France is one of those countries that somehow manages to exceed expectations every single time you visit — and I say that as someone who has been many, many times and still finds themselves utterly surprised around every corner.
It’s easy to think of France as just Paris. Paris is magnificent, Paris is iconic, and Paris absolutely deserves every word written about it. But if Paris is the only city you tick off in France, you are — and I say this with the most genuine travel affection — doing yourself a serious disservice.
France is one of the largest and most geographically diverse countries in Western Europe, and that diversity spills into every aspect of its cities: the architecture, the food, the pace of life, the local culture, even the weather. The sun-drenched Roman cities of the south feel worlds apart from the misty Gothic grandeur of Normandy. The sophisticated wine culture of Bordeaux is a completely different experience from the wild, coastal energy of Marseille. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you’ve got medieval fortresses, lavender-scented Provençal towns, vibrant student cities and some of the finest food you’ll eat anywhere on earth.
This list covers 18 of the very best cities in France to visit — the legends that live up to every bit of their reputation, and a handful of quieter gems that most first-timers completely overlook. Wherever your France trip takes you, I hope this helps you plan something brilliant.
Baguette in hand. Let’s go.
1. Nîmes — The Most Beautiful Roman City You’ve Probably Never Considered
Let me start with what might be the most underrated city on this entire list: Nîmes.
Perched in the sun-baked countryside of the South of France, between Montpellier and Avignon, Nîmes is a Roman city of extraordinary quality — and it consistently gets overshadowed by its flashier neighbours despite having some of the best-preserved Roman monuments anywhere outside of Italy. If ancient history, warm southern light and a city that feels genuinely lived-in rather than staged for tourists appeals to you, Nîmes should absolutely be on your list.
The star attraction is the Arènes de Nîmes — a Roman amphitheatre built around 70 AD that seats 24,000 people and is, remarkably, still in active use today for concerts and bullfights. Standing inside it and running your hands along stone that has been here for nearly two thousand years is the kind of experience that recalibrates your sense of time completely. It’s one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres in existence, and yet somehow it doesn’t have the crushing crowds of the Colosseum in Rome.
Just a short walk away, the Maison Carrée sits in the middle of the city like a perfectly preserved Roman temple dropped there by accident. Built around 16 BC and dedicated to the grandsons of Emperor Augustus, it is considered the most complete Roman temple still standing in the world. Napoleon was so taken with it that he reportedly used it as inspiration for the Madeleine church in Paris. Just standing in front of it and considering what has happened in the world since it was built is genuinely moving.
For one of the most spectacular Roman engineering achievements you’ll ever see, make the short trip from Nîmes to the Pont du Gard — a Roman aqueduct bridge built nearly two thousand years ago that stands over 48 metres tall and stretches across the Gardon River in three magnificent tiers. You can kayak on the river below it, which gives you one of the most surreal and beautiful perspectives on Roman engineering imaginable. On a hot southern French afternoon with the light bouncing off the ancient stone and the river glittering below — it’s honestly one of the finest sights in France.
Back in the city, the old town around the Jardins de la Fontaine — one of the oldest public gardens in Europe, built around an ancient Roman spring and sanctuary — is perfect for a slow afternoon wander. The gardens are elegant and formal, the stone warm and golden in the afternoon sun, and the whole area has a tranquil, unhurried quality that the bigger French cities can sometimes lose.
For a place to stay in Nîmes, Jardins Secrets is extraordinary — a traveller’s inn dating from the 1700s with the most beautiful hidden garden and pool that make it feel like a genuine refuge after a day of exploring. It’s the kind of hotel that makes you want to book an extra night.
Don’t miss: The Arènes de Nîmes, the Maison Carrée, the Jardins de la Fontaine, the Pont du Gard (a must-do), and the old town lanes around the Cathedral.
2. Carcassonne — The Medieval Fortress City That Looks Like a Fairy Tale
There are cities that have good medieval old towns and then there is Carcassonne, which has an entire medieval fortified city sitting on a hilltop above the modern town like something from a fantasy novel. The two are not comparable.
Carcassonne sits in the Languedoc region of southern France, between Toulouse and Nîmes, and the moment you see the Cité de Carcassonne rising above the landscape — all towers and battlements and double defensive walls glowing golden in the afternoon sun — you understand completely why it has UNESCO World Heritage Status. This is one of the most spectacular medieval fortified cities in the world, and it is, frankly, almost unfairly beautiful.
The Cité is a complete medieval world unto itself: 52 towers, 3 kilometres of ramparts, a beautiful inner castle (Château Comtal), a Romanesque basilica, and streets full of craft shops, restaurants and the general pleasant chaos of a living, working community inside ancient walls. Walking the ramparts with views over the surrounding vineyards and the snow-dusted Pyrenees on the horizon in winter is genuinely spectacular. It can get busy in peak summer, so arriving early or staying overnight inside the Cité — when the day-trippers leave and the whole place takes on an atmospheric, torch-lit quality — is absolutely worth it.
