258 Best Sights in France

This self-described "fabric kingdom" has been selling Parisians their curtains for more than 90 years. With five floors, it actually stocks a lot more than draperies, including bolts of fine silk, feather boas, and spangled cushions. Among the regulars here are the designers who create the famous windows at Hermès. The Marché anchors a fabric district that extends to the neighboring streets; each shop is a bit different from the next.

Louis XVI transferred the royal Mint to this imposing mansion in the late 18th century. It was moved again (to Pessac, near Bordeaux) in 1973; however, weights and measures, medals, and limited-edition coins are still made here, and the site houses a museum devoted to currency. There is an extensive collection of coins and related artifacts, plus workshops where you can watch artisans in action as they mint, mold, sculpt, polish, and engrave using century-old techniques. Public spaces host cultural programs and temporary contemporary art exhibitions. Check the website for Wednesday and Saturday afternoon craft workshops for children. The museum is also home to the three-star Guy Savoy restaurant (reservations required:  [email protected]) and the simpler Café Frappé par Bloom.

If Sir Elton John chose it as the place for his summer residence, you know the views from Mont Boron must be sensational. From the port, take Bus 30 to the Miramar stop or Bus 15 to Château de L’Anglais. Along Boulevard du Mont Boron, enjoy the gorgeous panorama over the Port de Nice, and then head up to the Route Forestière; there will be red and yellow hiking symbols along the way. Near La Petite Batterie, you’ll arrive at a spectacular viewpoint across Villefranche Bay. Continue on foot along the forest path for another 2 km (1.2 miles) to reach the 16th-century Fort du Mont-Alban. Alternatively, from town you can take Bus 33, which drops you closer to the historic site.

Rising 1,900 feet above the town, with panoramas of Toulon, the surrounding countryside, and the sea, Mont Faron can be reached by the circular Route du Faron in either direction or in six minutes by cable car from Boulevard Admiral Jean-Vence. At the top, the World War II memorial commemorates the mountain fort's role in the Provence débarquement of August 1944 and the liberation of Toulon. There is also a zoo that acts as a breeding center for a dozen types of wild cats, including lions, tigers, jaguars, lynxes, and pumas.

In addition to all the beautiful views of Mont Ventoux, there are equally spectacular views from Mont Ventoux. From any of the surrounding hill towns you can take an inspiring circle drive along the base and over the crest of the mountain, following the D974. This road winds through the extraordinarily lush south-facing greenery that Mont Ventoux protects from vicious mistral winds. Abundant orchards and olive groves peppered with stone farmhouses make this one of Provence's loveliest landscapes. Stop for a drink in busy Bédoin, with its 18th-century Jesuit church at the top of the Old Town maze.

Mont Ventoux was the site of the first recorded attempt at l'escalade (mountain climbing), when Italian poet-philosopher Petrarch grunted his way up in 1336. Although people had climbed mountains before, this was the first "do it because it's there" feat. Reaching the summit itself (at 6,263 feet) requires a bit of legwork. From either Chalet Reynard or the tiny ski center Mont Serein, you can leave your car and hike up to the peak's tall observatory tower. The climb is not overly taxing, and when you reach the top you are rewarded with gorgeous panoramic views of the Alps. And to the south, barring the possibility of high-summer haze, you'll take in views of the Rhône Valley, the Luberon, and even Marseille.

Hiking maps are available at maisons de la presse (newsstands) and tourist offices. Town-to-town treks are also a great way to explore the area; one of the most beautiful trails is from Malaucène to Séguret. In the off-season, lonely Mont Ventoux is plagued with an ungodly reputation due to destructive winds; attempts at saving its soul are evident from the chapels lining its slopes. Whether it's possessed by the devil or not, don't attempt to climb it in inclement weather; from late fall to early spring, in fact, the summit is closed by snow.

