1175 Best Sights in France

At the behest of the Fondation Entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Rem Koolhaas and his OMA studio transformed this 19th-century industrial space into a streamlined, six-floor "laboratory of innovation" that supports and exhibits the work of up-and-coming contemporary artists and designers. Each year, the foundation chooses three or four artists and presents their work over a span of three months, enhanced by live performances and discussions. The foundation also hosts a program of live music as well as the Closer music festival for "adventurous" music every March. Pluto, a sleek café and bistronomic restaurant on the ground floor, is a great choice for lunch, dinner, an afternoon coffee break, or teatime in a chic industrial space loaded with contemporary art. 

There's a good beach, Larmor-Plage, 5 km (3 miles) south of Lorient. You can also take a ferry to the rocky yet utterly charming Île de Groix or cross the bay to Port-Louis to see its 17th-century fort and ramparts.

On the D559, perched high above the Bandol vineyards, the village of Le Castellet has narrow streets, 17th-century stone houses, and (alas!) touristy shops designed for beach lovers on a rainy day.

Perpignan's alluring town center is lined with rosemary bushes and landmarked by a medieval monument, the 14th-century Castillet, with its tall, crenellated twin towers. Originally this hulking brick building was the main gate to the city; later it was used as a prison. Now the Casa Pairal, a museum devoted to Catalan art and traditions, is housed here.

Eighteen stories up, atop Le Corbusier's colossal Cité Radieuse—undertaken in 1947–52 to house the displaced of World War II—this sun-drenched sculpture center, complete with a theater and garden, replaces an ugly gym, added in 1964, that had obscured Le Corbusier's original tiled rooftop terrace. Conceived by notorious Paris designer (and Marseille native) Ito Morabito, aka Ora-Ito, the roof of the famous building has been restored to its original glory, complete with Charlotte Perriand–designed details, and now hosts a rotating schedule of sculpture exhibitions in the summer. The building still houses an apartment complex, shops, a hotel, and a well-regarded restaurant.

A St-Tropez icon since 1955, Club 55 began as a humble canteen during the filming of And God Created Woman, launching both Brigitte Bardot and the town into global fame. It draws an eclectic crowd—from Hollywood stars to bohemian regulars—and the vibe is understated yet chic. Restaurant tables are dressed in Provençal linens, and the menu offers simple local classics: Niçoise salad, organic crudités, ratatouille, catch of the day. Sunbeds cost €40, and umbrellas are €20. Bring your own beach towel. Amenities: food and drink; valet parking; showers; toilets. Best for: swimming.

Dijon's contemporary arts center spills over two remarkable buildings: a former cassis factory and a newer modern wing designed by architect Shigeru Ban of Pompidou-Metz fame. The museum holds temporary exhibitions throughout the year, with recent successes that included the likes of Joe Bradley, Alex Israel, Brian Calvin, and Shara Hughes. There's also a small permanent collection, a library, a gift shop, and live concerts. Guided tours are offered weekends, and are included in the ticket price.

On the D20, take a left at Ollioules, and follow the winding road along the crest of Le Gros Cerveau. You'll be rewarded first with inland mountain views and then with an expansive view of the coastline.

Oenophiles with some spare time will enjoy this quirky museum housed in a 15th-century abbey, a reminder of Passy's roots as a pastoral village. Though hardly exhaustive and geared to beginners, the small collection contains old wine bottles, glassware, and ancient wine-related pottery excavated in Paris. Wine-making paraphernalia shares the grotto-like space with hokey figures—including Napoléon appraising a glass of Burgundy—retired from the city's wax museum. But you can partake in a thoroughly nonhokey wine tasting, or bring home one of the 200-plus bottles for sale in the tiny gift shop. Check online for a calendar of tastings and classes offered in English. You can book ahead for a casual lunch or Friday dinner, too (restaurant open Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 3 pm and Friday evening until 1 am, reservations required).