The lower modern town (Ville Basse) is often overlooked entirely but has its own charm, particularly around the central market square. And if you have time for a day trip, the ruined Château de Quéribus — a Cathar castle perched impossibly high on a rocky peak in the hills south of Carcassonne, with views stretching to the Mediterranean on a clear day — is one of the most dramatic sights in the whole region.
Carcassonne is also a natural partner for Toulouse — the two cities are only about an hour apart by train and combine beautifully on a longer southern France itinerary.
Don’t miss: The Cité de Carcassonne and its ramparts, Château Comtal, the Basilica of Saints Nazaire and Celse inside the Cité, and a day trip to Château de Quéribus.
3. Bordeaux — The Wine Capital of the World (And So Much More Besides)
Bordeaux is one of those cities that people tend to approach with a single agenda — wine — and then get completely ambushed by everything else it turns out to have going for it.
Yes, Bordeaux is the undisputed wine capital of the world. The vineyards that surround the city — Saint-Émilion, Pauillac, Margaux, Sauternes — produce some of the most celebrated wines in human history, and the city itself is deeply, comprehensively shaped by that culture. But Bordeaux is also a genuinely beautiful, architecturally extraordinary city that was largely redesigned in the 18th century into one of the finest examples of classical French urban planning in the country. In 2007, UNESCO inscribed the entire historic centre — the largest urban World Heritage Site in France — in recognition of that architectural coherence. Walking through the grand boulevards and stone-faced buildings of central Bordeaux on a sunny morning with a coffee in hand is genuinely one of the pleasures of French travel.
La Cité du Vin is the city’s spectacular contemporary wine museum, housed in a swooping, golden building designed to evoke wine swirling in a glass. It covers the entire global history of wine across permanent and temporary exhibitions, and the entrance ticket includes a tasting session in the rooftop belvedere with panoramic views over the Garonne River. It’s genuinely excellent — interesting and well-designed even if you’re not a serious wine person, and a genuine revelation if you are.
The Porte Cailhau — a 15th-century city gate built to celebrate a French military victory — is one of those fairy-tale architectural moments that France specialises in: ornate, slightly theatrical, and improbably well-preserved in the middle of a functioning city. Nearby, the Miroir d’Eau (Mirror of Water) on the Place de la Bourse is one of the most photographed spots in France — a vast, flat sheet of water that reflects the elegant 18th-century facade of the exchange building beside it, and turns into a magical mist installation that children (and adults, let’s be honest) can walk through.
The Saturday market at the Marché des Capucins — Bordeaux’s main covered food market — is everything a French market should be: fragrant, abundant, slightly overwhelming and absolutely essential.
For a day trip, Saint-Émilion is only about 45 minutes from Bordeaux by train and is one of the most beautiful small towns in France: medieval stone lanes, a monolithic church carved entirely underground, and vineyards rolling away in every direction. Don’t leave without having a glass of wine in the town square in the afternoon sun. It’s one of those small, perfect travel moments.
Don’t miss: La Cité du Vin, the Miroir d’Eau, Porte Cailhau, the Marché des Capucins, a wine tour of the surrounding châteaux, and Saint-Émilion for a day trip.
4. Lille — The Charming Northern Gem That Deserves Far More Attention
Lille tends to get treated as a stopover city — somewhere you pass through on the Eurostar between London and Paris, or a base for a quick Belgian border run. That’s a real shame, because Lille is a genuinely lovely city that rewards a proper two or three day stay in a way that surprises almost everyone who gives it a chance.
Located in the very north of France, right on the border with Belgium, Lille has a fascinating dual identity. It’s unmistakably French in its architecture, its food culture and its general approach to café life, but it also has a distinctly Flemish influence woven through it — in the stepped gable facades of the old town buildings, in the Flemish-influenced food (carbonnade flamande, waterzooi, the most extraordinary waffles), and in a certain northern industriousness that sits alongside the French appreciation for pleasure in a very appealing combination.
The Vieux-Lille (old town) is the most beautiful part of the city and one of the finest preserved historic city centres in northern France — all warm terracotta brick, ornate facades, cobbled streets and grand 17th-century townhouses that speak of Lille’s former importance as a major European trading city. Wandering through it on a weekend morning, stopping for coffee and pastries at one of the neighbourhood cafés, is a complete pleasure.
Place du Général de Gaulle (La Grand Place) is the beating heart of the city — a grand, lively square surrounded by beautiful buildings, including the spectacular La Voix du Nord facade with its gilded statue on top. The square hosts markets, events and the daily rhythms of a city that genuinely uses its public spaces.
For the best sweet experience in Lille — possibly one of the best in France — find your way to Pâtisserie Méert on Rue Esquermoise, which has been making its famous gaufres (a distinctive thin, vanilla-cream-filled waffle) since 1761. It is an institution in the most literal sense. The shop is beautiful, the waffles are extraordinary, and the hot chocolate is the kind that makes you want to sit in the warm and not leave.
