Paris Shopping – Les Grands Magasins of Paris

Galeries Lafayette, Paris

At these stores you can shop till you drop: If shopping is your passion, a visit to the grand department stores of Paris is a must. Parisiens are très chic and the department stores here carry all the latest in the fashion scene.  The big stores stock most of the international brand names and there [...]

Armagnac | The Brandy and the Place

Armagnac, France's finest brandy

Armagnac is more than a brandy: Formerly a province of France, the county of Armagnac was the most powerful of the fiefs of Gascony. It was a historic comté of the Duchy of Gascony, was once an important countship and attained its height of prominence in the 15th century. Armagnac is a region of hills [...]

Annecy – The Little Venice of France

Palais de l’Isle, Little Venice, Annecy, Haute-Savoie

Annecy a Little Venice: Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie region, is a beautiful and popular resort town on the northern end of the Lac d’Annecy. Take a stroll around the old town and you’ll quickly see why this town has earned itself the tag of Little Venice. Little Venice A network of canals criss-crossing the town [...]

Food in Western France

Fruits de Mer, A favourite in Brittany and Normandy. This one is by Tom Dowson at the Basse Copette, his luxury B & B in Normandy

Food in Western France: a brief gastronomical tour! Normandy; Brittany; the Loire Valley. Rouen; Caen; Bayeux; Cherbourg; Mont-St-Michel; St Malo; Rennes; Nantes; Angers; Tours; Saumur; Vouvray; Amboise; Le Mans; Chartres; Orleans. Food in Western France will get you eating and drinking with a vengeance! With such a long coastline, it’s to be expected that seafood [...]

Food in the South of France

Bouillabaisse from the Restaurant du Port, Le Grau du Roi, Marseille

Food in the South of France: a brief gastronomical tour! Languedoc-Roussillon; Provence; Cote d’Azur Perpignan; Carcassonne; Beziers; Montpellier; Nimes; Chateauneuf-du-Pape; Avignon; Arles; Aix-en-Provence; Marseille; Cassis; Toulon; St Tropez; Frejus; St Raphael; Grasse; Cannes; Antibes; St-Paul-de-Vence; Cap Ferrat; Nice; Menton; Monaco. Food in the South of France is above all the product of its environment. Permeated [...]

Food in France

France is the home of gastronomy, read on for the proof… Food in France! Surely a topic upon which an unending stream of tomes have been written, especially by the French. However, although the finest restaurants in France scale heights that few others even attempt, some of us might say that many second and third [...]

Useful facts for travel to France

Useful facts to help you plan your visit to France Festivals Public Holidays Visas Health Language Time Electricity Weights & Measures Money, Banks etc. Emergencies Telephone, fax Post Museums and monuments Festivals Festivals, both traditional and modern (eg Avignon Theatre Festival in July) are not so plentiful as in Spain, but worth looking out for: [...]

Tour Routes in France

Chateau Chambourd in the Loire

Tour Routes in France Virtually all multi-country Europe tours pass through or originate in Paris, but few see much more of France. It is possible to do a pretty extensive tour of France but even so some fairly important areas will be missing or only covered briefly. Regional tours are popular and give you more [...]

Travel to France

Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees

Travel to France for a Europe Tour with Joie de Vivre! There’s a lot more to France than Paris and Provence. Travel to France involves a journey into the whole French way of looking at the world, and life. Not for nothing do we use the french words “savoir-faire” and “joie de vivre”! France lies [...]

Discovering Dijon on the Owl’s Trail

Dijon Owl's Trail

Discover Dijon by following the Owl’s Trail: Dijon is famous for Dijon mustard, however the capital of the province of Burgundy has lots more to offer than just this condiment. From the early 11th century AD until the late 1400s, the province was home to the Dukes of Burgundy .   Burgundy was a place of [...]