Fontaine was once an industrial center, but its mills and factories were closed by strikes in 1968, and most never recovered. To learn more about this aspect of the town, consider visiting this working paper mill. Its reconstructed,15th-century waterwheel drives timber crankshafts to mix rag pulp, and its artisans roll and dry thick paper à l'ancienne (in the old manner). The process is fascinating and free to watch, though it's almost impossible to resist buying the pretty note cards, posters, and even lamp shades in the on-site boutique. If you're feeling creative, you can make your own sheet during the paper-making experience (€15 per person). There are also 30-minute guided mill tours (€7, minimum of 10 people). Book either option online in advance.

Made up of three sites designed by Rudy Ricciotti, MuCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations) is all about new perspectives on Mediterranean cultures. Themes like "the invention of gods," "treasures of the spice route," or "at the bazaar of gender" are explored here. At one of the sites, you can access the 12th-century Fort St-Jean, built by Louis XIV with guns pointing toward the city to keep the feisty, rebellious Marseillais under his thumb.

If you're not the queasy type, walk across the suspended footbridge over the sea; it provides spectacular photo ops and unique panoramas. On the other side, you can visit a Mediterranean garden and a folk-art collection. A third building—the Center for Conservation and Resources, near the St-Charles train station—holds the museum's permanent collection of paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and objects. The museum's terrace café and restaurant (reservations required), overseen by Michelin three-star chef Alexandre Mazzia, are excellent choices for a meal with a view.

In this labyrinthine, half-timber home, where layers of carved balconies sag over a cobbled inner courtyard, local interiors have been faithfully reconstituted. The diverse activities of blacksmiths, clog makers, saddlers, and makers of artificial flowers are explained with the help of old-time craftsmen's tools and equipment.

Next to the Musée Matisse, this museum has a large collection of objects extracted from digs around the Roman city of Cemenelum, which flourished from the 1st to the 5th centuries. Among the fascinating ruins are an amphitheater, frigidarium, gymnasium, baths, and sewage trenches, some dating from the 3rd century.  It's best to avoid midday visits on warm days.

On the same quiet square as Église San Rafeu, this intimate museum has a fascinating collection of ancient amphorae gleaned from the shoals offshore, where centuries' worth of shipwrecks have accumulated. By studying this chronological progression of jars and the accompanying sketches, you can visualize the coast as it was in its heyday as a Greek and Roman shipping center. Take advantage of the temporary exhibitions held throughout the year (€4).

Antoine Bourdelle was a lifelong artist and prolific sculptor who worked with Auguste Rodin before breaking away to pursue his own style. He received commissions for prestigious projects, both small and monumental, many of which are documented in his cavernous, former workplace. This lesser-known museum has undergone a few renovations and extensions but still has preserved some of the artist's original spaces as well as the small garden with towering sculptures.

Nîmes's oldest museum, inaugurated in 1895 in a listed 17th-century chapel, contemplates the natural and human sciences via a vast collection of stuffed beasts, menhirs, and other wonders. The setting has barely changed since the 1930s, when France was a still a vast colonial power. There's a planetarium, too.

Across the street from the Théâtre Antique, this small museum displays artifacts unearthed around Orange, including fragments of three detailed marble cadastres (land survey maps) dating from the first century AD. Upstairs, a vivid series of 18th-century canvases shows local mills producing Provençal fabrics, each aspect illustrated in careful detail. There are also personal objects from local aristocrats and a collection of faience pharmacy jars.

Between Arles in the north and Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the south, this former sheep ranch is now a museum devoted to the region's history, produce, and people, including the gardians. It's also a good place to pick up information about nature trails.

A collection of 85,000 miniature soldiers—fashioned of lead, cardboard, and other materials—depicting military uniforms through the ages is on display in the Musée de la Figurine Historique.

Owned by one of the original lavender families, who have cultivated and distilled the flower here for more than five generations, this chic museum sits at the edge of 80 or so acres of prime lavender fields about 3 km (2 miles) outside of Gordes (take the D2 southeast to the outskirts of Coustellet). Not only can you take in well-organized displays (note the impressive collection of scythes and distilling apparatus), see a fascinating movie, and play with interactive screens, but you can also participate in lavender workshops that are fun for adults and kids alike. The boutique sells a top-notch selection of sophisticated lavender-based cosmetics and essential oils.