Lille also hosts the Grande Braderie de Lille in early September — one of the largest flea markets in Europe, when the entire city turns into one vast open-air market for a weekend. If your visit coincides with it, it’s an unmissable experience.
Don’t miss: Vieux-Lille and its Flemish baroque architecture, Place du Général de Gaulle, Pâtisserie Méert, the Palais des Beaux-Arts (one of the finest art museums in France outside Paris), and the Grande Braderie in September.
5. Montpellier — The Vibrant Southern City That Has Absolutely Everything
Montpellier sits near the southern tip of France, not far from the Mediterranean coast, and it is one of those cities that manages to combine history, culture, natural beauty and a brilliant social atmosphere into something that feels effortlessly perfect for a city break.
This is a university city — home to one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in 1289 — and that youthful energy permeates everything. The streets are lively, the café terraces are full from mid-morning onwards, the bars do good business well into the evening, and the whole place has a warmth and sociability that the South of France specialises in and that never gets old.
The historic centre (Écusson) — so called because its shape resembles a heraldic shield — is a dense tangle of medieval and classical architecture, beautiful squares and fountains, and streets that seem designed for exactly the kind of aimless wandering that produces the best travel moments. The Cathédrale Saint-Pierre is the centrepiece: a Gothic cathedral with an extraordinary porch supported by two great conical towers that give it a slightly theatrical, fortress-like quality unlike any other cathedral in France.
The Promenade du Peyrou — a grand, tree-lined esplanade at the western edge of the old town, anchored by a triumphal arch and a royal equestrian statue — is one of the most pleasant places in the city for a sunny afternoon. The views from the elevated terrace across the city and towards the distant sea are lovely, and the whole area has a stately, unhurried elegance.
For a more contemporary Montpellier experience, the Marché du Lez on the edge of the city is a brilliant concept: a converted industrial space turned into a permanent street food and market complex, with food trucks, local producers, pop-up events and a generally creative, buzzy atmosphere that draws a young, local crowd. It’s the kind of place that fills up on a Saturday afternoon and doesn’t empty until late evening.
Montpellier is also brilliantly connected — the beach at Palavas-les-Flots is 15 minutes away by tram, the Camargue wetlands are an easy day trip, and Nîmes and Avignon are both within an hour by train.
Don’t miss: The Écusson historic centre, Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, Promenade du Peyrou, the Fabre Museum for art, Marché du Lez, and the Mediterranean beaches nearby.
6. Aix-en-Provence — Elegant, Artistic, and Soaked in Provençal Light
If there is a city in France that embodies the word élégance more completely than Aix-en-Provence, I haven’t found it.
Located in the Provence region of southern France, just 30 kilometres north of Marseille, Aix is a city of extraordinary beauty — wide, plane-tree-lined boulevards, honey-coloured stone facades, splashing fountains around every corner (the city has over a hundred of them, earning it the nickname City of a Thousand Fountains), and a quality of light that has been attracting artists for centuries.
Most famously, Paul Cézanne was born here, spent most of his life here, and painted the surrounding landscape — particularly the distinctive profile of Mont Sainte-Victoire — obsessively throughout his career. The city honours that legacy beautifully: you can visit Cézanne’s studio (Atelier Cézanne) on the edge of the old town, preserved largely as he left it at his death in 1906, with his tools, his coat, his collection of objects — the same bottles and skulls that appear in his still lifes — arranged as though he’s just stepped out. It’s an intimate, moving experience, and the studio sits at the end of a lovely uphill walk through the residential old town.
The main artery of the city is the Cours Mirabeau — a broad, magnificent boulevard lined with four rows of plane trees, grand 17th and 18th-century mansions on one side, and a continuous row of cafés, bookshops and patisseries on the other. The Café des Deux Garçons on the Cours Mirabeau has been a literary and artistic institution since 1792 and is the kind of place where sitting with a coffee for an hour watching Aix go by feels completely justified.
The Quartier Mazarin south of the Cours Mirabeau is a beautifully preserved 17th-century neighbourhood of aristocratic hôtels particuliers (grand private mansions) and quiet squares that feels like a step back into the Ancien Régime. The Hôtel de Caumont — one of the finest of these mansions, now converted into an arts centre — is well worth visiting.
The daily market on the Place Richelme and the larger Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday markets on the Place de Verdun are classic Provençal affairs — fragrant with herbs, lavender sachets, local honey, tapenade and fresh produce from the surrounding countryside. If you leave Aix without spending at least an hour at the market, you haven’t really arrived.
Don’t miss: Cézanne’s Studio, the Cours Mirabeau, the Quartier Mazarin, the Cathedral Saint-Sauveur, the Pavillon Vendôme gardens, and the Saturday market.
