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Guide to France's main attractions:

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The North
***Paris: the world's most seductive city for sights, arts, culture, gastronomy, and romance...For more information and a gallery of travel pictures see Paris Travel Guide.
Ile du France: [a region around Paris]
***Versailles, one of the most famous palace in Europe, with vast, ornate buildings and beautiful gardens, as well as a formidable history. For more information and pictures see Versailles.
The North and Jura:
*Strasbourg [Picture] a pretty EU city, dominated by the awesome **Cathédrale de Notre-Dame in pink sandstone.
**Amiens Cathedral, France's largest chunk of Gothic architecture; especially marvellous during the sound and light show on summer evenings.
*Champagne tasting at Epernay.

The Loire Valley, France

The Loire:
The region is tranquil and pastoral yet loaded with castles, palaces and stately homes. For more information and pictures see Loire.
Burgandy:
*Dijon, one of the France's most inviting provincial cities, known for it's mustard and an ideal base for staggering around the Côte d'Or vineyards.
It has several notable museums, too. Do not miss **the Hôtel-Dieu [15th century hospital with a multicoloured, patterned roof in the nearby town of Beaune.
**Basilique Sainte Madeleine [a Romanesque church in Burgandy style] in Vézelay and **Fontenay Abbey [Cistercian monastery] near Montbard, despite the herds of tour buses, the magnificent abbeys are travel-worthy

Mont Saint Michel

Normandy:
**Mont Saint Michel [World Heritage Site], a magnificent Gothic Abbey on a tiny fortified island, ready to be swept away by marshy waves.
Brittany:
*St-Malo, an attractive medieval port, this is an ideal base to visit the region's archaeological sights and Celtic culture. [See Festivals]
Nearby, there is *Côte de Granit Rose, a popular seaside resort with strange pink rock formations along white sandy beaches - from Perros-Guirec to Ploumanach. An excellent region for families.
**Carnac, is one of the world's most important prehistoric sites with more than 5,000 rows of megaliths [huge, standing stones].

Centre
Atlantic coast:
***Arcachon, a lovely little summer beach resort surrounded by a massive pine forest and hosting Europe's largest dune. Arcachon pictures and more information

***Bordeaux, A sophisticated city with an elegant old town centre of neo-classical architecture, surrounded by globally famous vineyards.
**Biarritz, a popular resort with fine beaches in classy settings, known as one of Europe's best surfing sites. A day-trip [8 km] from Bayonne is possible.
Just 20 minutes drive from Biarritz is the stunning little beach resort of St Jean de Luz with a great beach and wonderful Basque architecture. St Jean and Biarritz pictures and info
The Alps:
***Chamonix, a world-famous mountain resort, lies in a valley at the foot of Mont Blanc. It is fashionable and lively, so crowded with hikers and skiers throughout the year. Chamonix picture and info
***Aiguille du Midi offers breathtaking cable-car [one of the world's highest] travel from the town, with spectacular views of the Alpine peaks. Unmissable.
** Mar de Glace, train travel to a glacier cave - another fascinating trip.
**Annecy, one of the most charming towns in the Alps, with a photogenic setting beside Lac d'Annecy [lake], it is always invaded in high seasons.

The Dordogne and the Massif Central
**Monpazier, the best preserved 'bastide' [fortified town].
**Carcassonne, a very picturesque medieval city with a well-preserved cité [old fortified town]. Remarkable, but you'll need to fortify yourself against all the other France travel freaks.
Les Eyzies, a bland village but with an excellent Stone Age Museum [Musée National de Préhistoire], this is a prime base for travelling around the prehistoric cave arts in the Vèzére valleys, while *Montignac is a pleasant base for the Lascaux caves. The must-see caves are:
***Grotte de Front-de-Guume with a vividly painted 'Frieze of five bison'
**Grotte des Combarelles, ***Grotte de Lascaux and Lascaux II, are known for their fine paintings, including the largest known prehistoric drawing of a bull, 5.5 m in size. Limited tickets are available daily to those sites so it's essential to book ahead in high season.
**The Gorges de l'Ardèche, a gorge starting with the Pont d'Arc, a picturesque and natural stone arch, then winding into the Rhône Valley.
Kayaking and canoeing is fantastic way to travel through this scenic landscape.