Follow the irresistible aromas of roasting hazelnuts, walnuts, and almonds to this circa 1560 mill, where seven generations of the Frateau family have pressed oils in the traditional way from nuts grown in local orchards. Watch the nuts being roasted, milled, and pressed, then taste and purchase exquisitely fresh and delicious oils, nut flours, and other local specialties at the boutique.

Crime buffs will enjoy this museum hidden on the second floor of the 5e arrondissement's police station. Although the exhibits are in French only, the photographs, letters, drawings, and memorabilia pertaining to some of the city's most sensational crimes are easy enough to follow. Among the 2,000-odd relics you'll find a guillotine, old uniforms, and remnants of the World War II occupation—including what's left of a firing post, German machine guns, and the star insignias worn by Jews.

The great Renaissance poet Petrarch, driven mad with unrequited love for a beautiful married woman named Laura, retreated to this valley to nurse his heartache in a cabin with "one dog and only two servants." He had met the woman in the heady social scene at the papal court in Avignon, where she was to die years later of the plague. Sixteen years in this wild isolation didn't ease the pain, but the serene environment inspired him to poetry, and the lyrics of his Canzoniere were dedicated to Laura's memory. The small museum, built on the site of his residence, displays prints and engravings of the virtuous lovers, both in Avignon and Fontaine de Vaucluse.

The heart of old Marseille is a maze of narrow cobblestone streets lined by shuttered pastel houses and punctuated by montées (stone stairways) and tiny squares. Long decayed and neglected, the quarter is now a principal focus of urban renewal. In the past few years, an influx of "bobos" (bourgeois-bohemians) and artists has sparked gentrification, bringing charming bed-and-breakfasts, chic boutiques, lively cafés, and artists' ateliers. Although wandering this picturesque neighborhood at will is a pleasure, be sure to stroll along Rue du Panier, the Montée des Accoules, Rue du Petit-Puits, and Rue des Muettes.

You can study miniature dioramas of scenes from Pagnol stories here. The characters are all santons, including superb portraits of a humpback Gerard Dépardieu and Yves Montand, resplendent in moustache, fedora, and velvet vest, just as they were featured in Jean de Florette. For more information, contact the tourist office.

This garden in front of the Musée d'Histoire de Marseille stands on the location of the city's classical waterfront and includes remains of the Greek fortifications and loading docks. Restored in 2013, the site, with several nearly intact boats (now exhibited in the museum), was discovered in 1967 when roadwork was being done next to the Bourse (Stock Exchange).

Renovated to the tune of €5 million, Le Ruhl is the biggest "machine park" on the Côte d'Azur luring in the summer vacationers and the winter convention crowd with vivid colors and fiber-optic lighting. Some flock into the hushed gaming room for poker and blackjack; others try their luck at one of the 282 slot and 36 electronic English roulette machines.

To experience St-Tropez's natural beauty up close, consider walking parts of the sentier du littoral, or coastal path, around the peninsula and all the beaches to Cavalaire-sur-Mer. The 12½-km (7-mile) route to Tahiti Beach has longish stretches on sand beach and takes about 3½ hours. Leave from the Tour du Portalet or the Tour Vieille at the edge of the Quartier de la Ponche. Follow the footpath from Plage des Graniers along the beaches and cliffs overlooking the water, often with views toward the Estérel or out to the open sea.

At Tahiti Beach, you can walk the 3.5 km (2 miles, 50 minutes) inland stretch back to town or continue another 5 km (3 miles, 90 minutes) along the Plage de Pampelonne to the Bonne Terasse Beach. From here it gets serious, with another 19 km (12 miles, 6 hours) to Cavalaire to complete the entire trail. But you'll need to plan ahead to catch one of the few buses back to St-Tropez. Otherwise, it's 18 km (11 miles) back to town.

