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France

18 city guides · Europe

Cities in France (18)

🇫🇷 France

Avignon

Avignon (population 95,000 — the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in Provence, southeastern France) is one of the most historically significant cities in medieval European history: the seat of the Papacy from 1309 to 1377 (the "Avignon Papacy" or "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" — the 68-year period when seven successive popes ruled Christendom from Avignon rather than Rome: the period began when the French-born Pope Clement V (1305–1314), influenced by the French King Philip IV, refused to move to Rome and established the papal court in Avignon (at the time, a papal territory (the Comtat Venaissin) within the Holy Roman Empire but adjacent to the French Kingdom): the Avignon popes built the most extraordinary Gothic palace in Europe (the Palais des Papes — the largest Gothic building in the world, larger than the Vatican Apostolic Palace), acquired the finest art collection in Europe (including works by Simone Martini — the Sienese painter who lived and worked in Avignon from 1340 until his death in 1344 — and by Matteo Giovannetti, the master of the painted rooms of the Papal Palace), and made Avignon the most powerful, most wealthy and most culturally sophisticated city in Europe during the 14th century). The surviving monuments of the Avignon Papacy — the Palais des Papes, the Pont d'Avignon (the Pont Saint-Bénézet — the medieval bridge of the famous nursery rhyme "Sur le Pont d'Avignon"), the Cathedral of Notre-Dame des Doms (the Romanesque cathedral above the Palais des Papes), and the circuit of the medieval city walls (the most complete surviving medieval urban wall in France) — are collectively listed as UNESCO World Heritage (1995). The Avignon Festival (Festival d'Avignon — the most important theater festival in the world, founded by Jean Vilar in 1947 and held every July in the Palais des Papes courtyard and throughout the city) has made Avignon the theater capital of the world during its three weeks each summer.

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Bordeaux

Bordeaux is the wine capital of the world — the city that defined how the world thinks about wine, the home of the great châteaux (Margaux, Pétrus, Mouton Rothschild, Haut-Brion), and the city that pours the finest Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from the surrounding Médoc, Saint-Émilion and Pomerol appellations. But Bordeaux is also a UNESCO World Heritage city of exceptional beauty: 18th-century neoclassical stone townhouses lining the Garonne riverfront (the "Crescent"), the Place de la Bourse, the Grand Théâtre, and a city centre that has been traffic-free since 2004. Three days barely scratches the surface.

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Bourges

Bourges (French pronunciation: [buʁʒ] — population 63,000: the prefecture of the Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of central France) is one of the most important medieval cities in France and the former capital of the Berry region (the historical province at the geographic center of France). The city is dominated by the Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Bourges (the Gothic cathedral designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992 — one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture in France: built from 1195 to 1230, the cathedral is remarkable for its five portals, its five naves (the only five-aisled Gothic cathedral in France after Notre-Dame de Paris), its spectacular stained glass windows (the most complete collection of 13th-century stained glass in France) and its crypt (the largest crypt in France: the crypt under the entire length of the nave contains the tomb of Jean de Berry, the most important patron of the arts in medieval France)). Bourges was the temporary capital of France in 1422 when the young Dauphin Charles (later Charles VII) established his court here after Paris fell to the English during the Hundred Years War — Bourges was the only part of France not occupied by the English and Burgundians, and Joan of Arc met Charles VII at Bourges in 1429 before her famous campaign to lift the siege of Orléans.

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Carcassonne

Carcassonne (population 47,000) is the most spectacular and the most completely preserved medieval fortified city in western Europe — a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose double-walled Cité (the historic upper town enclosed within two concentric rings of medieval walls) rises dramatically from the plain of the Aude river in the Languedoc region of southern France. The Cité of Carcassonne has 3km of outer walls, 53 towers, two concentric rings of fortifications and the Château Comtal (the inner castle) — the most complete and the most photographed medieval fortified city in France. The city has a history of over 2,500 years (Gallo-Roman, Visigothic, Frankish and finally Cathar before the Albigensian Crusade of 1209) and was the most important stronghold of the Cathar heresy in southern France. The lower town (the Bastide Saint-Louis) was founded in 1260 by the French king Louis IX after the destruction of the original lower settlement. Carcassonne is also the home of the cassoulet (the slow-cooked bean-and-meat casserole that is the most important dish in the cuisine of Languedoc).

