Architecture

La Dordogne: an ancient realm where dark rivers sweep under limestone cliffs and medieval hilltop villages emerge from lush dense forest; where a cornucopia of local produce has created a rich and abundant gastronomic heritage; where the extraordinary legacy of...

The French Riviera is a garden-lover’s paradise, a sun-soaked horticultural heaven lined on its southern edge by the twinkling Mediterranean. From Antibes to Cagnes-sur-Mer, Gourdon to Grasse and Nice to Beaulieu there are some 80 gardens and parks open to...

When you think of Normandy, do you think of the D-Day landing beaches and Mont Saint Michel? Or perhaps Rouen’s gothic cathedral, the Bayeux tapestry, Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny and the picturesque port...

Ask a Parisienne what she knows about Clermont-Ferrand, and her first response might be, “Well, of course I haven’t actually been there.” Then she might wrinkle her nose. “But isn’t it rather… industrial?” The impression seems confirmed on the...

Europe’s best surfing, the chic coastal town of Biarritz, the proud Basque culture and language, the rolling foothills of the Pyrenees, even a ski resort… the French Pays Basque is one of France’s most varied and distinct...

King Louis XIV’s Grand Apartments, Chamber & the Galerie des Glaces Seven rooms make up The Sun King’s ‘Grand Apartments’ and, as you progress from one to the next, your jaw will drop ever lower at their opulence. The...

A château with “the shape and colour of time”. Such lyricism may come as something of a surprise from Napoléon, but these were the poetic terms he chose to describe Fontainebleau. This was the palace that he preferred to Versailles, which...

The area of Languedoc-Roussillon maintains its proud tradition of resistance against northern authority. No other region, except Brittany, was as quick to resist central (Parisian) governmental directives. In the Middle Ages it was, along with Midi-Pyrénées, the heartland of...

Entering a Paris train station in 1846, you would have been as likely to meet an elegant bourgeois couple in rustling silks as a gun-slinging hunter and his baying hounds setting out for a weekend’s shooting in the countryside, such...

When you think of French wine, famous appellations like Champagne or Bordeaux are the first names that come to mind; wines with strong characters and powerful flavours, their fame extends far beyond the nation’s...