Climb up Rue St-Antoine into the picturesque Vieille Ville neighborhood known as Le Suquet, on the site of the original Roman castrum. Shops here proffer Provençal goods, and the atmospheric cafés provide a place to catch your breath. The pretty pastel shutters, Gothic stonework, and narrow passageways (not to mention the views) are lovely distractions. In July, you can hear young musicians perform free open-air concerts in the Place de la Castre during the Jeunes Talents festival.

One of the best examples of late medieval and early Renaissance architecture in Reims was built during the 13th century. Originally overlooking the historic linen-and-wheat market in the center of town, this noble town house changed hands between aristocrats and Champagne traders before being acquired in 1910 by Hugues Kraft—a man whose sole passion was preserving the city's historic buildings. It was completely restored after the WWI bombings and today houses an impressive collection of historical prints, paintings, and furnishings from the region, as well as an original, complete series of 15th-century Albrecht Dürer prints of the \"Apocalypse\" and \"Large Passion.\" Guided tours, included in the ticket price, at are 10 am, 11 am, and every 30 minutes from 2 pm to 5 pm.

Although the romantically melancholic Roman cemetery lies 1 km (½ mile) southeast of the old town, it's worth the hike—certainly Van Gogh thought so, as several of his famous canvases prove. This long necropolis amassed the remains of the dead from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Greek, Roman, and Christian tombs line the shady road that was once the main entry to Arles, the Aurelian Way. The finest stone coffins have been plundered over the centuries, thus no single work of surpassing beauty remains here (they're in the Musée Départmental Arles Antiques). Next to the ruins rise the Romanesque tower and ruined church of St-Honorat, where (legend has it) St-Trophime fell to his knees when God spoke to him.

Two of the most miraculously preserved classical monuments in France are simply called Les Antiques. Dating from 30 BC, the Mausolée (Mausoleum), a wedding-cake stack of arches and columns, lacks nothing but a finial on top and is dedicated to a Julian, probably Caesar Augustus. A few yards away stands the Arc Triomphal, dating from AD 20. A lovely spot for a stroll and within easy walking distance from the city center, the site is open during the day and at night—when it's handsomely illuminated.

In this broad, elegant stone armory, built for Louis XIV, a complex of upscale shops and restaurants has given the building—and neighborhood—new life. Its bookstore has a collection of art books and publications on Marseille, as well as gifts, perfume, clothing, and local specialties like olive oil, chocolates, and nougat. A book-lined restaurant serves sophisticated cuisine.

Further testimony to Senlis’s long and rich history (brilliantly mapped out in the Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie), these circular arenas dating from the first century are unique in northern France. Gallo-Roman spectators enjoyed gladiator fights here until their prohibition in the fifth century, when the circular amphitheater reverted to concerts, pantomimes, and plays. The arenas are accessible by private tour through the tourist office or to the public on the first Sunday of every month between April and October as well as on European Heritage Days in September and National Archeology Days in June.

The naturally heated sulfur water here was particularly popular among 19th-century aristocrats who arrived in Cauterets to \"take the cure.\" Today, it’s still used to alleviate rheumatism and respiratory maladies (three-week treatments can even be covered by French national health insurance). In keeping with modern trends, however, the station thermale now caters to guests who simply want to relax. Les Bains du Rocher has a genuine spa aesthetic and offers massages, facials, aqua-gym sessions, and, of course, soaks in hot healing pools both inside and outside.

In the center of town and easily accessible on foot or by car, Les Caves Louis de Grenelle offer a fascinating 90-minute tour through the 15th-century quarry tunnels that today serve as aging cellars; a tasting of sparkling and still wines is included.

