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To listen to some poor folk, the French are so suffused with national pride that travellers should expect either to be completely ignored, run over by reckless Renaults or to see an awful lot of Gallic nasal hair. The same frog-o-phobes try to convince you that the French take credit for the size of their Alps and think that the waves break on their beaches with French accents. Regardless of the prevalence of the myth of French arrogance, Gallic noses are justifiably held in the air when surveying châteaux of pre-Revolution munificence, the Napoleonic grandeur and latter day pizazz of Paris and other urban centres, and the museum acreage devoted to the display of the French and the fabulous. The encroachment of Le Big Mac and Duck à la Donald has induced palpable groans from cultural xenophobes, yet the French lifestyle is still supreme. From chic coastal strips to cobbled country coves, from breakfast croissant to dinner's just desserts, France does it with style and aplomb (and the odd nuclear bomb).
France is roughly hexagonal and is the largest country in Europe after Russia and the Ukraine. The English Channel is to the north-west and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Spain broils across the Pyrenees to the south, the Mediterranean (including Corsica) is to the south-east, and over the eastern Alps and Jura ranges lie Switzerland and Italy. France's relatively flat north-eastern borders abut Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium.
Since 1790, France has been divided into administrative units of about 6100 sq km called départements. There are 96 départements in France and a further five overseas, expanses of ocean being no impediment to Frankish administrative zeal. The départements d'outre-mer (overseas départements) are the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique; the Pacific island groups of New Caledonia, and Tahiti and French Polynesia; French Guiana; Réunion, which is in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar; and Saint Pierre et Miquelon, which is in the Atlantic Ocean just off the south coast of Newfoundland.
The French Alps include Mont Blanc which, at 4807m, is Europe's highest peak. The most spectacular of France's ancient ranges is the Massif Central, a huge region in the middle of France that covers one-sixth of the country. The country's longest river, the Loire, runs 1020km from the Massif Central to the Atlantic. The Seine, Rhône, Garonne and Rhine are France's other major waterways, draining the plains and funnelling huge mountain run-offs. Over 3200km of coastline ranges from the chalk cliffs of Normandy and the promontories of Brittany to the fine-sand beaches along the Atlantic. The south-eastern Mediterranean coast tends to have pebbly, sometimes rocky beaches, though the Languedoc and some of the Roussillon beaches have sand-castle potential.
France's mix of climates and terrains endowed it with a rich variety of flora and fauna. Unfortunately, due to agricultural overkill, pollution and encroaching urbanisation, many fragile species such as the Pyrenees ibex, Corsican deer, brown bear, wolf, and otter now face extinction. Some animals and birds - the chamois (a mountain antelope), the larger bouquetin (a type of ibex), beaver, stork and vulture - still live in the wild thanks to re-introduction programmes based in national parks. Forests - mostly beech, oak and pine - cover roughly one-fifth of the country. These wooded areas, as well as vast wetlands, support the bulk of the country's mammals and birds.
France has a predominantly temperate climate, with mild winters, except in mountain areas and the north-east. The Atlantic has a profound impact on the north-west, where the weather is characterised by high humidity, often violent westerly winds and lots of rain. France's north-east has a classic continental climate, with fairly hot summers and cold winters. Midway between the two, the Paris basin boasts the nation's lowest annual precipitation (about 575 mm) but rainfall patterns are erratic. Paris's average annual temperature is 12 degrees Celsius, but the mercury sometimes drops below zero in January and can climb to the mid-30s or higher in August. The southern coastal plains are subject to a pleasant Mediterranean climate: frost is rare, spring and autumn downpours are sudden but brief and summer is virtually without rain. The south is also the region of the `mistral', a cold, dry wind which blows down the Rhône Valley for about 100 days a year. Relentless and unforgiving in spring, it is blamed for sending people into fits of pique.
The concept of culture is of signal importance for the French. Convinced of an enduring cultural superiority, France has bestowed magnificent examples of artistic expression in all fields, not to mention some of the ugliest wallpaper and the worst pop music in the world.
The first distinctively Gallic architecture was the Gothic style which originated in the mid-12th century in northern France and is preserved in the seminal cathedral at Chartres and its successors at Reims and Amiens. The Renaissance first had an impact on France at the tail end of the 15th century when Charles VIII began a series of invasions of Italy. In the realms of architecture and the visual arts the Renaissance was largely an imported phenomenon with few homegrown modifications. Local writers showed more verve, with Rabelais and Montaigne producing some of the great landmarks of French literature.