Another claim to fame for Aubagne: it's the headquarters for the French Foreign Legion. The legion was created in 1831, and accepts recruits from all nations, no questions asked. The discipline and camaraderie instilled among its motley team of adventurers have helped the legion forge a reputation for exceptional valor—a reputation romanticized by songs and films in which sweaty deeds of heroism are performed under the desert sun. The Musée de la Légion Étrangère does its best to polish the image by way of medals, uniforms, weapons, and photographs.

This complex is famous for reputedly being the prison of the Man in the Iron Mask. Inside, you can see his cell and hear his story. The truth of his captivity is not certain; however, it is true that many Huguenots were confined here during Louis XIV's religious scourges. You'll also find a Roman boat dating from the 1st century BC and a collection of amphorae and pottery recovered from ancient shipwrecks.

Parc de la Villette’s music museum contains four centuries' worth of instruments from around the world—about 1,000 in total, many of them exquisite works of art. Their sounds and stories are evoked on numerous video screens and via commentary you can follow on headphones (ask for a free audioguide in English). Leave time for the excellent temporary exhibitions. On the plaza adjacent to the museum, the outdoor terrace at Café des Concerts ( 01–42–49–74–74) is an inviting place to have a drink on a sunny day.

When President Jacques Chirac’s legacy project (the Musée du Quai Branly, dedicated to the world’s indigenous arts and cultures) pilfered half of this museum's pieces, few thought the rest of Paris’s storied anthropology museum would survive, but it has come roaring back to life. Focused on “science and human societies,” the Musée de l’Homme has 33,368 square feet of sparkling exhibition space in the west wing of the Palais de Chaillot, where it displays more than 700,000 prehistoric artifacts and art objects. It now uses the most modern museum tricks—including interactive displays, 3D projections, and educational games—to help visitors understand the history of the human species. While you’re admiring the 25,000-year-old Venus of Lespugue or comparing the skull of Cro-Magnon man with that of René Descartes, don’t forget to look out the window: the view from the upper floors across to the Eiffel Tower and southern Paris is spectacular.

During the digging for the foundation of a building in 1966, the shovels uncovered the remains of a temporary settlement once used by elephant hunters thousands of years ago. Now the site is a museum with models and other displays—including one with an actual human footprint, calcified in the sand—that reconstruct the ancient beach-camp known as Terra Amata (Beloved Land). Films explain the lifestyle of what are among the oldest known inhabitants of Europe. Recorded commentaries and the museum's app are available in English.

Although it's a hike from the center, this state-of-the-art museum is a good place to start your exploration of Arles. You can learn all about the city in its Roman heyday, from the development of its monuments to details of daily life. The bold, modern triangular structure (designed by Henri Ciriani) lies on the site of an enormous Roman cirque (chariot-racing stadium).

The permanent collection includes jewelry, mosaics, town plans, and carved 4th-century sarcophagi. One wing of the museum features a rare intact barge dating from AD 50, as well as a fascinating display illustrating how the boat was meticulously dredged from the nearby Rhône. Seven superb floor mosaics can be viewed from an elevated platform, and you exit via a hall packed with magnificently detailed paleo-Christian sarcophagi. As you leave you will see the belt of St-Césaire, the last bishop of Arles, who died in AD 542 when the countryside was overwhelmed by the Franks and the Roman era met its end. Ask for an English-language guidebook.

Science buffs should not miss this fascinating place, Europe's oldest museum dedicated to invention and technology. It's a treasure trove of wonkiness with 80,000 instruments, machines, and gadgets—including 16th-century astrolabes, Pascal's first mechanical calculator, and film-camera prototypes by the Lumière Brothers, fathers of modern cinema. You can watch video simulations of groundbreaking architectural achievements, like the cast-iron dome, or see how Jacquard's mechanical loom revolutionized clothmaking. Kids will love the flying machines (among them the first plane to cross the English Channel) and the impressive display of old automobiles in the high-ceilinged chapel of St-Martin-des-Champs. Also in the chapel is a copy of Foucault's Pendulum, which proved to the world in 1851 that the Earth rotated (demonstrations are staged daily at noon and 5). The building, erected between the 11th and 13th centuries, was a church and priory that was confiscated during the Revolution, and, after incarnations as a school and a weapons factory, became a museum in 1799. Most displays have information in English, but renting an English audioguide (€5) helps. If you're arriving via the métro, check out the platform of Line 11 in the Arts et Métiers station—one of the city's most elaborate—which is made to look like the inside of a Jules Verne–style machine, complete with copper-color metal walls, giant bolts, and faux gears.

