The French summer runs on festivals: Avignon's theatre festival takes over the whole city in July, Aix has opera, Arles has photography, Cannes has the film festival in May, and Nice's carnival is the biggest on the mainland. The Riviera does the beach-club end of it at Pampelonne and Cannes; Paris does cabaret and everything else. And the family end is unusually strong — Disneyland Paris, Puy du Fou and Futuroscope are three of Europe's most-visited parks.
Start here
If you only do nightlife & entertainment once in France.
- Puy du Fou A history park with no rides, repeatedly voted the world's best
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Futuroscope France's second-biggest theme park, built entirely around screens -
Les Machines de l'Île A 12 m mechanical elephant that carries fifty passengers -
Pampelonne Beach Five kilometres of sand round the point from Saint-Tropez -
Cannes The Croisette, the festival, and two islands ten minutes offshore -
Nantes A ducal château, a permanent art trail and a rideable mechanical elephant
Region by region
Île-de-France
Paris, Versailles and the ring of royal forests and cathedral towns around them
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
Brittany
2,700 km of granite coast, standing stones older than the pyramids, and a Celtic language
Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Bordeaux and its vineyards, the Dordogne's prehistory, and Europe's tallest dune
Occitanie
Carcassonne and the Cathar castles, the Canal du Midi, the Pyrenees and the Camargue's edge
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Mont Blanc, the world's largest linked ski areas, Lyon's kitchens and a chain of volcanoes
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Lavender and Roman arenas inland, the Riviera on the coast, and the Alps behind both
Corsica
A mountain in the sea — 1,000 km of coast, the GR20, and a language of its own
Réunion
An Indian Ocean volcano with three collapsed craters, and 1,000 km of walking trails
Overseas collectivities
French, but outside the region geography.
Other things to do
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Culture & heritage 53 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the cathedrals that invented Gothic -
Food & wine Seventeen wine regions, 1,600 cheeses, and the gastronomic meal on the UNESCO list -
Nature & outdoors Glaciers, gorges, volcanoes and 180,000 km of waymarked footpath -
Sport & adventure Skiing, surfing, climbing, paddling — and the Tour, Roland-Garros and Le Mans -
Cycling Over 25,000 km of signed cycle route, most of it flat and away from traffic -
Remembrance The Somme, Verdun and the Normandy beaches — two wars written into the landscape -
Pilgrimage & spirituality Four Camino routes, Lourdes, Mont-Saint-Michel and the Romanesque abbeys -
Spa & wellness Around 90 working thermal spa towns, and the coastline that invented thalassotherapy -
Romance The Riviera corniche, a Loire château, a Provençal village, a Paris weekend -
Shopping & savoir-faire Perfume in Grasse, porcelain in Limoges, crystal in Lorraine, couture in Paris