During the Baroque era, which lasted from the end of the 16th century to the late 18th century, painting, sculpture and classical architecture were integrated to create structures of great subtlety, refinement and elegance. In France the Baroque period is often subdivided into styles named after the various Kings Louis eg. 'that's a luvverly Louis Kanz sofa, Martha'. French Baroque music was influential throughout the continent, informing much of the wider European output, while Nicolas Poussin was the first French painter who really ba-rocked. French theatre guffawed with Molière, the most popular comic playwright of his time.
In the 18th century, Jean-Baptiste Chardin brought the humbler domesticity of the Dutch masters to French art. Later, Jacques Louis David was adopted by Napoleon as official state painter after being one of the leaders of the 1789 Revolution and a virtual dictator in matters of art. David produced vast pictures, the best remembered of which depicts Revolutionary-dictator Marat lying dead in his bath. The literature of this period is dominated by philosophers, among them Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while Berlioz dominated the music scene by founding modern orchestration, and producing operas and symphonies which sparked the musical renaissance in France that would produce such greats as Gabriel Faur‚ and the Impressionists Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
Victor Hugo, widely acclaimed for his poetry as well as for his novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris, is the key figure of 19th-century French Romanticism. Other notable writers of this period are Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac (whose vast series of novels, known under the general title of La Comédie Humaine, approaches a social history of France), Aurore Dupain, better known as George Sand (who combined the themes of romantic love and social injustice) and Alexandre Dumas the elder (who wrote The Count of Monte-Cristo, The Three Musketeersand other swashbuckling adventures).
By the mid-19th century, Romanticism was evolving into new movements, both in fiction and poetry, and three bastions of French literature emerged: Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire and the controversial, innovative and powerful work of Émile Zola. The poet Arthur Rimbaud, as well as crowding rugged and exotic spatial and erotic adventuring into his 37 years produced two enduring pieces of work: Illuminations and Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell). The prevailing artistic climate allowed sculptor Auguste Rodin to render his sumptuous bronze and marble figures. Rodin is regarded by some critics as the finest portraitist in the history of the art. Painting as portraiture was simultaneously revamped by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, while landscape painting was transformed first by Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon School, then by the realist school (head boy: Édouard Manet). Manet's later work is influenced by the Claude Monet-prefected Impressionist school, which numbered Camille Pisarro and Edgar Degas among its students.
Post-impressionism gave way to a bewildering diversity of styles in the 20th century, two of which are particularly significant: Fauvism (eg. wild man Henri Matisse) and Cubism (eg. Spanish-born Pablo Picasso). These were followed by the Dadaists, who reacted to the negativity of WWI by acting weird. Marcel 'Dada' Duchamp, exhibited found objects, such as a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed. Funny fellow, ness pah?
In the world of letters, Marcel Proust dominated the early 20th century with his exquisitely excruciating seven-volume novel, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (Remembrance of Things Past). Poets André Breton and Paul Éluard were militant surrealist poets fascinated with dreams, divination and all manifestations of 'the marvellous'. After WWII, Existentialism developed around Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus, who stressed the importance of the writer's political engagement. De Beauvoir, author of the ground-breaking The Second Sex, had a profound influence on feminist thinking. By the late 1950s, younger writers began to look for new ways of organising narrative; novelist Nathalie Sarraute, for example, did away with the pesky conventions of identifiable character and plot. Marguerite Duras rejected association with the nouveau roman movement but employed similar abstractions, backgrounding character for mood. She came to the notice of an international public with her novel L'Amant (The Lover) in 1984.
The 1950s and 60s was a period of French celluloid innovation when new wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Louis Malle burst onto the scene. The dominance of the auteur directors continued until the 1970s, by which stage the new wave had lost its experimental edge and boosted the reputation of French cinema as an intellectual, elitist and, frankly, boring enterprise. The most successful directors of the 1980s and 90s have produced original and visually striking films featuring unusual locations, bizarre stories and unique characters. Well-regarded directors include Jean-Jacques Beineix, who made Diva and Betty Blue.
The closing of the French mind
Philosophers such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Julia Kristeva, best known for theoretical writings on literature and psychoanalysis, are other 'serious' authors associated with this period although the most admired national literature is the comic strip Astérix books. When they get their elegant noses out of comic books, the French obsessions with the sports of soccer, rugby, basketball and cycling, especially the Tour de France, are given full rein. Traditional games such as pétanque and boules (similar to lawn bowls but played on a hard surface) are also popular.
Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion in France although church life is practically moribund and attendance - especially among the middle classes - is extremely low. Beliefs have generally been secularised ever since the Church and state were separated in 1905. Muslims are the second largest religious group followed by Protestants (Huguenots). There is also a substantial Jewish population in the country.
Food is a subject of endless rumination. Consider just some of the country's epicurean delights - foie gras, truffles, Roquefort cheese, well-built crustaceans, succulent snails plucked off grape vines, sharp-tasting fruit tarts - and you begin to appreciate the Frankish culinary zeal. But one cannot live on escargot and vin de table alone. France's North African and Asian populations have contributed to the pot bringing spice and colour to many dishes.
A typical day's eating begins with a croissant and a thin loaf of bread smeared with butter and jam. Lunch and dinner are virtually indistinguishable and can include a first course of fromage de tête pâté (made with pig's head set in jelly) or bouillabaisse (fish soup), followed by a main course of blanquette de veau or d' agneau (veal or lamb stew with white sauce), and rounded off with a plateau de fromage (cheese platter) or tarte aux pommes (apple tart). An appetite-stirring apéritif such as kir (white wine sweetened with syrup) is often served before a meal while a digestif (Cognac or Armagnac brandy) may be served at the end of a meal. Other beverages designed to aid digestion and stimulate conversation include cups or bowls of strong soup-like espresso, liqueurs, pastis (a 90-proof, anise-flavoured alcoholic drink), some of the best wine in the world, and beer.
The French are a festive bunch with many cities hosting music, dance, theatre, cinema or art events each year. Rural villages hold fairs and fêtes honouring everything from local saints to the year's garlic crop. Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in Provence is the venue for a colourful gypsy festival in late May honouring Sarah, patron saint of the gypsies. Frenzied singing and dancing characterise this extravaganza. Prominent national days off are May Day (1 May), when many people buy muguet (lily of the valley) - believed to bring good luck - to give to friends; and Bastille Day (14 July), which is celebrated by people throwing fire crackers at each other. Regional events include the primping and preening prêt à porter fashion show in Paris (early February); the glittering and often canned Cannes Film Festival (mid-May); the International Music Festival in Strasbourg (first three weeks of June); the mainstream and fringe theatre of the Festival d'Avignon (mid-July to mid-August) and the Jazz Festival in Nancy (9-24 October).
Within the parameters of the Old City stands the Cathédrale Saint Vincent. Begun in the 11th century, the cathedral is the repository of an excellent collection of medieval and modern stained-glass windows. During July and August it is also host to a number of classical concerts. Video-burdened tourists are a common sight strolling around the ramparts, which afford wonderful views of Saint Malo.
Squatting south of the Old City is the 18th-century Fort de la Cité, once a German stronghold during WWII. Flanking the bulwark's walls are steel pillboxes heavily pimpled by Allied shells while the interior, now used by caravanners, is theoretically off-limits to visitors but no-one will stop you if you walk into the camping grounds via the main entrance.
Saint Malo's other attractions include placid beaches to the south of the Old City and further along the coast to the north-east. The area has some of the highest tidal variations in the world so expect a hefty jaunt to reach the aqua at low tide: the high water mark is often 13m above the low-water mark. Saint Malo is an excellent base from which to explore the Côte d'Émeraude, and Mont Saint Michel can be visited as a day trip.
The largest and most lavish château in the Loire Valley is the Château de Chambord. Begun in 1519, its Renaissance flourishes may have been inspired by Leonardo da Vinci who lived nearby from 1516 until his death three years later. In any event, the château is the creation of King François I, a rapacious lunatic who left his two sons unransomed in Spain and was fanatically dishonest with his subjects' money. In total he kept 1800 workers and artisans busy for 15 years on its construction, and at one point even suggested that the Loire River be rerouted so that it would pass by Chambord (eventually a smaller river, the Cosson, was diverted instead). The king died wizened and drooly before the building's completion - no doubt his sons' thought this richly deserved.
Inside is a famed double-helix staircase which buxom mistresses and priapic princes chased each other up and down, when not assembled on the rooftop terrace to watch military exercises, tournaments and hounds and hunters returning from a day of stalking deer. From the terrace you can see the towers, cupolas, chimneys, mosaic slate roofs and lightning rods that comprise the château's imposing skyline.
