The Rough Guide to France 10 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

1400 Pages·2007·14.44 MB·English

by  Rough Guides

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The Rough Guide to
France
written and researched by
David Abram, Andrew Benson, Ruth Blackmore,
Brian Catlos, Hugh Cleary, Belinda Dixon,
Jan Dodd, Marc Dubin, Kevin Fitzgerald,
Sarah Gear, Daniel Lund, James McConnachie,
Neville Walker, Greg Ward and Nick Woodford
NEW YORK • LONDON • DELHI
www.roughguides.com
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Contents
Colour section 1–24 H Languedoc ........................ 839
I The Massif Central ............ 899
Introduction ............................... 6 J The Alps and Jura ............ 957
Where to go ............................... 8 K The Rhône valley and
When to go .............................. 12 Provence......................... 1023
Things not to miss ................... 14 L The Côte d’Azur .............. 1119
M Corsica ........................... 1201
Basics 25–80
Contexts 1265–1337
Getting there............................ 27
Getting around ......................... 35 History ................................. 1267
Accommodation....................... 45 Art .................................... . 1291
Food and drink ........................ 50 Architecture ......................... 1305
The media................................ 55 Cinema ................................ 1313
Sports and outdoor activitie s... 59 Books and maps.................. 1328
Living in France ....................... 65
Culture and etiquette ............... 67 Language 1339–1355
Shopping ................................. 68
Travelling with children............. 69 Travel store 1357–1360
Travel essentials ...................... 70
Guide 81–1264 Small print & Index 1361–1384
1 Paris and around................. 83 Cafés, bistros and
2 The north .......................... 217 brasseries colour
3 Alsace and Lorraine .......... 293 section following p.168
4 Normandy ......................... 337
5
6 BThriettaLnoyir e.. ......................... 40897 cWoalolkuirnsge icnt iFonrafnoclleowing
7 Burgundy .......................... 561 p.808
8 Poitou-Charentes and the
Atlantic coast .................... 615
9 The Dordogne, Limousin Festive France
and Lot.............................. 679 colour section following
G The Pyrenees .................... 755 p.1048
3
Spectators at the Tour de France Driving through the dappling, Languedoc
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| CONTENTS |
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Introduction to
France
The sheer physical diversity of France would be hard to
exhaust in a lifetime of visits. Landscapes range from
the fretted coasts of Brittany and the limestone hills of
Provence to the canyons of the Pyrenees and the half-
moon bays of Corsica, and from the lushly wooded valleys
of the Dordogne and the gentle meadows of the Loire
valley to the glaciated peaks of the Alps. Each region looks
and feels different, has its own style of architecture, its
own characteristic food and often its own dialect. Though
the French word pays is the term for a whole country,
people frequently refer to their own region as mon pays –
my country – and this strong sense of regional identity has
persisted despite centuries of centralizing governments,
from Louis XIV to de Gaulle.
France, and for all the millions o f Frenc h
people that live in cities, the idea persists that
theirs is a rural country. The importance of
the land reverberates throughout French cul-
ture, manifestin g itself in areas as diverse as
regional pride in local cuisine and the state’s ferce defence of Europe’s
agricultural subsidies. Perhaps the most stri king feature of the French
countryside is the sense of s pace. There are hu ge tracts of woodland
and undeveloped land without a house in sight, and, away from the main
urban centres, hundreds of towns and villages have changed only slowly
6 and organically over the years, their old houses and streets intact, as much
a part of the natural landscape as the rivers, hills and felds .
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Despite this image of pastoral tranquillity,
Fact file
France’s history is notable for its extraordi -
nary vigour. For more than a thousand years • With a land area of
the country has been in the van guard of 547,000 square kilometres,
European development, and the accumula- France is the second
largest country in Europe;
tion of wealth and experience is evident
its population of around
everywhere in the astonis hing variety of
60 million is less only than
things to see, from the Dordogne’s prehis- its European neighbours,
toric cave-paintings and the Roman monu- Germany and the UK.
ments of the south, to the Gothic cathedrals • Now in its Fifth
of the north, the châteaux of the Loire, and Republic, France has a
long secular republican
the cutting-edge architecture of the grands
tradition dating back to
projets in Paris. This legacy of history and
the Revolution of 1789.
culture – la patrimoine – is so widely dis-
Yet the majority of the
persed across the land that even the briefest population is Roman
of stays will leave the visitor with a powerful Catholic – notionally,
at least – and there’s
sense of France’s past.
a substantial Muslim
The importance of these traditions is felt
minority of around 5–10
deeply by the French state, w hich fghts to
percent.
preserve and develop its national culture
• The Government
perhaps harder than any other country in consists of a directly
the world, and private companies, who also elected president and a
strive to maintain French traditions in are- two-house parliament.
As a nuclear power and
nas as diverse as haute couture, pottery and, of
G8-member, and with a
course, food. The fruits of these eforts are
permanent seat on the
evident in the subsidized arts, notably the United Nations Security
flm industry, and in the lavishly endowed Council, France retains a
and innovative museums and ga lleries. strong international profile.
• Annual GDP per capita
is around US$30,000,
making France one of the
world’s richer countries,
but unemployment is a
persistent problem, at
around 9 percent. Taxes
are high, at around 45
percent of GDP, but so is
social spending, at almost
30 percent.
• France remains by far
the most popular tourist
destination in the world,
with some 75 million 7
visitors each year.
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Café, St-Germain, Paris
From colonial history to fshin g techni ques, aeroplane desi gn to textiles ,
and migrant shepherds to manicure, these collections can be found across
the nation, but, inevitably, frst place must go to the fabulous displays of fne
art in Paris, a city which has nurtured more than its share of the fnest cre -
ative artists of the last century and a half, both French – Monet and Matisse
for example – and foreign, such as Picasso and Van Gogh.
There are all kinds of pegs on which to hang a holiday in France: a city,
a region, a river, a mountain range, gastronomy, cathedrals, ch âteaux. All
that open space means t here’s endless scope for outdoor activities – from
walking, canoeing and cycling to skiing and sailing – but if you need more
urban stimuli – clubs, shops, fashion, movies, music – then the great cities
provide them in abundance.
Where to go
ravelling around France is easy. Restaurants and hotels prolifer-
ate, many of them relatively inexpensive when compared with other
developed Western European countries. Train services are admirably
8 Tefcient, as is the road network – es pecially the (toll- paying) auto-
routes – and cyclists are much admired and encouraged . Information is
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St-Cirque-Lapopie
| INTRODUCTION | WHERE TO GO | WHEN TO GO