Leave it to the French to make even sewers seem romantic. Part exhibit but mostly, well, sewer, the 1,640-foot stretch of tunnels provides a fascinating—and not too smelly—look at the underbelly of Paris. You can stroll the so-called galleries of this city beneath the city, which comes complete with street signs mirroring those aboveground. Walkways flank tunnels of whooshing wastewater wide enough to allow narrow barges to dredge sand and sediment. Lighted panels, photos, and explanations in English detail the workings of the system. Immortalized as the escape routes of the Phantom of the Opera and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, the 19th-century sewers have a florid real-life history. Since Napoléon ordered the underground network built to clean up the squalid streets, they have played a role in every war, secreting revolutionaries and spies and their stockpiles of weapons. Grenades from World War II were recovered not far from where the gift shop now sits. The display cases of stuffed toy rats and "Eau de Paris" glass carafes fold into the walls when the water rises after heavy rains. Buy your ticket at the kiosk on the Left Bank side of the Pont de l'Alma. Guided one-hour tours by friendly égoutiers (sewer workers) are available in French only; call or email ahead for details.

For 800 years, Paris was fed by the acres of food halls overflowing with meats, fish, and vegetables that made up this district. Sensuously described in Émile Zola's novel The Belly of Paris, the area around Les Halles was teeming with life—though not all of it good. Hucksters and the homeless shared these streets with prostitutes, and the plague of cat-size rats didn't cease until the market moved to the suburbs in 1969. Today, you can still see stuffed pests hanging by their tails in the windows of the circa-1872 shop Julien Aurouze ( 8 rue des Halles) whose sign, Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles (Vermin Extermination), says it all. All that remains of the 19th-century iron-and-glass market buildings designed by architect Victor Baltard is a portion of the superstructure on the southern edge of the Jardins des Halles. The Fontaine des Innocents, from 1550, at Rues Berger and Pierre Lescot, marks the site of what was once a vast cemetery before the bones were moved to the Catacombs.

After years of delays, Les Halles finally underwent one of the city's most ambitious public works projects: a sweeping €500 million renovation, completed in 2018, that has transformed the plaza and the much-maligned underground concrete mall called the Forum des Halles into a must-go destination. While the project was not without opponents, even famously grumpy Parisians were satisfied by the prospect of a prettier Les Halles—and a spruced-up train station underground. (The métro and RER station at Les Halles is one of the city's busiest transport hubs.) In an echo of the past, a 48-foot iron-and-glass canopy floats over the entrance, flooding light into the caverns below. Aboveground, a 10-acre park called the Jardin Nelson Mandela is dotted with trees, decorative pools, and play areas for kids. On the northern end, a redesigned Place René-Cassin has tiered steps centered around L'Ecoute, Henri de Miller's giant head and hand sculpture. Looming behind is the magnificent church of Saint-Eustache, a Gothic gem. Movie buffs should check out the Forum des Images, which stages screenings of quirky or older films, often with notables on hand such as director Oliver Stone. Or sample some of the 7,000 films available for viewing on individual screens. To find it, enter the mall on the side of the church at the Porte Saint-Eustache.

The streets surrounding Les Halles have boomed in recent years with boutiques, bars, and restaurants that have sent rents skyrocketing. Historic Rue Montorgueil is home to food shops and cafés. Running parallel, Rue Montmartre, near the church, still has a few specialty shops selling foie gras and other delicacies, though these merchants, like the butchers and bakers before them, are slowly being pushed out by trendy clothing boutiques. The area is also well known for kitchen supply stores frequented by cooking amateurs and professionals alike; E. Dehillerin ( 18 rue Coquillière) is rife with old-fashioned charm, while Mora ( 13 rue Montmartre) is a bit more sterile but easier to navigate.

By 6 am every day but Monday, merchants and artisans have stacked their herbed cheeses and set out their vine-ripened tomatoes with surgical precision in arrangements that please the eye. This permanent covered market is as far from a farmers' market as you can get, each booth a designer boutique of haute de gamme (top-quality) goods, from jewel-like olives to silvery mackerel to racks of hanging hares worthy of a Flemish still life. Even if you don't have a kitchen to stock, consider enjoying a cup of coffee or a glass of (breakfast) wine while you take in the sights and smells. You can also tuck into a plate of freshly shucked oysters and a pichet of the crisp local white.