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Tour Jean sans Peur
This 29m-high Gothic tower was built during the Hundred Years War by the Duke of Bourgogne so that he could take refuge from his enemies – such as the supporters of the Duke of Orléans, whom he had assassinated. Part of a splendid mansion in the early 15th century, it is one of the
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Musée de l’Homme
This museum inside Palais de Chaillot s western wing first opened in 1937. It focuses on human development, science and anthropology, with a varied collection spanning everything from Cro-Magnon fossils to Vénus de Lespugue, one of the earliest palaeolithic works of art – beautiful
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Cathédrale de Notre Dame
Senlis Gothiccathedral was built between 1150 and 1191. The cathedral is unusually bright, but the stained glass, though original, is unexceptional. The magnificent carved-stone Grand Portal (1176), on the western side facing place du Parvis Notre Dame, has statues and a central re
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Château
The cultures of the world mix and mingle inside the Château-Musée, one of the few places on earth where you can admire Egyptian antiquities (including a mummy) next to 19th-century Inuit masks and compare Andean ceramics with Grecian urns, with an in-situ 4th-century Roman wall thr
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Terra Nova
Above Jardin Romieu looms Bastia’s amber-hued citadel, built from the 15th to 17th centuries as a stronghold for the city’s Genoese masters. Inside, the Palais des Gouverneurs houses the Musée de Bastia , which retraces the city’s history. A few streets south, don’t miss the majest
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Musée des Phares et des Balises
The black-and-white-striped Phare de Créach is the worlds most powerful lighthouse. Beaming two white flashes every 10 seconds and visible for over 50km, it serves as a beacon for over 50,000 ships entering the Channel each year. Beneath is the islands main museum, which tells the
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Musée Languedocien
This small museum houses a collection of archaeological finds and objets d’art, ranging from ancient Greek and Egyptian statuettes to medieval tapestries and 19th-century faience (tin-glazed earthenware). It has a particularly fine collection of silverware, made by Montpellier’s re
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Pont de Normandie
This futuristic bridge, opened in 1995, stretches in a soaring 2km arch over the Seine between Le Havre and Honfleur. It’s a typically French affair, as much sophisticated architecture as engineering, with two huge inverted-V-shaped columns holding aloft a delicate net of cables. C
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Île aux Cygnes
Paris little-known third island, the artificially created Île aux Cygnes (Isle of Swans), was formed in 1827 to protect the river port and measures just 850m by 11m. On the western side of the Pont de Grenelle is a soaring one-quarter scale Statue of Liberty replica , inaugurated i
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Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel
This triumphal arch, erected by Napoleon to celebrate his battlefield successes of 1805, sits with aplomb in the Jardin du Carrousel , the gardens immediately next to the Louvre. The eastern counterpoint to the other Arc de Triomphe (the more famous one), it is one of several monum
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Abbaye de Flaran
This serene Cistercian abbey is one of Gers architectural gems, and quite possibly the loveliest abbey in southwest France. Founded in 1151 and guarded by a 14th-century fortress door turned pigeon loft, it was abandoned after the Revolution, and the building is remarkably well pre
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Conservatoire de la Dentelle
Lacemaking, brought to Bayeux by nuns in 1678, once employed 5000 people. The industry is long gone, but at the Conservatoire you can watch some of France’s most celebrated lacemakers create intricate designs using dozens of bobbins and hundreds of pins; a small shop sells some of
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Musée Jean Moulin
On the rooftop of the Gare Montparnasse, the small Musée Jean Moulin is devoted to the WWII German occupation of Paris, with its focus on the Resistance and its leader, Jean Moulin (1899–1943). The attached Mémorial du Maréchal Leclerc de Hauteclocque et de la Libération de Paris s
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Îles du Frioul
A few hundred metres west of Île d’If are the Îles du Frioul, the barren, dyke-linked, white-limestone islands of Ratonneau and Pomègues. Sea birds and rare plants thrive on these tiny islands, which are each about 2.5km long, totalling 200 hectares. Ratonneau has three beaches. Fr
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Museu di a Corsica
The Museu di a Corsica is a definite must-see for anyone interested in Corsica’s culture. It houses an outstanding exhibition on Corsican traditi ons, crafts, agriculture and anthropology. The building has two main galleries, with a third space allocated to temporary exhibitions. T
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Musée Jean
On Grasses main pedestrian street, this small museum displays 10 major works by Grassois painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), beautifully exhibited in an 18th-century town house – admire the splendid ceiling fresco on the ground floor. Paintings by Marguerite Gérard (1761–183
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Grotte du Mas d’Azil
Twenty-five kilometres northwest of Foix, near Le Mas d’Azil, this rock shelter is famous for its rich finds of prehistoric tools, as well as its cave art. Two galleries are open to the public: in the Galerie Breuil you can see engravings of bison, horses, fish, deer and what appea
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Source Cachat
Drink your fill of pure Évian mineral water – and fill up as many bottles as you like – at this outdoor tap. In a little collonnaded pavilion painted pink and white, its a block up the hill from 19 rue Nationale (Évians pedestrianised main drag), to the right as you face the horses
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Musée Regards de Provence
The harsh reality of Marseille as a port city – vulnerable to disease and epidemic – comes to life in this unusual museum in the citys former sanitary station, operational from 1948 until 1971. A 45-minute film (subtitled in English) opens with the arrival of the plague in Marseill
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Vieille Ville & Lakefront
It’s a pleasure simply to wander aimlessly around Annecy’s medieval old town, a photogenic jumble of narrow pedestrians-only streets, crystal-clear canals – the reason Annecy is known as Venice of the Alps – and colonnaded passageways.On the tree-fringed lakefront, the flowery Jard
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