The town's cultural sights are not likely to keep you out of the sun too long. They include a blue-domed Russian Orthodox church, 19th-century hotels with lobbies the size of skating rinks, and the Musée de la Mer. The latter has recently been refurbished, and has a ground-floor aquarium with numerous tanks of sea life and a 1st-floor museum documenting the area's involvement in commercial fishing and whaling. Outside pools contain seals and sharks.
Biarritz's fashionable beaches are lined with brightly striped bathing tents and packed with people during summer. After a busy day's frying you can play cesta punta (the world's fastest game played with a ball and scoop-like racquet) or golf, be entertained by nightly folklore performances, or trawl through displays of Basque music and handicrafts.
Among Sarlat's architectural treasures is the Cathédrale Saint Sacerdos, originally part of the Benedictine abbey. Higgledy-piggledy in style, most of the present structure dates from the 17th century. Behind the cathedral is the town's first cemetery containing the Lantern of the Dead, a 12th-century tower built to commemorate St Bernard, who visited in 1147 and whose relics were given to the abbey. The town's other main focus is the Saturday market. Depending on the season, foie gras, mushrooms, truffles, trussed-up geese, and sheep heads with rheumy eyes are traded among a racket of vendors and spectators.
Sarlat also makes an excellent base for trips to the nearby Vézère Valley, which is peppered with nearly 200 prehistoric sites including the Lascaux cave, thought to have been the site of a hunting cult where magical rites were performed. Discovered in 1940, this capacious labyrinth holds a number of 15,000-year-old doodles and paintings of bulls, horses and reindeer. There are other painted caves in the area, but Lascaux is sans pareil. Unfortunately, the exhalations of enthusiastic rock-watchers caused a carbon-dioxide fungus to cover the paintings; visitors today are restricted to a precise cement replica of the painted original, sealed off just a few hundred metres away.
Not to be missed is the Aigulle du Midi, a lone spire of rock stretching across glaciers, snow fields and rocky crags from the summit of Mont Blanc. Easily accessible, the views from the top are postcard perfect. A further treat is a trans-glacial ride on the world's highest téléphérique (cable car), which stops en route at skiing and hiking destinations. The Mer de Glace is the second-largest glacier in the Alps. It measures 14km long, 1800m wide and is up to 400m deep. For a better look at the glacier from the inside, you can tour an ice cave that is carved anew each spring. There is also a train that ascends to an altitude of 1913m and a number of uphill trails, but traversing the glacier is dangerous and should not be done without proper equipment and a guide.
Other activities in and around Chamonix include mountain biking, parasailing, ice-skating and screaming down a spit-shined summer luge track. The Swiss town of Martigny is only 40km north of Chamonix, should you wish to border hop for watch-repair or chocolate.
Arles's attractions include the Les Arènes, an enormous Roman ampitheatre built towards the end of the 1st century AD. Tens of thousands of men and animals were sacrificed here to that most noble of pursuits - sport. Chariot races and hand-to-hand battles were staged with slaughter emphasised over tactics but the public seemed happy. The Arènes was later transformed into a fortress, then a residential area but its sanguinary origins have been reawakened in the full houses drawn to bullfights. Another of the city's Roman relics is the Théâtre Antique, which provides an ideal setting for open-air dance, film and music festivals in the summer.
Central Arles is a relaxed place of intimate squares, terraced brasseries perfect for sipping pastis, and men with long pomaded moustaches playing pétanque.
If you're not in town discussing the grim phenomena of John Travolta's resurrection or puckering up to the paparazzi, then you're here to people-watch. Every possible specimen is on promenade along the famous Boulevard de la Croisette: yesteryear starlets in string bikinis; vacationing Frenchmen carrying purses; wide Americans with Coppertone skins who wear their jewellery in the pool; and side-whiskered peasants in rough waistcoats and country boots wondering what all the fuss is about. After a walk, settle back at one of the many cafés and restaurants - overflowing with gold-carded patrons - which light up the area with splashy neon signs.
Just offshore is the eucalyptus and pine-covered Île Sainte Marguerite, which was exploited so effectively by Alexander Dumas in his classic novel The Man in the Iron Mask. This small island is vectored by trails and paths while its beaches are considerably less crowded than those on the mainland. Even smaller is the nearby Île Saint Honorat, once the site of a renowned and powerful monastery founded in the 5th century, and today the home of a Cistercian monastic order. Ferries run to both islands.
