Beaches

Nestling between Cap Canaille and the calanques, Cassis is a picturesque fishing port with a busy harbor, inviting beaches, colourful buildings and plentiful greenery. Located in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, about 12 miles east of Marseille on...

I sat in a Chicago sidewalk café this week with my face tilted up to bake in the unusually warm October sunshine and felt a pang for the Côte d'Azur I had experienced just a...

By 1763, the French had lost the Seven Years’ War, and it was time for the British to make their territorial claims in the New World. They had two real options: they could claim Canada, where France still ruled vast...

Even without taking its overseas territories into account, France has a number of interesting islands that are well worth venturing out to. Tristan Rutherford sets sail… Parisian Island: Île aux Cygnes Imagine a graceful tree-lined alley planted in the middle of...

As I walked down the hillside into the backstreets of Cassis, there was no sign of the autumn mists and torrential rains which had struck Provence during the previous days. In the distance, the...

Do you love travelling to France, but shy away from the French Riviera because you think it’s all glitz and glamour? Most people I talk to have the same reaction: Don't I have to be...

Watch Toutou hang 10 at Europe's first "surf chien" competition in September.

With its mild climate and its indigo sky—writer and painter Eugène Fromentin called it “an Egyptian sky”—you might think the Ile de Ré was a daughter of the Mediterranean. It juts out into the...

In the heart of Normandy, the department of Calvados boasts some of France’s most enchanting coastline and a host of medieval treasures. Here is our pick of the best. BAYEUX Bayeux is famous for its deceptively named ‘tapestry’ (which...

Julie Lynn explores the beaches of the Silver Coast’ at Biscarosse, between Bordeaux and Biarritz. It takes him a few attempts. And then he’s got it. On a hot afternoon in late July, a paraglider...