FRANCE

Casa Europa México Presents…

France

France is a country located in Western Europe. To the north, it borders Belgium; to the east, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; to the south, Monaco; to the southwest, Spain and Andorra. To the west are the coasts of the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, and the English Channel to the northwest. It also has coasts to the south on the Mediterranean Sea, where the island of Corsica is located, one of the 18 regions of France, 13 of which are in the mainland territory, including the Île-de-France region, where Paris, the capital, is situated. France is a founding member of the European Union, having signed the Treaty of Paris in 1951, the first antecedent of the EU.

WHAT TO DO IN FRANCE

As we know, there are many ways to travel, catering to all tastes, needs, and budgets. In this case, I arrive directly in Paris and take a taxi from the airport to the hotel. The metro is a much cheaper mode of transport, but this time I prefer to go by car to savor the experience and feel the Parisian air. After settling into the hotel and freshening up, it's time to go for a walk. Paris is one of those cities best enjoyed on foot. However, if you're in a hurry to get from one place to another, the metro is the fastest, most efficient, punctual, and economical option. It’s worth asking for and getting a metro pass that includes some museums and certain metropolitan areas, valid for the days you will be in the French capital.

So, where to start? Inevitably, our steps will lead us to the Île de la Cité, which is like the very heart of the city. Right there is the emblematic Notre-Dame Cathedral, where you can spend hours enjoying ecclesiastical art and the details permitted for viewing after the devastating fire in April 2019 that almost destroyed this Gothic architectural gem, whose construction began in 1163. Just a few steps away is Sainte-Chapelle, also known as the Royal Chapel of the Île de la Cité, a true relic considered one of the masterpieces of the radiant period of the Gothic style, built between 1242 and 1248.

That’s enough for the first day, but it's not time to rest because Paris never sleeps. In this area or along the banks of the Seine River, there are cafés and restaurants, as well as nightclubs and nightlife, such as in the Pigalle area near the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur (Sacred Heart) and the Latin Quarter, another place worth spending time. For a break, if the weather is nice, nothing beats getting a table at an outdoor café and watching people go by.

The Louvre Museum, created in 1793, is France’s national museum dedicated to pre-Impressionist art, including fine arts, archaeology, and decorative arts. Its collections are so rich that you could spend days there, so it’s worth dedicating time rather than just waiting in a long, tedious line to see the Mona Lisa, which is the most visited work.

For more culture, the Centre Georges Pompidou, which is the National Centre for Art and Culture of Paris and was inaugurated on January 31, 1977, is an option as it houses IRCAM, a center for music and acoustic research; the library (Bibliothèque Publique d'Information); and the National Museum of Modern Art (Musée National d'Art Moderne), which has around 100,000 works. You could spend hours or days in this center, which had a controversial architecture at the time but is now an essential part of the eclectic nature of Paris.

As I’ve said, Paris must be walked, and walking takes you through the bucolic Luxembourg Garden. While there, I visit Montparnasse Cemetery to satisfy my curiosity and visit two pieces of Mexico represented in the graves of two illustrious Mexicans, Porfirio Díaz and Carlos Fuentes.

I keep walking until I reach Trocadéro, where the iconic Eiffel Tower, built in 1887, stands. You have to go up to the observation deck for spectacular panoramic views of Paris and beyond.

The walk, with some rest in a café or restaurant, inevitably leads you to the Arc de Triomphe, another of the great Parisian icons right on the Champs Elysées, the most emblematic street with hotels, restaurants, perfumeries, boutiques, tea rooms…

The truth is that Paris has so much to see and so much to visit that it is advisable to plan and decide what you want to do. But you also have to explore without a plan. For more history, I go to the Château de Vincennes on one edge of the city, or to escape the city noise and feel in nature, I take line 1 of the metro, and in no time, I am on the other edge enjoying the Bois de Boulogne. For theater or concerts, I go to Place de la République and the Opéra to check ticket availability for the many shows on offer—this can obviously be done from the comfort of your phone, but I’m exploring and walking the city in the best flâneur style possible. If I want more funerary art and famous personalities, the Père Lachaise Cemetery is ideal. And so, galleries, shops, clubs, museums, churches, gastronomy, cellars, and even a tourist bus or boat ride on the Seine River. If the day is pouring rain, another cultural space or an art cinema completes the panorama.

