperial decree transferring regional power to a whole new town. La Roche-sur-Yon is the result, a regimented grid of streets with a pentagonal outline. …
Capital of the Landes Department, Mont-de-Marsan is a medieval bastide town where the Douze and Andou Rivers meet. It was created from scratch as a walled settlement in the 1100s, and a few fortified houses and scraps of the old walls remain from this time. For hundreds of years Mont-de-Marsan flourished through trade, shipping Armagnac …
Stylish and arty Montreuil is an eastern suburb of Paris just up from the Bois de Vincennes. Historically this was a place of industry and agriculture, and many homes in this up-and-coming area are set in converted warehouses and mills. It’s a neighbourhood where you can rummage though the flea market for vintage treasures and …
The capital of Brittany’s Côtes-d’Armor department is an unpretentious town that doesn’t concern itself too much with tourism. But all the same there are a lot of things to win you over in Saint-Brieuc. The old centre has venerable granite buildings and half-timbered houses, while the Légué Port on the Gouët River Estuary resonates with …
Although London does have a Thames River, a Covent Garden Market and a Piccadilly Street, don’t mistaken it with London, England. Instead, this London is a substantially smaller city in Southwestern Ontario that is surrounded by woodlands and farmlands. In fact, it is known as ‘The Forest City’ because when it was first formed it …
A well-to-do western suburb of Paris, Courbevoie is in touch with the centre of the city, but has an easy, residential feel. There are some understated museums to check out, housed in pavilions that were made for the Exposition Universelle in 1878. Courbevoie also contains some of La Défense, the city’s modern banking district, so …
Just shy of the Belgian border in the Nord department, Valenciennes is a city noted for culture and creativity, which gave it the nickname, “Athens of the North”. For hundreds of years this relatively small place churned out painters, sculptors and architects who helped shape French culture forever. You can sample the works of figures …
Mostly known as a ferry port, Cherbourg-Octeville has a lot more strings to its bow: The Cité de la Mer museum for example will take you back to the golden age of transatlantic travel and is housed in a cavernous Art Deco ocean liner terminal. Cherbourg also has the largest man-made harbour in the world, …
In a picture-book scene of hills with a light mantle of cork oak trees sits Montemor-o-Novo. It’s an unpretentious town In the middle of the Alentejo countryside, and has a few heavyweight sights to circle on your map. Alentejo is strewn with prehistoric monuments, and there are 12 in this municipality alone. One dolmen was …
On the southern hills of the Serra de Candeeiros range, Rio Maior is a town known for a strange natural phenomenon that occurs close by. These are salt flats, much further from the ocean than you’d ever expect to find them, and exploited by locals since the 12th century. The natural park should figure in …