While the inhabitants are no longer isolated from the rest of the world, centuries of tradition prevail: houses are painted blue and white for the Virgin Mary, or green and white to symbolise hope with interiors furnished from driftwood; gnarled old women make lace crosses to represent the souls of their husbands lost at sea; small black Ushant sheep roam freely over the land; and ragoût de mouton (lamb baked under a layer of roots and herbs) remains a staple dish. Ouessant also has the world's most powerful lighthouse, good museums on local history, and stunning walks and scenery.
The island is 20km from the mainland and can be reached from the ports of Brest or Le Conquet on Brittany's north-western coast.
Forested areas make up only 12% of the park, which is streaked by rivulets and brooks fed by both springs and over 2000 mm of annual precipitation, much of which falls as snow. Protected fauna includes the brown bear (only about 15 remain), lynx, chamois, marmot and endangered birds of prey such as the bearded vulture and golden eagle.
A big favourite with rock climbers and hikers, the park has 350km of trails - some interlinked with trails in Spain - plus a good number of refuges (basic mountain huts) which are open throughout the year. Companies in nearby Pau can arrange guided treks for small groups as well as logistical support for unaccompanied hikes and cycling trips. Cauterets, in the eastern portion of the park and 30km south of Lourdes, is the easiest and most accessible entry point.
Vézelay's focal point is the Basilique Sainte Madeleine, a former abbey church that was founded in the 9th century. During the Middle Ages it housed what were believed to be the relics of St Mary Magdalene, which ensured a steady stream of pilgrims who came to commemorate her saint's day on 22 July. This tradition continues, and every year celebrations - including a procession in which the relics are paraded around town - are held. Magnificently restored, the church features a tympanum that is considered a masterpiece of Burgundian-style Romanesque architecture, grotesque carvings, sculpted capitals and an enormous nave. Behind the basilica is a park that has wonderful views of the Cure River valley and nearby villages, while walks in almost any direction will deposit you in rural loveliness.
Vézelay is 15km from Avallon, 51km from Auxerre, and lies within the 1730 sq km Parc Naturel Régional du Morvan.
Of the 40 perfumeries, only three are open to the public. The conveniently placed Fragonard is housed in a 17th-century former tannery. A tour will take you through cellars filled with stacks of soaps, bales of scented leather, and chests and crates stuffed with spices. Every stage of perfume production is evidenced here, from extraction and distillation to the work of the nez, as well as the vast number of flowers needed to make one litre of essence. At the end you'll be squirted with a few house scents, invited to purchase as many as you'd like and will leave the scene reeking.
The port city of Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, is where most begin a visit to the island. Although subject to recent modernisation, this pastel-shaded, French-Mediterranean city remains a fine place for a stroll, especially noodling along the narrow streets that wind through the older parts of town. Apart from a number of monuments and museums devoted to Napoleonic lore, you can visit the Pointe de la Parata, a black granite promontory that is famed for its sunsets, or bathe in the beaches just out of town. The island's most famous natural sight is Les Calanche, a spectacular mountain landscape of red and orange granite forms resembling both nightmarish and prosaic people, animals and buildings. When it's clear, there are terrific views of both the Mediterranean and the northern mountains. There are a series of short but challenging hiking trails nearby. The Citadelle of Bonifacio, in Corsica's extreme south, is perched atop a long, narrow promontory of limestone cliffs. The town was subjected to several cruel sieges during the Middle Ages and retains a medieval ambience by way of its cramped alleyways and flying buttresses funnelling rainwater. Calvi, also radiating from its citadel, is a beachy town in the north-west of Corsica. The coast between Calvi and l'Île Rousse, 25km to the north, is punctuated by a series of attractive beaches.
The best time to visit Corsica is during May and June, when the island is generally sunny, the wildflowers are in bloom, and it's not overtaken by a huge slew of Eurotourists. Corsica's towns are accessible by direct air connections from mainland France's large metropolitan airports, as well as from other European cities. Ferry links are cheaper, but all routes are frequently cut by strikes, sometimes for weeks at a time.