If there is a "but" about coming to Paris, it is that one day you have to leave, but not without visiting the Palace of Versailles, the most visited castle in France that was home to the monarchy since it was built by Louis XIV between 1661 and 1692. There are several ways to get there, but one worth considering is the train and bicycle combination. And well, as this trip is around France, I lay the map on the table and decide what to do in the coming days.

France is such a vast and rich country in culture and traditions that it is necessary to plan what you want to do for the rest of your stay and also know how to get around. Domestic flights can be economical and a very good option, but something I love is the train; there are those that go through villages and others that are super fast. So, I study the map, see what I want to do, and calculate times. Wines… Rhône, Beaujolais, Burgundy, Champagne regions… Northeast of Paris, near Reims, is the Champagne region. From there, if I continue to the far east, I reach Strasbourg, a border city with Germany, with a great cultural mix of French and German influences and nothing less than the seat of the European Parliament. If I head towards Lyon, I know it's the gateway to the Alps. Now, if I'm around there in winter, I go to Chamonix to ski and enjoy Mont Blanc, the highest peak in that European range.

Beaches? There are many on the French Atlantic coast, from Calais in the north to Bayonne in the south. Brest is an interesting place in itself, being the westernmost point of France. The best beaches, however, are towards the southeast of the country, in the French Riviera or Côte d'Azur corresponding to the Mediterranean Sea.

I look at the map and place my finger on Nice. As I'm planning to travel by train, the usual trip from Paris to Nice takes 6h 41m. Train services are so punctual that there will be no delay. But if I take the fastest train, I arrive in 5h 59m. The so-called “capital of the Côte d'Azur” is all about glamour, beauty, and wealth. The Matisse and Marc Chagall museums are a must-visit, apart from the beaches, of course. And nearby, if it's May, I don't miss the Cannes Festival; a festival that awards the best in cinema and doesn’t have to compete with the Oscars in Hollywood. (This year, 2020, with the world paralyzed by something beyond our understanding, the awards for this festival were held in July with a very limited audience.)

An important note: if you plan to travel by train, it’s advisable to get the Rail Europe pass, which you can use as many times as you want for the purchased period, and not just within France. Another option to get to the Côte d'Azur is to take the TGV from Paris to Marseille, which gets you there in 3 hours 5 minutes. Marseille's port is the second most populated city in France and the third most important port in Europe, after Rotterdam and Antwerp.

There’s a lot to see and do in Marseille, as well as in Montpellier, where I take the opportunity to visit the Cathedral of Saint Peter, imposing for its Gothic style and conical towers, and then explore the Languedoc wine region. This marvel was built in 1364. Toulouse is another city to schedule and take as a starting point if you want to go to the Pyrenees. It is in the Occitania region, with a generally very pleasant climate except when the “wind of madness” arrives around May. And then Bordeaux… Bordeaux, yes, the famous wine region. There are so many vineyards, cellars, and high-quality wines that you need to invest time. But if you want a summary, the museum La Cité du Vin, dedicated to wine in all its facets, solves the problem, and then you return home with some well-chosen bottles and continue savoring your travels in France.

And so, we continue around the country and reach the Loire Valley, famous for its red wines and castles, as well as the historic city of Orleans, crossed by the Loire River, the most important and longest in the country. And a little further north is the Normandy region, where the historic city of Caen is another must-visit, as is the monastic island of Mont-Saint-Michel, a Benedictine abbey of Gothic style in Normandy that was built between the 11th and 16th centuries and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. This island has a twin to the south of England, in the county of Cornwall.

Then I go up to Le Havre or even to Calais, in the extreme northwest, to take a ferry that takes me to the British coast because Wales is our next destination.

Casa Europa México recommends…

How about taking an 8:13-minute tour of Paris in a Ferrari, at full speed, on almost deserted streets because it's early morning? Enjoy it!

If you want to get a very complete idea of French wines, this nearly 13-minute video, narrated in Spanish, offers us a tour of almost all the wine regions.

Internet References:

The credits for texts and images appear at the bottom of the corresponding image.

Text Adaptation: Homero Adame

France – English translation: Pat Grounds