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Lille

Lille (population 240,000 city; 1.2 million metropolitan area) is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region and the fourth-largest metropolitan area in France — a Flemish-rooted city on the Deûle River, 15km from the Belgian border, equidistant from Paris (225km south), Brussels (120km east), and London (300km northwest via the Channel Tunnel). Lille's character is shaped by its Flemish heritage: until 1667, when Louis XIV captured it from the Spanish Netherlands after a 9-day siege, Lille was a major Flemish commercial city (the name 'Lille' derives from the Flemish 'l'isle' — 'the island', referring to the original island settlement in the Deûle River). The Vieux-Lille (the old town — the finest preserved Flemish baroque townscape in France: the red-brick and white-stone facades with stepped gable rooflines, the cobbled Grand'Place and the Place du Théâtre with their baroque guild-hall facades) is the most distinctive historic urban environment in northern France. The Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille (the Fine Arts Palace) is the second-largest art museum in France after the Louvre (80,000 works). Lille is also the home of the annual Braderie de Lille (the first weekend of September — the largest flea market in Europe: 10,000 vendors, 2+ million visitors over one weekend, the city's streets filled with antiques, bric-a-brac, and the traditional moules-frites (mussels and chips) that every Lille restaurant serves during the Braderie). Best months: May–October.

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Lyon

Lyon (population 530,000 in the city; 2.3 million in the metropolitan area) is France's second-largest city by economic output and one of the most important cities in European history — at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, 470km southeast of Paris. Lugdunum (the Roman name for Lyon) was founded in 43 BCE by the Roman consul Lucius Munatius Plancus and became the capital of the three Gauls (Gallia Lugdunensis, Gallia Belgica, and Gallia Aquitania) — the most important Roman city in the western empire outside Rome itself. Lyon's UNESCO World Heritage Site (1998 — the largest urban UNESCO zone in France: 500 hectares encompassing the Roman hill of Fourvière, the medieval Saint-Jean district, the Renaissance Presqu'île, and the silk-weaving Croix-Rousse district) preserves the complete evolution of a European city from Roman to 19th century. Lyon was the centre of the European silk trade for 500 years (the Canuts — the Lyon silk weavers — invented the Jacquard loom in 1804 (Joseph-Marie Jacquard's punched-card controlled loom, invented in Lyon in 1804, was the direct ancestor of the IBM punched card and the computer)). Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France (and therefore, by French consensus, of the world): the birthplace of 'nouvelle cuisine' (Paul Bocuse (1934–2018) — the most decorated chef in French culinary history; three Michelin stars (1965–2018, the longest continuous Michelin three-star run in history) — defined modern French cooking at his restaurant in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, 12km from Lyon) and home to the 'bouchons' (the traditional Lyon bistros serving the authentic Lyonnais cuisine: tête de veau, andouillette, quenelle de brochet, salade lyonnaise). Best months: April–October.

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Marseille

Marseille is France's oldest city and its most misunderstood — a 2,600-year-old Greek trading port that has never been quite French enough for Paris and never quite polished enough for tourists, which is precisely what makes it extraordinary. The Vieux-Port (old harbour) has been a commercial anchorage since the Phocaeans arrived in 600 BCE; fishing boats still unload bouillabaisse fish at the same quays where Roman galleys once moored. Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica presides from its rocky promontory over a city of 110 nationalities, Algerian cafés, Lebanese bakeries and Comorian street food all layered within walking distance of Marseille's European Capitals of Culture-winning 2013 transformation. The Calanques National Park — a Mediterranean fjord landscape of white limestone cliffs dropping into turquoise water — begins just east of the city. The MuCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations) on the old J4 quay has been the architectural symbol of the new Marseille since it opened: a lacework steel cube hovering over the sea.

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Montpellier

Montpellier is one of France's youngest and fastest-growing cities — a university city where students make up a third of the population, founded only in the 10th century (making it the youngest major French city), and home to Europe's oldest continuously operating medical school (founded 1220 CE). The historic centre — a compact web of car-free streets around the Place de la Comédie — is one of southern France's most beautiful: 17th-century hôtels particuliers with carved stone facades and courtyard gardens, the Arc de Triomphe built for Louis XIV, and the Promenade du Peyrou with its 18th-century aqueduct modelled on Rome's ancient infrastructure. Montpellier is 10 km from the Mediterranean, in the heart of Languedoc wine country that produces everything from spicy Grenache-based Languedoc rouge to elegant Picpoul de Pinet whites, and the Camargue wetlands — with their wild white horses, flamingos and black bulls — are an hour's drive west. The city's restaurant scene is better than its size would suggest: a young, inventive generation of chefs has made Montpellier one of France's most interesting culinary destinations outside Lyon and Paris.