7. Paris — The City That Invented the Idea of the Perfect City
Paris was always going to be on this list, and honestly, there was never any question about where to start talking about it: you simply cannot discuss the best cities in France without Paris sitting right at the centre of the conversation.
Here is the thing about Paris that I find most remarkable — it lives up to it. All of it. Every version of Paris you’ve constructed in your imagination from films and books and photographs and the stories of everyone who’s been before: it lives up to all of those. The Eiffel Tower at dusk. The impossibly beautiful Haussmann boulevards. The croissants. The river. The bridges. The way the whole city seems to have been designed not just to function but to be looked at and appreciated and walked through slowly with coffee in hand. Paris is the one city in the world that has fully committed to the idea that beauty is a legitimate civic priority, and the result is genuinely extraordinary.
The Eiffel Tower is one of those sights that somehow still manages to be more affecting in person than in any image you’ve seen of it — partly because of its scale (it is simply enormous in a way that photographs don’t fully convey), and partly because it appears and disappears as you move through the city, framed by an apartment building here, glimpsed at the end of an avenue there, until suddenly you turn a corner and it’s directly above you. Go at sunset. Go again at night when it sparkles for the first ten minutes of each hour. Both are non-negotiable.
Notre-Dame de Paris — following its devastating fire in 2019 and its remarkable restoration — has now reopened, and seeing the cathedral returned to its glory is one of the great contemporary travel moments available in Europe. The Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay between them contain two of the greatest art collections in human history, and could occupy a week of serious attention without exhausting themselves. The Centre Pompidou for modern art, the Musée Rodin for sculpture, the Musée de l’Orangerie for Monet’s Water Lilies — Paris’s museum offering is simply without equal in the world.
But some of the best Paris happens away from the landmarks entirely. The morning market at Campo de’ Fiori — actually, the morning market at virtually any Paris neighbourhood market — is a masterclass in how a city should approach food. The Marché d’Aligre in the 12th arrondissement is one of the most vibrant and authentic in the city. The Marché des Enfants Rouges in the Marais is Paris’s oldest covered market and one of its most beloved.
Wander through the Marais for the best concentration of art galleries, independent boutiques, excellent falafel (Rue des Rosiers), and the beautifully preserved Place des Vosges — the oldest planned square in Paris, built in 1612, and still perfect. The Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood for literary history and excellent café sitting. Montmartre for the Sacré-Cœur, the artists’ square of the Place du Tertre, and the genuinely lovely streets below the hill around Abbesses that most tourists never reach. The Seine by river cruise at sunset. Versailles for a day trip that will comprehensively rearrange your understanding of royal excess.
And Paris’s small food pleasures: a proper croissant from a neighbourhood boulangerie at 8am, a crêpe from a street stall in the Latin Quarter, a glass of Burgundy at a zinc bar with nowhere to be. These are the things you remember longest.
Don’t miss: The Eiffel Tower (especially at sunset and at night), Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Marais, Montmartre, a Seine river cruise, Versailles for a day trip, and as many neighbourhood markets as you can fit in.
8. Lyon — France’s Gastronomic Capital and One of Its Finest Cities
Lyon is the city that food lovers come to France for, and the city that everyone else discovers on arrival and immediately adds to the top of their list for next time.
France’s third-largest city sits at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers in east-central France, and it has a depth and richness — historically, culturally, gastronomically — that takes a little time to reveal itself but then gives generously once it does. Romans founded the city of Lugdunum here over two thousand years ago and made it the capital of Roman Gaul, and those ancient roots are woven through the modern city in ways that make Lyon feel genuinely different from anywhere else in France.
The Vieux-Lyon (old town) on the west bank of the Saône is one of the largest Renaissance districts in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of the most beautiful historic neighbourhoods in France — all ochre and terracotta facades, Renaissance doorways, and the extraordinary traboules that run through it. Traboules are covered passageways that run through the interiors of buildings, connecting one street to another through a series of courtyards and stairways, and were used historically by silk workers to transport their goods sheltered from the rain. There are over 300 of them in Lyon, and exploring them — ducking through unmarked doorways into sudden courtyards, discovering a Renaissance staircase or a hidden garden — is one of the great urban exploration pleasures in France.
The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière watches over the city from its hilltop above Vieux-Lyon with an almost theatrical grandeur — all white stone, gold mosaic and elaborate Byzantine decoration, it’s one of the most extraordinary church interiors in France. Take the funicular up for the view over the city spread below and the rivers catching the light.
But everything in Lyon, ultimately, comes back to food. Lyon is considered the gastronomic capital of France — which, in a country that takes food as seriously as France does, is a statement of almost staggering ambition. The city is home to more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than anywhere in the world, and the traditional bouchon lyonnais — a specifically Lyonnais style of bistro serving traditional local dishes like quenelles, andouillette, and tablier de sapeur — is an institution that feels as essential to understanding the city as any cathedral.
