Les Plus Beaux Villages de France is a real association with a real jury and a real refusal rate, and its list is the best shortcut to rural France there is: Riquewihr in Alsace, Gordes and Roussillon in the Luberon, Conques on the Camino, La Roque-Gageac under its Dordogne cliff, Collioure on the Catalan coast, Locronan in Brittany. Around them is the countryside those villages farm — vineyards, causses, bocage, salt marsh and lavender.
Start here
If you only do villages & countryside once in France.
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Riquewihr Inside its medieval walls, essentially unchanged since the 1500s -
Gordes Dry stone stacked up a Luberon hillside, with Sénanque abbey below -
Conques A Romanesque abbey on the Camino, with Soulages' windows in it -
La Roque-Gageac A single row of houses pressed between the cliff and the river -
Collioure The bay where Matisse and Derain invented Fauvism -
Locronan A granite square with no overhead wires — which is why films shoot here
Region by region
Île-de-France
Paris, Versailles and the ring of royal forests and cathedral towns around them
Grand Est
Champagne cellars, the Alsace wine road and Strasbourg's Christmas markets
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Colmar Little Venice, the Isenheim Altarpiece and the wine road's capital -
Champagne The chalk, the cellars and the cathedral where French kings were crowned -
Alsace 170 km of wine road, half-timbered villages and the oldest Christmas market in France -
Eguisheim Concentric rings of half-timbered houses round a castle -
Ribeauvillé Three ruined castles above a wine village on the Route des Vins
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
The world's most valuable vineyards, Romanesque abbeys and the Jura's quiet mountains
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Beaune Burgundy's wine capital and the Hospices' polychrome roof -
Auxerre Yonne riverfront, Chablis vineyards and a Romanesque crypt -
Arbois The Jura's wine town — vin jaune, and Pasteur's house -
Burgundy 1,247 named vineyard plots, Romanesque abbeys and the Hospices de Beaune -
The Jura Mountains Limestone gorges, comté cheese, vin jaune and the best cross-country skiing in France - The Côte de Nuits Gevrey-Chambertin to Vosne-Romanée — the most valuable vines on earth
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Vézelay A Romanesque hilltop basilica and a starting point of the Camino -
Abbey of Fontenay The oldest complete Cistercian abbey in the world, in its own valley -
Baume-les-Messieurs An abbey at the foot of a blind valley ending in a 200 m cliff -
Château-Chalon Vin jaune country — six years in barrels nobody tops up -
Guédelon Castle A castle being built from scratch with thirteenth-century tools
Normandy
The D-Day beaches, Mont-Saint-Michel, Monet's Giverny and the alabaster cliffs
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Bayeux The Tapestry, an untouched old town and the D-Day beaches next door -
Honfleur The slate-fronted harbour that the Impressionists could not leave alone -
Giverny Monet's house, his water garden and the bridge -
Mont-Saint-Michel An abbey on a rock in a bay that empties for kilometres -
Sainte-Mère-Église The first town liberated — and the paratrooper still on the church tower -
Monet's Garden at Giverny The water lilies, the Japanese bridge, and the house he painted them from
Brittany
2,700 km of granite coast, standing stones older than the pyramids, and a Celtic language
- Dinan Three kilometres of intact ramparts above the Rance
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Quimper Cornouaille's capital — twin spires, faience and the Festival de Cornouaille -
Vannes Walled and half-timbered, at the top of the Gulf of Morbihan -
Île-aux-Moines The largest island in the Gulf of Morbihan, and its mildest climate -
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 -
Dinan's Ramparts Three kilometres of intact wall, and a cobbled street down to the port
Pays de la Loire
Where the Loire meets the Atlantic — Nantes, the Vendée beaches and the last châteaux
Centre-Val de Loire
The château valley — Chambord, Chenonceau and 280 km of UNESCO river
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Amboise A royal château above the river, and Leonardo da Vinci's grave -
Blois Four architectural centuries in one courtyard, twenty minutes from Chambord -
Chinon A Plantagenet fortress above red-wine vineyards -
Loire Valley 280 km of UNESCO river and the densest run of Renaissance châteaux in Europe -
Sancerre A hilltop above the upper Loire, and the sauvignon blanc benchmark
Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Bordeaux and its vineyards, the Dordogne's prehistory, and Europe's tallest dune
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Saint-Émilion A monolithic church cut into rock, ringed by grand cru vineyards -
Saint-Jean-de-Luz A sheltered Basque bay, and the church where Louis XIV married -
Sarlat-la-Canéda Golden stone, a Saturday market, and the Dordogne's best base -
Bergerac A riverside old town and the Dordogne's own wine appellations - Dordogne Valley Painted caves, clifftop castles and the densest prehistoric record on earth
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French Basque Country Surf, pelota and red-and-white villages where the Pyrenees meet the Atlantic -
Île de Ré Whitewashed villages, green shutters, salt pans and 110 km of cycle path -
Château de Beynac 150 m above the Dordogne, facing the castle it fought for 200 years -
Jardins de Marqueyssac 150,000 hand-clipped box shrubs on a spur above the Dordogne -
Espelette Red peppers drying on every house front from August -
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port Where most Camino walkers start, at the foot of the Roncesvalles pass - The Médoc Margaux, Pauillac, Saint-Julien — the D2 past the first growths
Occitanie
Carcassonne and the Cathar castles, the Canal du Midi, the Pyrenees and the Camargue's edge
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Carcassonne The largest walled city in Europe — 52 towers and a double rampart -
Albi A fortress cathedral in red brick, and the Toulouse-Lautrec museum -
Rocamadour A pilgrimage village stacked up a 120-metre cliff in three tiers -
Cahors A fortified bridge with three towers, and black Malbec wine - Lot, Aveyron & Lozère Rocamadour on its cliff, the Millau viaduct, and the emptiest countryside in France
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The Roquefort Caves The only place on earth allowed to make Roquefort, by law since 1411
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
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Arles A Roman arena, Van Gogh's light, and the top of the Camargue -
Les Baux-de-Provence A ruined fortress on a limestone spur, over a quarry turned light show -
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Van Gogh's asylum year, a Roman town, and the Alpilles behind -
Provence Lavender plateaus, Roman arenas, perched villages and the light Van Gogh came for -
The Valensole Plateau Lavender to the horizon for roughly four weeks from late June -
Abbaye de Sénanque A working Cistercian abbey with its lavender field in front of it -
Roussillon & the Ochre Trail A village built from the seventeen shades of ochre it stands on -
The Camargue White horses, black bulls and pink flamingos on the Rhône delta -
Èze A village at 429 m with a cactus garden where the castle was -
Saint-Paul-de-Vence Walled, hilltop, and full of the galleries Chagall and Matisse drew in
Corsica
A mountain in the sea — 1,000 km of coast, the GR20, and a language of its own
Guadeloupe
A butterfly-shaped Caribbean archipelago — rainforest on one wing, dry coast on the other
Réunion
An Indian Ocean volcano with three collapsed craters, and 1,000 km of walking trails
Other kinds of place
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Coast & beaches Three seas and an ocean — around 5,800 km of mainland coast, and far more overseas - Mountains Six massifs — the Alps, Pyrenees, Jura, Vosges, Massif Central and Corsica
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Cities Paris, and eleven more cities that would headline any other country -
National & regional parks Eleven national parks and 58 regional ones — about a fifth of the country