In 1943, Germans destroyed the neighborhood along the Quai du Port—some 2,000 houses—displacing 20,000 citizens, but this act of brutal urban renewal, ironically and literally, laid the ground open for new discoveries. When Marseille began to rebuild in 1947, workers dug up the remains of a Roman shipping warehouse full of the terra-cotta jars and amphorae that once lay in the bellies of low-slung ships. The Musée des Docks Romains was created around the finds and demonstrates the scale of Massalia's shipping prowess.

Housed in an 11th-century château atop a hill, this museum has a wonderful collection of weaponry, artifacts, art, and antiques. There are also temporary exhibitions here. The imposing four-sided Tour du Suquet (Suquet Tower) and its 109 steps were built in 1385 as a lookout against Saracen-led invasions.

Set in a contemporary building a block from the beach, this museum is an essential stop to learn about the long and fascinating history of this seaside town and the Camargue in general. More than 500 exhibits cover the area’s maritime and land-faring past—from the Etruscans and Greeks to the gardians—through archeological finds, marine artifacts, and the mid-20th century collections of the Marquis de Baroncelli, a local icon and one of the first protectors of the Camargue and its unique culture.

This sweet museum traces the evolution of the most famous of all Basque pastries. Call ahead for a schedule of workshops and baking classes.

This eye-catching museum overlooking the Seine was designed by architect Jean Nouvel to house the state-owned collection of "non-Western" art, culled from the Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie and the Musée de l'Homme. Exhibits mix artifacts from antiquity to the modern age, such as funeral masks from Melanesia, Siberian shaman drums, Indonesian textiles, and African statuary. A corkscrew ramp leads from the lobby to a cavernous exhibition space, which is color-coded to designate sections from Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The lighting is dim—sometimes too dim to read the information panels (which makes investing in the €5 audioguide a good idea). The museum really shines for the quality and imagination of its temporary exhibitions, whose topics range from the art of Japanese bamboo to the historic role of gold thread in textiles. 

Renowned for his bold modern designs, Nouvel has said he wanted the museum to follow no rules; however, many critics gave his vision a thumbs-down when the museum opened in 2006. The exterior resembles a massive, rust-color rectangle suspended on stilts, with geometric shapes cantilevered to the facade facing the Seine and louvered panels on the opposite side. The colors (dark reds, oranges, and yellows) are meant to evoke the tribal art within. A "living wall" composed of some 150 species of exotic plants grows on the exterior, which is surrounded by a wild jungle garden with swampy patches—an impressive sight after dark when scores of cylindrical colored lights are illuminated. The trendy Les Ombres restaurant on the museum's fifth floor (separate entrance) has prime views of the Eiffel Tower—and prices to match. The budget-conscious can enjoy the garden at Le Café Branly on the ground floor.

Housed in the 17th-century bishop's palace opposite the cathedral, this museum shows off garments embroidered in the exotic and vibrant style for which Nîmes was once famous. Look for the 18th-century jacket made of blue serge de Nîmes, the renowned fabric—now simply called denim—from which Levi Strauss first fashioned blue jeans.

If you like wax museums, this one founded in 1882 ranks among the best. Pay the steep entry price and ascend a grand Phantom of the Opera–like staircase into the Palais des Mirages, a mirrored salon from the 1900 Paris Exposition that transforms into a hokey sound-and-light show the kids will love. (It was a childhood favorite of designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, who is in the collection, of course.) From there, get set for a cavalcade of nearly 300 statues, from Elvis to Ernest Hemingway, Picasso to the late Queen Elizabeth II. Every king of France is here, along with Mick Jagger and George Clooney, plus scores of French singers and celebrities.