Don’t miss: Vieux-Lyon and the traboules, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, the Musée des Confluences, a meal at a traditional bouchon, the Halles Paul Bocuse food market, and a river cruise at sunset.
9. Marseille — Raw, Brilliant, and Completely Itself
Marseille is not for everyone. I think it’s important to say that upfront. But for the travellers it is for — and there are many — it is one of the most electrifying, genuine and unforgettable cities in France.
France’s second-largest city and its oldest, founded by Greek traders around 600 BC, Marseille sits on the Mediterranean coast and has been a port city, a trading city, a contested city and a complicated city for well over two and a half thousand years. That history lives in it visibly. Marseille is not polished. It doesn’t particularly try to be. What it is, is entirely, unapologetically itself — loud, chaotic, diverse, passionate and alive in a way that feels completely different from anywhere else in France.
The Vieux-Port (Old Port) is the heart and soul of the city — a working harbour ringed by restaurants, fish stalls and café terraces, where the morning fish market has been running daily for centuries and the ferry boats to the offshore islands depart from the same quays they always have. The iron pavilions at each end of the port, designed by Norman Foster, are spectacular pieces of contemporary architecture that sit alongside the 17th-century forts framing the harbour entrance in a very Marseille way: dramatic, confident and not particularly interested in your approval.
The Calanques are what make Marseille truly extraordinary. A national park of dramatic limestone cliffs, hidden coves and impossibly turquoise Mediterranean waters beginning literally at the city’s edge — you can hike into them from the city limits or take a boat trip along the coast to see them from the water. The contrast between the urban noise of Marseille proper and the wild, silent beauty of the Calanques twenty minutes later is genuinely startling.
Notre-Dame de la Garde — the massive neo-Byzantine basilica on the highest hill in Marseille, topped by a golden Virgin Mary visible from miles at sea — gives you the best panoramic view of the city, the coast, and the offshore islands, and has watched over Marseille’s sailors and fishermen for centuries.
The Le Panier quarter, the old Greek town on the hill above the port, is Marseille’s most characterful neighbourhood: steep, narrow streets, street art, small galleries, local restaurants and an atmosphere that’s slightly chaotic and completely charming.
Don’t miss: The Vieux-Port morning fish market, the Calanques (by boat or on foot), Notre-Dame de la Garde, Le Panier quarter, MuCEM (the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations), and a proper Bouillabaisse in a traditional restaurant.
10. Nantes — The Surprisingly Creative City on the Loire
Nantes tends to fly under most travellers’ radars, positioned in the Loire-Atlantique region of western France at the point where the Loire River meets the sea. That relative obscurity is entirely undeserved, because Nantes is one of the most interesting, creative and enjoyable cities in France to spend a few days in.
The city has reinvented itself over the past two decades from a post-industrial port city into one of the most culturally dynamic cities in France, and the results are genuinely impressive. The Les Machines de l’Île project on the former Île de Nantes shipyards is one of the most extraordinary public art installations in Europe — a fantasy world of giant mechanical creatures inspired by Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci, including an enormous walking mechanical elephant that carries passengers through the island while smaller mechanical insects flutter above and a vast carrousel of marine creatures rises three storeys into the air. It is completely bonkers in the most wonderful possible way, and it gets my vote as one of the most fun things to do in any French city.
Jules Verne was born in Nantes, and the city celebrates that heritage warmly — the Musée Jules Verne is a small, charming museum in a beautiful townhouse with views over the Loire, dedicated to the life and imagination of the author. It’s genuinely lovely.
The Château des Ducs de Bretagne — a massive, beautifully preserved medieval fortress right in the heart of the city, complete with moat and drawbridge — houses the excellent Musée d’Histoire de Nantes inside its walls. The combination of spectacular medieval architecture and well-designed modern museum is very well done.
The Passage Pommeraye is one of the most beautiful covered shopping arcades in France — a triple-height, ornately decorated 19th-century passage with theatrical staircases and elaborate ironwork that feels like stepping into a different century. Even if you’re not shopping, it’s worth going in just to stand and look upward.
Don’t miss: Les Machines de l’Île (especially the mechanical elephant — do not miss the mechanical elephant), the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, the Musée Jules Verne, the Passage Pommeraye, and the île de Nantes for contemporary art and architecture.
11. Avignon — Where the Popes Lived and the History Never Ends
Avignon is one of those French cities that carries its history so visibly and so dramatically that it never quite lets you forget where you are or what happened here.
For most of the 14th century, Avignon was the seat of the Catholic Church — the popes relocated here from Rome in 1309 and stayed for nearly 70 years, transforming a modest southern French town into one of the most powerful, wealthy and culturally sophisticated cities in Christendom. The evidence of that extraordinary period is still, remarkably, the dominant visual experience of visiting Avignon today.
The Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) is the most obvious and most spectacular expression of that legacy: an enormous Gothic palace — the largest medieval Gothic building in the world — that dominates the centre of the city with an almost intimidating scale. Walking through its vast halls, chapels and reception rooms gives you a genuine sense of the wealth, power and ambition concentrated here in the 14th century. The frescos in the papal apartments, painted by Matteo Giovannetti, are beautiful and remarkably well-preserved.
The Pont Saint-Bénézet — the famous “Pont d’Avignon” of the old French song — juts out into the Rhône in one of the most recognisable and slightly melancholy sights in France, ending abruptly mid-river where it was broken by floods in the 17th century. Visiting it is one of those travel pleasures that is equal parts history lesson and poetic contemplation of time.
The entire historic city centre is enclosed within magnificent 14th-century ramparts that are almost completely intact — walking the circuit of the walls gives you a wonderful sense of the city’s scale and its defended, self-contained identity. The Rocher des Doms gardens on the hilltop above the Palais des Papes have wonderful views over the Rhône and the Pont.
In July, Avignon transforms completely for the Festival d’Avignon — one of the oldest and largest performing arts festivals in the world, when the entire city becomes a stage, every courtyard, square and ancient wall hosting theatre, dance and performance. If your dates align with it, it’s an extraordinary thing to be part of.
Don’t miss: The Palais des Papes, the Pont Saint-Bénézet, the city ramparts, the Rocher des Doms gardens, the Cathedral Notre-Dame des Doms, and the Festival d’Avignon in July.
12. Nice — The Queen of the French Riviera
Nice is one of those cities where every cliché about it turns out to be completely true, and that’s a wonderful thing to discover.
The capital of the French Riviera sits on the Mediterranean coast in the very southeast corner of France, backed by the Alps and facing a bay of genuinely extraordinary blue water — the Baie des Anges — that the light hits in a way that has been attracting artists, aristocrats and sun-seekers since the 18th century. Matisse lived here for the last decade of his life. Chagall spent his final years here. The quality of the light is so particular and so celebrated that it has its own name and its own school of painting. That’s not marketing. That’s just the truth of standing on the Promenade des Anglais in the morning and watching the Mediterranean do its thing.
The Vieille Ville (old town) is Italian in character as much as it is French — all narrow, shaded streets, baroque churches, ochre facades and the most vibrant daily food market in the south of France at the Cours Saleya. The flower market here is extraordinary; the food stalls are laden with Provençal specialities — socca (a chickpea pancake cooked in a wood-fired oven), pissaladière (a Niçoise onion tart), fresh pasta and the most beautiful local vegetables. Arriving at the Cours Saleya on a Tuesday morning is one of the great small travel experiences of southern France.
The Musée Matisse in the beautiful Cimiez neighbourhood on the hill above the city has the largest collection of Matisse’s work in the world, displayed in a gorgeous 17th-century Genoese villa. The Musée National Marc Chagall below it is another essential stop.
The Colline du Château — reached by a short hike or a lift — gives you one of the great panoramic views of the French Riviera: the sweep of the Baie des Anges, the old town rooftops, the port and the distant mountains all laid out in one astonishing composition.
Nice is also your gateway to the rest of the Côte d’Azur — Monaco is 20 minutes away, Antibes and Cannes are easily reachable, and the perched villages of the arrière-pays (hinterland) inland are some of the most beautiful in France.
Don’t miss: The Promenade des Anglais, the Vieille Ville and Cours Saleya market, the Colline du Château for views, Musée Matisse, Musée Chagall, the Cathedral Sainte-Réparate, and the Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas for something completely unexpected.
13. Toulouse — The Pink City of the Southwest
Toulouse has a nickname — La Ville Rose (The Pink City) — and the moment you see it, you understand exactly why. The entire city seems to be built from a warm, terracotta-pink brick that turns absolutely luminous in the southern light, and the effect is one of the most distinctive and beautiful urban palettes in France.
France’s fourth-largest city sits in the southwest, between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and it has a character that feels genuinely different from anywhere else in France: southern warmth, a large and lively student population, strong local identity, excellent food and a passionate rugby culture that permeates everything from café conversation to the murals on the walls.
The Basilique Saint-Sernin is the largest Romanesque church in the world still standing — a vast, brick pilgrim church on the Camino de Santiago route, with five-aisled nave and an extraordinary octagonal bell tower that rises above the city skyline. It’s genuinely spectacular in scale and in the quality of its early medieval sculpture. The Couvent des Jacobins — a Dominican convent from the 13th century, with the most beautiful Gothic church interior in Toulouse and a famous palmier palm vault in the choir — is equally extraordinary and far less visited than it deserves.
The Place du Capitole is one of the finest civic squares in France: a vast, regular square surrounded by the pink brick of the Hôtel de Capitole and lined with café terraces, filling up with locals on weekend mornings in a way that is a genuine pleasure to be part of. The Marché Victor Hugo inside the old covered market hall is excellent for Gascon specialities — duck confit, cassoulet, foie gras, Armagnac. This is serious food territory.