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Nancy

Nancy is the former capital of the Duchy of Lorraine and one of the finest examples of 18th-century European urban planning — the Place Stanislas, surrounded by gilded wrought-iron gates and twin baroque fountains, is UNESCO World Heritage and arguably the most beautiful public square in France. The place was built between 1752 and 1756 by the Polish king Stanislas Leszczyński, who had been compensated with the Duchy of Lorraine after losing the Polish throne — he transformed his consolation prize into a cultural masterpiece. Nancy also gave the world the Art Nouveau movement: the École de Nancy, led by Émile Gallé, Louis Majorelle and the brothers Daum, produced the finest glass, furniture and ceramics of the movement between 1890 and 1914. The Musée de l'École de Nancy preserves the original studios and their extraordinary output, while the Villa Majorelle (Louis Majorelle's own house) is the finest Art Nouveau domestic interior in France. Nancy is an active student city — 50,000 students keep its bars, café-theatres and jazz clubs animated — and the Lorraine region's distinctive cuisine of quiche lorraine, mirabelle plum tarts and the choucroute tradition makes it one of France's most satisfying culinary destinations.

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Nantes

Nantes is the city that reinvented itself most successfully in France — a former industrial port and the capital of the dukes of Brittany, it transformed from a declining industrial city in the 1980s into one of France's most creative and liveable cities. The Machines de l'Île (mechanical animals inhabiting the old shipyard island), the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, and the vibrant arts scene have made Nantes a model of urban regeneration. It is also the birthplace of Jules Verne, whose spirit of adventurous imagination seems to have influenced the city's self-reinvention.

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Nice

Nice is the capital of the French Riviera (Côte d'Azur) and the fifth-largest city in France, a place that spent most of its history as part of the County of Nice under the Duchy of Savoy before being annexed to France in 1860 — which explains why the Old Town (Vieux-Nice) has an Italian Baroque character quite unlike anything in Provence, with deep ochre facades, arched passageways and a cuisine built on Ligurian-Italian foundations. The Promenade des Anglais (named for the 19th-century English aristocrats who wintered here and funded the coastal walkway in 1822) runs 7 km along the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels) between the hills of Castle Hill and the airport, with its famous blue chairs (Chaises Bleues) and the extraordinary sunlight that attracted Matisse (who lived here 1917–1954) and Chagall. The food identity of Nice is as distinct as the city itself: socca (a crispy chickpea flour pancake cooked on wood fires), pissaladière (caramelised onion tart with anchovies and olives), salade niçoise (the original has tuna, anchovies, hard-boiled eggs and olives — never cooked vegetables according to local purists), pan bagnat (the portable version of salade niçoise in a bun) and the stockfish-based stew estocafico. The Carnival of Nice (February) is the oldest and one of the largest in Europe; the Battle of Flowers parade sends 80,000 blooms into the crowd in an explosion of mimosa, roses and carnations that defines the city's relationship with the flower-growing industry of the surrounding hills.

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Paris

Paris doesn't need an introduction — it invented the idea of the perfect city break. But knowing where to go, when to go, and how to dodge the queues makes all the difference between an average trip and one you'll talk about for years. This 3-day plan skips the tourist traps, keeps your mornings sharp, and leaves room for the kind of afternoon that turns into an evening you didn't plan.

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Reims

Reims is the champagne capital of the world and the coronation city of France — a city in the Marne department of the Grand Est region, 144 km east of Paris, that holds three UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the Basilica of Saint-Rémi and the Tau Palace, designated in 1991) and is the historical site where 33 French kings were crowned from 816 AD (Louis the Pious) to 1825 (Charles X) — a thousand-year tradition of French monarchy linked to a single city and a single cathedral. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims (1211-1275, Gothic, 81 m towers, 7,500 square metres of stained glass including Marc Chagall's blue rose window installed in 1974) is considered the finest Gothic cathedral in France and possibly in the world — the west façade (800+ sculptural figures, the most sculpted Gothic façade in existence) was called by John Ruskin "the cathedral of cathedrals." The champagne connection: the chalk subsoil of the Champagne region (the limestone and chalk that creates the distinctive mineral character of the wines and the 250 km of underground chalk quarry galleries — called crayères — beneath Reims) was discovered to be perfect for storing and ageing sparkling wine at constant 10°C temperature; all the major champagne houses (Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, Ruinart, Mumm, Pommery, Lanson, Moët & Chandon in nearby Épernay) offer cellar tours through their crayère galleries — some with dramatic underground architecture. Reims was almost completely destroyed in World War I (1914-1918) when it was on the front line for the entire war — the cathedral was bombed by German artillery in 1914 and burned for days; the reconstruction (1919-1938) used American Rockefeller funding and is one of the most complete post-WWI urban rebuilds in France.

