Country guide
France
Paris, Provence, Alpine ski fields and two coastlines of very different character, with food and wine at the centre of everything.
Currency
EUR
Language
French
English
Widely spoken
Payment
Cards everywhere
Power
Type C / E
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+33
Destinations
Annecy
An alpine old town on canals, beside a lake clean enough to swim in.
✓ best Apr, JunAvignon
The city of the popes: Europe's largest Gothic palace, the half-bridge of the song and a great theatre festival inside medieval walls.
✓ best Mar-NovBiarritz
An imperial seaside resort on the Basque coast that became the birthplace of European surfing.
✓ best Jun-AugBordeaux
The wine capital of France also happens to be one of its handsomest cities - a Unesco-listed crescent of eighteenth-century stone with classified vineyards on the doorstep.
✓ best Mar-OctCannes
Home of the world's most famous film festival: the Croisette, the red-carpet steps, an old hilltop quarter and monastery islands just offshore.
✓ best Jan-SepCarcassonne
Europe's most complete walled medieval citadel, a Cathar-crusade story and the heartland of cassoulet.
✓ best Mar-NovChamonix
The birthplace of alpinism and still its capital: a working valley town under the highest summit in the Alps, with a cable car off the high street to 3,842 m.
✓ best May-SepColmar
The best-preserved old town in Alsace, with the Isenheim Altarpiece inside it and the Wine Route on its doorstep.
✓ best Apr-OctCorsica (Ajaccio)
A mountain range with a coastline attached: twenty-odd peaks over two thousand metres, Europe's hardest waymarked trek down its spine, and a language and a table not quite France's.
✓ best Dec-OctDordogne (Sarlat)
Where Lascaux's Ice Age painters worked, and castles still stare each other down across the river.
✓ best Mar-OctLyon
France's kitchen: a two-thousand-year-old river city where the tavern cooking, not the monuments, is the reason to book.
✓ best Mar-OctMarseille
France's oldest and roughest-edged city, a Mediterranean port that faces the sea rather than Paris, with a national park of white limestone inlets inside its own boundaries.
✓ best Mar-NovMont St Michel
A thousand-year-old abbey on a rock in the middle of Europe's biggest tides, and on the right day the sea still closes around it and makes it an island.
✓ best Apr-OctNice
The Riviera's one real city - Savoyard until 1860, Italian in its old town and its cooking, with a principality twenty minutes along the rails.
✓ best Mar-Jul, Sep-OctNormandy (Bayeux)
Two invasions crossed this coast in opposite directions nine centuries apart, and Normandy still tells both of them from the ground where they happened.
✓ best Apr-OctParis
A compact, walkable capital where world-class art, cafe life and village-like quartiers sit a stroll apart.
✓ best Mar-OctProvence (Aix-en-Provence)
Two thousand years of Roman stone, a hundred hill villages and three weeks of purple, all under the clearest light in France.
✓ best Mar-NovSaint-Malo
A walled privateer city on a rock, rebuilt after 1944, with tides so big you can walk out to its island forts.
✓ best Apr-OctSaint-Tropez
The fishing port that painters and cinema turned into the Riviera's most famous name, with Pampelonne's sands just over the hill.
✓ best Feb-Sep, DecStrasbourg
The city where France and Germany stopped fighting and started building Europe: a medieval island under the tallest spire of the Middle Ages, with a German imperial quarter beside it.
✓ best Apr-OctThe sweet-spot windows
Good weather, thinner crowds, better prices: the windows worth aiming for.
| Where | When | Why it works | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | May-Jun, Sep | Long mild days, gardens blooming, before/after summer crowds | Aug = many closures |
| Provence | Jun, Sep | Jun: lavender + warm. Sep: harvest, warm sea, thinner crowds | Jul-Aug lavender peak = tour buses |
Climate zones, month by month
France has 20 distinct climate zones. The right month depends on where in the country you're going.
Annecy French Alps →
✓ Best Apr, Jun · ✗ Avoid Dec-Jan
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Avignon Provence →
✓ Best Mar-Nov
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Biarritz Basque Coast →
✓ Best Jun-Aug
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Bordeaux →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Cannes French Riviera →
✓ Best Jan-Sep
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Carcassonne Languedoc →
✓ Best Mar-Nov
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Chamonix French Alps →
✓ Best May-Sep · ✗ Avoid Dec-Feb
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Colmar Alsace →
✓ Best Apr-Oct · ✗ Avoid Dec-Jan
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Corsica (Ajaccio) →
✓ Best Dec-Oct
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Dordogne (Sarlat) Perigord →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
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Lyon →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
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Marseille Provence →
✓ Best Mar-Nov
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Mont St Michel Normandy →
✓ Best Apr-Oct
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Nice French Riviera →
✓ Best Mar-Jul, Sep-Oct
Conditions Jan-Feb Mild · Mar Mild spring · Apr Pleasant · May Warm · Jun Warm & sunny · Jul Lavender, hot · Aug Hot · Sep Warm · Oct Mild autumn · Nov Cool & wet · Dec Mild
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Normandy (Bayeux) →
✓ Best Apr-Oct
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Paris →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Conditions Jan Cold & grey · Feb Cold · Mar Mild spring · Apr Pleasant · May-Aug Warm · Sep Mild · Oct Cool autumn · Nov Cold & wet · Dec Cold & grey
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Provence (Aix-en-Provence) →
✓ Best Mar-Nov
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Saint-Malo Brittany →
✓ Best Apr-Oct
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Saint-Tropez French Riviera →
✓ Best Feb-Sep, Dec
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Strasbourg Alsace →
✓ Best Apr-Oct · ✗ Avoid Dec-Jan
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