I will be traveling all around France in december?

Question

From Australia. What should I know before I go. What are the best places to visit? What about the little things like the different demographics of people in southern france compared to northern france? East to west? Are there suburbs in Paris to avoid? These ideas are just from the top of my head, but anything else you could inform me of would be great!

Answer 1

In France, avoid suburbs in general, as if you don't exactly know where you go, you can have bad surprises. For example, in Paris, the west suburbs are the most secure and the North is the worst. But, there are very insecure places in the west suburbs too and very quiet places in the North, so.... I just give you some places as examples where you shouldn't go : La Courneuve, Sarcelles, Vitry. Avoid any suburbs (except Neuilly sur Seine, Vincennes, Saint Mandé, Passy, Auteuil and some others..) when it's late. It's not that terrible but you're a tourist, so you'd better be careful. Marseille also is not a very safe place. To see what kind of differences there are between the North and the South, just try to compare people from Los Angeles and people from NYC. It's kind of the same differences. Eastern people are very close to the country next to them (either Germany, Switzerland, Belgium or Italy) and people from the west, it depends if they live in Brittany, in Vendée, in Bordeaux or in Biarritz. It's just too complicated to explain.

About the best places to visit, I'd say Lille in the North (very fun, a student place), Paris of course, Brittany for the landscapes, les gorges du Verdon (beautiful), Marseille (you just have to), Montpellier (not very beautiful but very fun, a lot a students), Biarritz (very beautiful, and the place to surf), Corsica (absolutely gorgeous), les Alpes and les Pyrennées if you want some winter sports, Tours and the Loire region(for the castles and the wine), Bordeaux (for the city and the wine), Toulouse (very fun), and last but not least, don't you dare missing Strasbourg in december, it's the most beautiful place to go for Christmas, very very beautiful, very good food. Plus, from Strasbourg you can go and have a tour in Germany, they do very nice things fom Christmas. Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands are pretty close too, it won't take you more than one or two days to have a look in these countries from Strasbourg. From Biarritz, go a little bit in Spain (some bars at the boarders can be interesting for men), and from the Alpes, go a little bit in Italy. You also can go to England from Lille. That's what's nice about Europe, everything is rather close.

Answer 2

Apart from Paris, which I thought was great...there is a lot to see and do and if you stay to the touristy areas you won't go to any unwated areas.....anyway getting back on track a friend and I stayed in central France...the area seems to have lots of names like Quercy, but its around the Lot and Dordogne rivers valleys.....We were staying near a town called Figiac, but the whole area is amazing. There are lots of beautiful little towns scattered thruout the area.

Towns I remember that I really remember are: Rocamadour ( stunning which is literally on a rock face), St Cirq lapopie ( very pretty with great views over the Lot river), Autoire ( much smaller and you would need a rental car but soooo pretty), St Cere......as I said there are others....if you get a decent map of the area they have the "scenic" towns marked. Cahors is nice too.

I know there are a few caves around that have "early mankind" living there eg rock paintings. THe one we saw was like a kind of cemetary with dead bodies around the place, pots etc....still very interesting.

Anyway this area was completely unknown to me and I had the great fortune to get a great opportunity to stay in the area and boy was it fantastic......its more rural, lots of rolling countryside, cliffs, chateaus and stunning towns ( that have a fairytale look)...one french lady told us that even for France, this area is considered beautiful...GO GO GO.....

From a Kiwi that had fun!