South
Provence/the Rhône Valley:
***Avignon, a delightful place of art and culture situated inside full-on medieval city walls and full of character - and tourists. The main attractions are the ridiculously massive Popes' Palace [tho' more of a fortress than a palace], the sing-song Pont d'Avignon [aka St Bénézet], Cezanne's life and some great museums. It's totally mad to be there during the summer festival, but it's still a must.

The totally monstrous 14thC Chateau du Pape is at the heart of Avignon

Some other Provence attractions are:
**Aix-en-Provence, another pretty and romantic city, known for its avenues of plane trees, classical music festival,
***Arles, the site of Van Gogh's later years and many paintings, is a small, quiet and heavily art-oriented town [especially photography] with a Roman amphitheatre [actually one and a half] and other Roman artefacts as well as endless little curiosities, ancient and modern. The town is stuffed with exhibitions and galleries and is a great strolling place.

Yet another huge Roman amphitheatre, this one in tiny Arles.

**Orange, with France's best preserved Roman theatre.
***Medieval, fortified hilltop villages such as Gordes, Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Les Baux and Saignon.
***The vast, Roman aqueduct at Pont-du-Gard is built on a Pharaonic scale and offers great walks and bike tracks around, long or short.

The Romans, you gotta admire their energy...this, the Pont du Gard, took thousands of men to build over several years, just to deliver water to Nimes.

***The Gorges du Verdon, France's grandest canyon. See Verdon Gorge

Verdon Gorge

The Côte d'Azur [Marseilles - Menton]/ Riviera [Cannes-Menton]:
Lovely, evocative names but the reality is traffic, crowds and diminuitive beaches - many of them pay-per-parasol and/or stony, but lots of action, people watching, good and [surprisingly] low cost eating, drinking, shopping. And the Mediterranean is still refreshing!
Cannes is smaller, more arty and has sandy beaches but Nice is bigger and offers some wonderful 19C buildings as well as the spectacular Promenade des Anglais, but both are lively, while Menton on the Italian border is tiny and quiet but a bit dull.
Monaco is the tiny [less than a square mile], tedious, independent, silly-rich principality embedded in the Riviera between Nice and Menton and worth a drive-thru shooting [pictures of course].
The Pyrenees:
**Pic du Canigou, a sacred mountain with a Romanesque monastery, St Martin.
**Sarlat-La-Canéda, a beautiful town which attracts visitors for its lovely Renaissance architecture.
Try the region's cuisine, specializing in Truffes du Périgord [black truffles] and Foie gras.
*** The Parc National des Pyrenees covers 460sq km [180 sq miles] of area along the France/Spain border, with Sommet du Vignemale [3,300m], the highest mountain in the Pyrenees. The park is fantastic for climbing and hiking with 350km of trails.

Endless beaches north of Biarritz

*** Beaches:
A variety on offer, ranging from big, sandy Atlantic stretches with cool, surfy water to small, warm, crowded strands on the south coast where you may have to pay to mix with casualties from London and Paris style wars on stony ground. Or head to Corsica for more space, less development and some superb sandy crescents. See France Beach Pictures | Corsica Beaches

Corsican walking trails, Calanches de Piana

***Corsica
A small and rugged island four hours by ferry southeast of Nice in southern France, it's about 160 kms/100miles long and 80kms/50miles at its widest.
The birthplace of Napoleon and still French territory in spite of local demands for independence, Corsica is a popular holiday target not only for French travellers but also European tourists in search of a mild climate, warm seas, piles of fine sandy beaches and dramatic hiking trails through an unspoilt and picturesque landscape of mountainous red and grey granite outcrops separated by huge swathes of pines and eucalyptus trees. See: Corsica Pictures

*** Ski resorts:
A superb collection of stylish towns and pistes in big scenery with classic names. See Skiing.

Cookery Courses:
Chef wannabe? Cooking classes in English run by celebrated chefs or simpler regional cookery schools are available.
Wine/Champagne tour: Guided tours or on-the-spot-activities from grape picking [picture] to tasting are available in wine regions such as Alsace, Champagne, Burgandy, the Loire and Bordeaux.

If you plan to travel in France you may find these other Bugbog guides useful:

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