France's varied geography and climate allow for a wide ride range of outdoor pursuits. The French have taken to hiking with gusto and there are walking paths through every imaginable kind of terrain. Probably the best known trails are the sentiers de grande randonnée, long-distance footpaths designated by the letters GR. The GR 5 winds through the Alps, the GR 4 is in the Massif Central, and the popular GR 10 runs along the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Cycling is another mania in France. La Margeride in Languedoc is a particularly inviting area for mountain biking, as are the Alps, Brittany and the Pyrenees. Skiing is also popular with some of Europe's finest - and most expensive - facilities in the Alps (at Chamonix, for example), though prices tend to be much cheaper in the Pyrenees around Cauterets and the Massif Central, which is good for cross-country skiing.
The best swimming spots are found along the Atlantic coast (near La Rochelle), the Channel coast of Normandy where the D-Day landings occurred, southern Brittany, the Mediterranean (including the coast of Corsica) as well as on lakes, such as Lac d'Annecy and Lake Geneva. The French are at ease with their bodies and this is reflected in a number of venues for naturism (walking around bollock naked), mostly in Langedoc-Rousillon and the Côte d'Azur. Other activities include: rock climbing in the Alps and the Pyrenees; horse riding in Burgundy and the French Basque Country; surfing in Biarritz; rafting down the Gorge du Verdon in Provence; and hang-gliding in Languedoc. If your interests are more cerebral, you can take French language courses or learn the ins and outs of the soufflé at regional cooking classes.
Air France, France's national carrier, and scores of other airlines link Paris with every part of the globe. Other French cities with direct international air links include Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Strasbourg and Toulouse.
Paris is the country's main bus and rail hub, with services to/from every part of Europe. Buses are slower and less comfortable than trains, but they are cheaper, especially if you qualify for the 10% discount available to people under 26 or over 60 or hunt around for discount fares. The completion of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 has meant travel between England and France - on the silent, ultra-modern Eurostar rail service - is now quick and hassle-free. The Chunnel also has high-speed shuttle trains that whisk cars, motorbikes and coaches from England to France.
By sea, the quickest passenger ferries and hovercrafts to England run between Calais and Dover, and Boulogne and Folkestone. There are numerous routes linking Brittany and Normandy with England; Saint Malo is linked by car ferry and hydrofoil with Weymouth, Poole and Portsmouth, while Roscoff has ferry links to Plymouth. Ferries also ply the waters between France and Ireland (Cherbourg-Cork), the Channel Islands, Sardinia (Marseille-Porto Torres), Italy (Corsica-Genoa) and North Africa (Marseille-Algiers, Marseille-Tunis, Sète-Tangier).
France's domestic airlines link most urban centres, but flights can be quite expensive. Occasionally discount tickets will work out cheaper than overland travel so it can be worth scouting around if you've got a big hop in mind. France has an excellent rail network, operated by the state-owned SCNF (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer), which reaches almost every part of the country. Thanks to the high-speed TGV (train à grande vitesse), travel between some cities (eg Paris and Lyon) is faster and easier by rail than by air.
Inter-regional bus services are limited but buses are used extensively for short-distance travel within regions, especially in rural areas with relatively few train lines (eg Brittany and Normandy). On longer trips, buses tend to be much slower but slightly cheaper than trains; on short runs, buses are generally slower and more expensive.
Having your own vehicle can be expensive, and is sure to be inconvenient in city centres where parking and traffic are problematic. Be warned that most driving in France is done with the horn, or `French Brake Pedal', as it is often called. As a rule of thumb, don't be timid or overly respectful once on the road as this technique will often confuse the natives. Renting a car is expensive if you walk into an office and hire a car on the spot but prebooked and prepaid promotional rates are reasonable.
France is a superb country for motorcycle touring, with winding roads of good quality and lots of stunning scenery. It's also an eminently cyclable country, due largely to its extensive network of secondary and tertiary roads which are relatively lightly trafficked. Another relaxing way of seeing France is to cruise its canals and navigable rivers by houseboat. These usually accommodate four to 12 passengers, and can be rented for a weekend or several weeks.
Local transport includes the cheap and efficient Metro and RER underground networks in Paris (there are also metro lines in other cities), trams, buses, téléphériques in the French Alps, expensive taxis (especially outside the major cities), and river shuttles.
Health risks: Your main risks are likely to be from sunburn, foot blisters, insect bites, and upset stomachs through over-eating and drinking.
Currency: Franc
Time: GMT/UTC plus one hour
Electricity: 220V, 50Hz
Weights & measures: Metric (see the conversion table.)
Relative costs:
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France Atlas |