Toulouse is also the natural base for a day trip to Carcassonne, which is only about 90 minutes away — the two cities combine beautifully on any southwest France itinerary.
Don’t miss: Basilique Saint-Sernin, Couvent des Jacobins, Place du Capitole, Marché Victor Hugo, the Canal du Midi, and a day trip to Carcassonne.
14. Annecy — The Alpine Town With the Most Beautiful Old Town in France
Annecy isn’t always on the standard France itinerary, and that is one of the more inexplicable oversights in European travel planning, because it is one of the most beautiful towns in the entire country.
Tucked into the French Alps in the Haute-Savoie region, at the northern tip of Lac d’Annecy — widely regarded as the cleanest lake in Europe — Annecy is the kind of place that makes you genuinely question why you’ve spent so many trips in cities when this exists.
The old town (Vieil Annecy) is a perfectly preserved medieval quarter of canals, flower-draped bridges, pastel-coloured facades and arcaded streets that are so beautiful they’re almost disorienting. The Palais de l’Isle — a 12th-century castle built on an island in the middle of the Thiou canal — is one of the most photographed buildings in France, and entirely deservedly so. The view of it from the Pont des Amours (Bridge of Loves), with the canal and the old town facades reflected in the water and the mountains rising beyond, is one of the great postcard moments of French travel.
The lake itself is extraordinary: a vast expanse of crystalline Alpine water ringed by green mountains, genuinely swimmable in summer, dotted with villages on its shores, and surrounded by cycling paths that make a full circuit of the lake one of the finest half-day rides in France. Take a boat across the lake to the village of Talloires, widely considered one of the most beautiful villages in France, for lunch with one of the great lakeside views.
Annecy is also perfectly positioned for day trips into the surrounding Alps — Mont Blanc is only about an hour away, and the ski resorts of the Haute-Savoie are all within reach in winter.
Don’t miss: The Vieil Annecy old town, the Palais de l’Isle, a walk or cycle along the lake, swimming in Lac d’Annecy in summer, a boat trip to Talloires, and the château museum overlooking the old town.
15. Strasbourg — The Perfectly Preserved Alsatian Capital
Strasbourg sits in the Alsace region of eastern France on the Rhine border with Germany, and it has a character that is genuinely unique in France — shaped equally by French and German culture, tradition and architecture into something that feels like neither and both at once.
The city’s extraordinary Grande Île historic centre — an island in the Ill River — is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and contains some of the finest medieval and Renaissance urban fabric in Western Europe. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg is the absolute centrepiece: a Gothic cathedral of extraordinary delicacy and height, built entirely from rose-red Vosges sandstone that gives it a warm, almost unearthly glow in the late afternoon light. For three centuries, it was the tallest building in the world. The astronomical clock inside is one of the most elaborate mechanical marvels of the medieval age.
The Petite France quarter is Strasbourg at its most postcard-perfect: half-timbered Alsatian houses with steep roofs, flower boxes and canal-side reflections that make it look like a fairy tale has been rendered in architecture. It’s beautiful in every season — romantic in summer, magical in winter when it’s covered in frost and the Christmas market fills its squares.
The Strasbourg Christmas Market — held from late November through December — is one of the oldest and most famous in Europe, running since 1570, and transforms the already beautiful old town into something genuinely enchanting. The mulled wine (vin chaud), the gingerbread, the bredele biscuits and the general atmosphere of a city fully committed to the Christmas season make it one of the finest festive travel experiences in Europe.
Don’t miss: The Cathedral Notre-Dame, Petite France, the Palais Rohan, the European Quarter (Strasbourg is the seat of the European Parliament), the Alsatian Museum, and the Christmas market in December.
16. Dijon — Mustard, Medieval Grandeur and One of France’s Finest Food Cities
Dijon is the capital of Burgundy and one of the great food and wine cities of France — which, in France, is saying rather a lot.
The city itself is strikingly beautiful in a way that surprises people who come primarily for the gastronomy and end up staying for the architecture. The medieval and Renaissance old town is full of magnificent stone buildings, half-timbered houses, ornate ducal palaces and beautiful squares that reflect the extraordinary wealth of the Duchy of Burgundy during the 14th and 15th centuries, when Dijon was one of the most powerful cities in Europe.
The Palais des Ducs de Bourgogne — the former ducal palace at the heart of the city, now housing the excellent Musée des Beaux-Arts — is one of the finest medieval palatial complexes in France. The Tower of Philip the Good offers views over the old town, and the ducal kitchens still stand as a remarkable piece of medieval domestic architecture.
