Four completely different coasts. The Channel is chalk cliff and huge tides — Étretat, the Alabaster Coast, the D-Day beaches, Mont-Saint-Michel's bay. The Atlantic is one long sand beach behind a pine forest, with the biggest surf in Europe on it. The Mediterranean splits into the Riviera's coves and the Languedoc's lagoons and long strands. And Corsica has 1,000 km of its own. Overseas adds the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
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If you only do coast & beaches once in France.
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The Cliffs of Étretat The arch and the needle, painted by Monet more than eighty times -
The Calanques White limestone inlets between Marseille and Cassis, reachable on foot or by boat -
Cap Blanc-Nez Chalk cliffs looking straight across at Dover, 34 km away -
Palombaggia Umbrella pines, red rocks and pale sand south of Porto-Vecchio -
Les Salines The beach every Martinican names first — a kilometre of it -
Cap Ferret Oyster shacks on stilts on one side, Atlantic surf on the other
Region by region
Hauts-de-France
Flemish belfries, the Opal Coast and the battlefields of the Somme
Normandy
The D-Day beaches, Mont-Saint-Michel, Monet's Giverny and the alabaster cliffs
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Honfleur The slate-fronted harbour that the Impressionists could not leave alone -
Deauville Parasols, racehorses and the boardwalk Paris goes to at weekends -
Étretat The chalk arch and needle Monet painted more than eighty times -
Le Havre Auguste Perret's rebuilt concrete city, listed by UNESCO -
Mont-Saint-Michel An abbey on a rock in a bay that empties for kilometres -
The D-Day Landing Beaches Utah to Sword — 80 km of coast, the cemeteries above it and the museums behind -
Îles Chausey An archipelago that has 365 islets at low tide and 52 at high -
Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey A Gothic abbey balanced on a granite rock in a tidal bay -
Omaha Beach The bloodiest of the five landing beaches, six kilometres long -
Pointe du Hoc A 30 m cliff scaled under fire, and a clifftop still full of craters -
Arromanches & the Mulberry Harbour The concrete caissons of a portable harbour, still out in the bay -
Utah Beach The westernmost landing beach, and its museum built on the dune -
Longues-sur-Mer Battery The only Atlantic Wall battery with its original guns still in place -
Honfleur's Vieux Bassin Tall slate-fronted houses round a harbour, and the wooden church behind
Brittany
2,700 km of granite coast, standing stones older than the pyramids, and a Celtic language
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Saint-Malo A corsair city inside granite ramparts, rebuilt stone by stone -
Brest A working naval city, Océanopolis, and the gateway to Ouessant -
Vannes Walled and half-timbered, at the top of the Gulf of Morbihan -
Carnac Three thousand standing stones, raised before the pyramids -
Perros-Guirec The base for the Pink Granite Coast and the Sept-Îles seabirds -
Belle-Île-en-Mer Brittany's largest island — Monet's needles and the Côte Sauvage -
Île de Groix A geological reserve and the only convex beach in Europe -
Île-aux-Moines The largest island in the Gulf of Morbihan, and its mildest climate -
Ouessant The far west of France — five lighthouses and the Fromveur current -
Île de Batz A market-garden island with a subtropical garden at one end -
Île de Bréhat Car-free pink granite, mimosa and hydrangeas, on the Gulf Stream -
Îles de Glénan A ring of islets round a lagoon that looks Caribbean and is not -
Ploumanac'h & the Pink Granite Coast Wind-rounded boulders that really are pink, and a lighthouse among them -
Pointe du Raz A 70 m headland at the end of Brittany, in a permanent gale -
The Ramparts of Saint-Malo A complete walled circuit round a city rebuilt stone by stone after 1944 -
The Gulf of Morbihan An inland sea with about forty islands, and some of the strongest tides in Europe -
The Crozon Peninsula Three arms of cliff and turquoise cove inside a regional park -
Cap Fréhel 70 m of red sandstone cliff, heather on top, seabirds below -
Fort la Latte A fourteenth-century castle on its own sea stack, reached by drawbridge
Pays de la Loire
Where the Loire meets the Atlantic — Nantes, the Vendée beaches and the last châteaux
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La Baule A nine-kilometre crescent of sand, and the Guérande salt marshes behind -
Les Sables-d'Olonne The Vendée's beach town, and the start of the Vendée Globe -
Île d'Yeu A granite wild coast on one side, sandy coves on the other -
Noirmoutier Salt marshes, early potatoes, and a road the sea covers twice a day -
Passage du Gois A 4.5 km causeway to Noirmoutier that the sea covers twice a day
Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Bordeaux and its vineyards, the Dordogne's prehistory, and Europe's tallest dune
- Arcachon Oysters, a Winter Town of villas, and Europe's tallest dune next door
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Biarritz An imperial resort that became Europe's first surf town -
Saint-Jean-de-Luz A sheltered Basque bay, and the church where Louis XIV married -
La Rochelle Three harbour towers, arcaded streets and the bridge to Île de Ré - Hossegor A pine-backed beach break that hosts the world tour