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Rouen

Rouen is the capital of Normandy and one of the finest medieval cities in France — a city on the Seine River 130 km northwest of Paris that was a major European city in the Middle Ages (the capital of the Duchy of Normandy and then of the English possessions in France) and retains the most complete ensemble of half-timbered medieval architecture in France: more than 2,000 colombage (half-timbered) buildings survive in the historic centre, creating streetscapes that look unchanged from the 15th century. Rouen is forever linked to Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) — the 19-year-old French military heroine who led the French army to lift the Siege of Orléans in 1429 and was burned at the stake in the Old Market Square of Rouen on May 30, 1431, condemned as a heretic by a French-English ecclesiastical court while English soldiers watched; her site of execution (Place du Vieux-Marché) has the modern Joan of Arc Church (1979, a flame-shaped roof incorporating 16th-century stained glass windows from a church destroyed in WWII) and the cross marking the exact spot where she died. Rouen is also inseparable from the Impressionist painter Claude Monet, who painted the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Rouen 30 times between 1892 and 1894 from an apartment window across the street, capturing the changing light on the stone façade at different hours — the series of 30 paintings (now scattered across major museums worldwide) is the most celebrated series of paintings of a single building in art history. The city was heavily bombed in WWII (1944, Allied bombing to cut German supply lines) and approximately half the city was destroyed, but the Cathedral, the Old Market and the finest medieval streets survived.

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Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital of the Alsace region and the Bas-Rhin département of France, located on the western bank of the Rhine River directly opposite the German city of Kehl — a city whose entire urban history is defined by the French-German border conflict that ran for 300 years (French under Louis XIV from 1681; German under the Holy Roman Empire and later the German Empire from 1871-1918 after France lost the Franco-Prussian War; French again from 1918; German again under Nazi annexation 1940-1944; French from the liberation in 1944). The result of this alternating sovereignty is the most distinctive urban culture in France: the Alsatian dialect (Elsässisch — a High German dialect closely related to Swiss German and Alemannic German, spoken by approximately 500,000 Alsatians, officially recognised as a regional language of France); the colombage architecture (the half-timbered facade tradition from the German Fachwerkhaus, the most extensive surviving urban landscape of half-timbered buildings in France); and the Alsatian cuisine that synthesises French culinary technique with German ingredient tradition (choucroute garnie (braised sauerkraut with Strasbourg sausages, smoked pork belly and Montbéliard sausage), tarte flambée (Flammekueche — the thin-crust flatbread with crème fraîche, lardons and onions, baked in a wood-fired oven), kouglof (the Alsatian yeast cake baked in the distinctive fluted ring mould), and the Alsatian white wines (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris) from the Route des Vins d'Alsace 170 km long wine road). Strasbourg is the seat of the European Parliament (the Parliament meets in Strasbourg for 4 plenary sessions per year, the remaining sessions in Brussels), the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights — the most significant concentration of European institutions outside Brussels. The Strasbourg Christmas market (Christkindelsmärik — the oldest Christmas market in France, documented since 1570) draws 2+ million visitors annually.

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Toulouse

Toulouse (La Ville Rose — "the Pink City", for the terracotta-brick construction that gives the city its distinctive rosy-red appearance; population 500,000 city, 1.4 million metropolitan area) is the fourth-largest city in France and the capital of the Occitanie region in southwestern France, on the Garonne River. Toulouse is the world capital of the European aerospace industry: the Airbus headquarters and final assembly lines are in Toulouse (the Airbus A380 (the largest passenger aircraft in the world — 853 seats in all-economy configuration), the A320 family (the world's best-selling commercial aircraft family — over 10,000 delivered since 1988), and the Airbus A350 are all assembled at the Toulouse Blagnac factory; the adjacent Cité de l'Espace science museum has the most comprehensive space exploration exhibition in Europe, including a full-size Mir space station replica); the Canal du Midi (built 1667-1681 by Pierre-Paul Riquet — the 241-km canal connecting the Garonne at Toulouse to the Étang de Thau on the Mediterranean; UNESCO World Heritage 1996 — the most important work of civil engineering in 17th-century Europe; the canal passes through the Toulouse port area and continues east through Carcassonne and Béziers to the sea). The Basilica of Saint-Sernin (Basilique Saint-Sernin — the Romanesque basilica built 1080-1120 on the site of the tomb of Saint Saturnin (Sernin), the first bishop of Toulouse (martyred 250 CE by being dragged by a bull from the Roman Capitol); the largest surviving Romanesque church in the world (103 m long; the 5-aisle nave, the ambulatory with radiating chapels and the five-storey octagonal tower that defines the Toulouse skyline)). Toulouse has the most culturally distinctive regional identity in France: the Occitan language (the langue d'oc — the medieval literary language of the troubadour tradition (the 11th-13th century Occitan poetry tradition that invented courtly love (fin'amor) as a literary concept and influenced all subsequent European lyric poetry); the Languedoc (the province named for the "langue d'oc" — the 'oc' word for 'yes' as distinct from the 'oïl' of northern France); the Cathar heresy (the 13th-century Cathar religion (the Gnostic dualist heresy) centred in Toulouse and the Languedoc — the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) launched by Pope Innocent III to destroy the Cathar community was the first crusade against European Christians).