Dijon is famous worldwide for its mustard, and the condiment is genuinely everywhere in the local food culture — the Maille boutique on the central market square does tastings of extraordinary variety and is completely worth a visit. But Dijon’s food culture goes far beyond mustard: this is Burgundy, which means Bœuf Bourguignon, escargots, gougères, pain d’épices (spiced bread), and some of the greatest wines in the world from the surrounding Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune vineyards. The Marché des Halles covered market on Saturday mornings is one of the finest in France.
Don’t miss: The Palais des Ducs, the old town, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, a mustard tasting at Maille, the Saturday market, and a wine tour of the Côte de Nuits villages.
17. Saint-Malo — The Corsair City on the Brittany Coast
Saint-Malo is one of those places in France that manages to feel genuinely wild and romantic and historical all at once, and it makes an immediate impression the moment you walk through its old fortified walls.
Located on the northern coast of Brittany, Saint-Malo is a walled port city built on a rocky promontory jutting into the English Channel, and the intra-muros (walled city) has been almost completely restored after heavy bombing in World War II to its 17th and 18th-century appearance — all granite townhouses, narrow cobbled streets, and massive rampart walls you can walk entirely around with views of the sea crashing on the rocks below.
The city was famous for its corsairs — state-sanctioned pirates who raided English and Dutch shipping with the blessing of the French crown, bringing extraordinary wealth back to Saint-Malo and giving the city a swashbuckling, independent character that it still wears with visible pride. The Fort National on a rock offshore, accessible on foot at low tide, is a dramatic piece of military architecture. The beaches on either side of the walled city are magnificent — wide, wild and facing the full force of the Atlantic.
Brittany’s food culture is exceptional, and Saint-Malo is a perfect place to discover it — fresh oysters, Breton lobster, galettes (buckwheat crêpes) with local salted butter, and the most spectacular kouign-amann (a caramelised butter pastry that is one of the great things Brittany has given the world).
Don’t miss: Walking the full circuit of the ramparts, the Fort National at low tide, the beaches, the seafood in any restaurant in the old town, and a day trip to the tidal island of Mont Saint-Michel, which is only about an hour away.
18. Rouen — Normandy’s Gothic Capital and a City That History Chose Repeatedly
Rouen is the capital of Normandy and one of those French cities that takes the concept of historical depth seriously in a way that never feels like a performance — it simply has so much history embedded in its streets and buildings that it can’t help but feel resonant.
This was a major city of medieval Europe — capital of the Duchy of Normandy, seat of English kings of France, one of the largest cities in the medieval world — and the old town (Vieux-Rouen) reflects that with an extraordinary concentration of medieval half-timbered houses, Gothic churches and Renaissance architecture that survived the significant wartime damage the city suffered and remains one of the finest medieval townscapes in France.
The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen is one of the tallest cathedrals in France and one of its most extraordinary — the west facade, with its deeply carved Gothic decoration across every surface, was painted obsessively by Claude Monet in over thirty canvases studying how it changed in different lights at different times of day. The series, now split between galleries around the world, is one of the iconic sequences in Impressionist art. Standing in front of the actual facade and thinking of Monet setting up his easel in the building opposite is one of those quiet travel moments that linger.
The Gros-Horloge — a magnificent 14th-century astronomical clock spanning the width of a Renaissance arch over the main shopping street — is one of the great street-level architectural experiences in France: you walk under it constantly, and it never becomes ordinary. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen’s market square in 1431, and the city marks that history with genuine solemnity at the extraordinary Église Jeanne d’Arc — a modern church built on the site of her execution in the shape of an inverted ship’s hull, incorporating stained glass windows salvaged from a church destroyed in the Second World War.
Rouen is quieter than Paris, considerably less crowded than most of the cities on this list, and all the better for it. The food is excellent — Norman cuisine, with its cream, calvados, cider, camembert and extraordinary seafood from the nearby coast — and the old town is simply beautiful to walk through with no particular agenda.
Don’t miss: The Cathedral Notre-Dame, the Gros-Horloge, the Église Jeanne d’Arc, the half-timbered old town streets, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, and the Saturday market at the Place Saint-Marc.
Final Thoughts — France Keeps Surprising You (Every Single Time)
France is one of those countries you can visit a dozen times and still feel like you’ve barely started. The thing that strikes me most, after all the trips, is how different every city feels — not just from one region to the next, but in the detail of its character, its relationship to its own history, its food and its pace of life.
The famous cities deserve every word written about them. Paris, Bordeaux, Nice — they all deliver. But the cities that have stayed with me longest are often the ones I almost skipped: Nîmes in the winter sun with barely another tourist in sight. Annecy on an early July morning with the lake absolutely still and the mountains reflected perfectly in it. Rouen on a rainy Tuesday afternoon walking under the Gros-Horloge with a bag of warm chestnuts and nowhere particular to be.
That’s France. It rewards the curious, the unhurried and the willingly surprised. Pick your cities, leave a little room for wandering, eat absolutely everything and try to stay one day longer than you planned.
You’ll always wish you had.