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French Basque Country Surf, pelota and red-and-white villages where the Pyrenees meet the Atlantic - The Atlantic Coast Europe's tallest dune, 250 km of surf beach and the oyster basins behind it
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Île de Ré Whitewashed villages, green shutters, salt pans and 110 km of cycle path -
Île d'Oléron The largest French island after Corsica — oysters, dunes and a lighthouse -
Île d'Aix Car-free, crescent-shaped, and Napoleon's last night in France -
Dune du Pilat The tallest sand dune in Europe — 100 m, and still moving inland -
The Towers of La Rochelle Three medieval towers that chained the harbour shut at night
Occitanie
Carcassonne and the Cathar castles, the Canal du Midi, the Pyrenees and the Camargue's edge
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Lavender and Roman arenas inland, the Riviera on the coast, and the Alps behind both
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Marseille The oldest city in France, 2,600 years old, with the Calanques next door -
Nice The Baie des Anges, an Italian old town and the Promenade des Anglais -
Cannes The Croisette, the festival, and two islands ten minutes offshore -
Saint-Tropez Still a fishing port under the yachts, with Pampelonne round the point -
Antibes Ramparts, the biggest marina on the Med, and Picasso's castle studio -
Menton A lemon microclimate on the Italian border, and Cocteau's museum -
Toulon A naval harbour under Mont Faron, and the ferry to Porquerolles -
Cassis A fishing port at the eastern end of the Calanques -
The French Riviera Nice to Saint-Tropez — the coast that invented the seaside holiday -
Porquerolles White sand and pines inside a national park, twenty minutes offshore -
Port-Cros France's first marine national park — with an underwater snorkel trail -
Îles de Lérins The Man in the Iron Mask's prison, and a working Cistercian monastery -
Promenade des Anglais Seven kilometres of seafront paid for by nineteenth-century English winterers -
Èze A village at 429 m with a cactus garden where the castle was -
Pampelonne Beach Five kilometres of sand round the point from Saint-Tropez -
Château d'If The island prison of The Count of Monte Cristo, twenty minutes offshore
Corsica
A mountain in the sea — 1,000 km of coast, the GR20, and a language of its own
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Ajaccio Napoleon's birthplace, on a bay facing west into the sunset -
Bastia A Genoese old port, and the doorway to Cap Corse -
Bonifacio A citadel undercut on a white chalk cliff above the Strait -
Calvi A citadel, a six-kilometre pine-backed beach and the Balagne behind -
Porto-Vecchio The base for Palombaggia, Santa Giulia and Rondinara -
The Cliffs of Bonifacio A citadel undercut on white chalk, with Sardinia 12 km across the strait -
Calanques de Piana Red porphyry towers dropping straight into the Gulf of Porto -
Scandola Nature Reserve A UNESCO marine reserve with no road to it — boat access only -
Rondinara An almost perfectly circular shell-shaped bay -
Cap Corse A 40 km finger of Genoese towers, terraced vines and empty coves
Guadeloupe
A butterfly-shaped Caribbean archipelago — rainforest on one wing, dry coast on the other
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Pointe-à-Pitre Guadeloupe's port city, and the Mémorial ACTe -
Les Saintes A bay often ranked among the most beautiful in the world - Marie-Galante Ox carts, windmills and three rum distilleries on a flat limestone disc
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La Désirade A bare limestone table, a geological reserve, and almost no one -
Plage de la Caravelle Reef-protected white sand on Grande-Terre's south coast
Martinique
The flower island — Mount Pelée, black-sand north, white-sand south and agricole rum
French Guiana
Amazon rainforest, a European spaceport, and the prison islands of Papillon
Réunion
An Indian Ocean volcano with three collapsed craters, and 1,000 km of walking trails
Mayotte
One of the world's largest lagoons, humpback whales, and a double coral barrier
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Mamoudzou Mayotte's capital, on the biggest lagoon in the Indian Ocean -
The Mayotte Lagoon 1,500 km² inside a double coral barrier — one of very few in the world -
Îlot de Sable Blanc A sandbank that appears and disappears with the tide -
Passe en S The S-shaped reef pass that makes Mayotte a serious dive destination
Overseas collectivities
French, but outside the region geography.
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Saint-Barthélemy Fourteen beaches, a Swedish-built harbour town, and no mass tourism -
Saint-Martin The French half of the smallest island shared by two nations -
Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon A fragment of France 25 km off Newfoundland, on Atlantic Canada time -
New Caledonia The world's largest lagoon, UNESCO-listed, around a 400 km island -
French Polynesia 118 islands across five archipelagos — Tahiti, Bora Bora, the Marquesas -
Wallis & Futuna Three kingdoms, a crater lake, and almost no visitors at all
Other kinds of place
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Mountains Six massifs — the Alps, Pyrenees, Jura, Vosges, Massif Central and Corsica -
Cities Paris, and eleven more cities that would headline any other country -
Villages & countryside The 180-odd villages on the official 'most beautiful in France' list -
National & regional parks Eleven national parks and 58 regional ones — about a fifth of the country