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Tours

Tours (Turones in Latin — the ancient capital of the Turones Gallic tribe; population 138,000 city, 310,000 metropolitan area) is the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department and the gateway city to the Loire Valley (UNESCO World Heritage 2000 — "the cultural landscape of the Loire Valley"), the most celebrated landscape of French châteaux and royal gardens. Tours is on the Loire River 235 km southwest of Paris (1h from Paris on the TGV), at the confluence of the Loire and Cher rivers. The city is the commercial and service centre of the Loire Valley château region: the most visited châteaux within day-trip distance of Tours include the Château de Chambord (51 km northeast — the largest château in the Loire Valley, built by François I 1519-1547; the double-helix staircase attributed (without conclusive evidence) to Leonardo da Vinci), the Château de Chenonceau (34 km east — the château spanning the Cher River on stone arches; the most visited château in France after Versailles; built and enlarged by a series of women owners — Catherine Briçonnet, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Médicis; the "château des dames"), the Château d'Amboise (25 km east — where Leonardo da Vinci lived his last three years (1516-1519) and is buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert on the château terrace), and the Château de Villandry (16 km west — the famous Renaissance gardens (the jardin d'ornement with the topiary and the parterre in the classic French formal garden style; the kitchen garden (potager) arranged in geometric beds of vegetables and flowers)). Tours itself has the finest medieval and Renaissance urban fabric in the Loire Valley: the Place Plumereau (the 15th-century timber-framed market square — the finest ensemble of medieval half-timbered buildings in the Loire Valley), the Saint-Gatien Cathedral (the Gothic cathedral begun 1170 with the finest Flamboyant Gothic facade in the Loire Valley and the Renaissance lantern towers), and the Basilica of Saint-Martin (Tours was one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in medieval Europe as the city of Saint Martin of Tours (316/317-397 CE) — the Roman soldier-turned-bishop who is the patron saint of France and whose shrine attracted millions of pilgrims on the Via Turonensis (the Tours route of the Camino de Santiago)).

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Versailles

Versailles (population 87,000; the former royal capital of France 20 km southwest of Paris; the UNESCO World Heritage Palace of Versailles and its park inscribed 1979) is the most complete surviving example of absolute monarchy made physical — the transformation of a hunting lodge (the original 1624 Louis XIII hunting château, expanded to a full court residence by Louis XIV from 1661 to 1710) into a palace-city complex that at its peak housed 20,000 people (the King, the royal family, the entire French court, the government ministries and the household service staff) in a complex that consumed between 50-80% of the French state budget for 30 years. Louis XIV (the "Sun King" — the longest-reigning monarch in European history, 72 years on the throne 1643-1715) moved the French court from Paris to Versailles in 1682 for two stated reasons: to keep the powerful French aristocracy under his personal supervision (away from their provincial power bases and Paris political networks) and to create a physical embodiment of the absolute monarchy that would be visible to all of Europe (every European monarch subsequently tried to build their own "Versailles" — from the Schönbrunn in Vienna to the Peterhof in St. Petersburg to the Herrenhausen in Hannover). The Hall of Mirrors (the Galerie des Glaces — 73 m long, 17 arched windows overlooking the gardens, 357 mirrors reflecting the windows opposite, the 20,000 candles in the silver chandeliers) was designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1678-1684) to be the single most overwhelming interior in the history of architecture: the room where the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871) was signed, where the German Empire was proclaimed by Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I (January 18, 1871) and where the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919) was signed — ending World War I and establishing the terms that historians identify as the primary cause of World War II.