Metropolitan France

France hosts monuments that go beyond common tourist routes. Individual creations like Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Idéal in Hauterives, built stone by stone over 33 years, sit alongside architectural reconversions like the Molitor Pool in Paris or the Contemporary Art Museum set in a 17th-century manor in Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or. These sites reflect unique stories and urban transformations worth exploring. This selection includes themed museums dedicated to magic in Blois, mechanical instruments at La Borde, fairground arts in Paris, and firefighters in Montville. It also features total art works like the Maison Picassiette in Chartres, entirely decorated with ceramic mosaics, and the Robert Tatin Museum in Cossé-le-Vivien. From Montmartre cemetery where Degas and Zola are buried to works by self-taught artists, these monuments offer different perspectives on French heritage and deserve a visit to explore lesser-known facets of the territory.

France offers multiple beaches, from Normandy limestone cliffs to Corsican bays. This selection presents white sand beaches, cliffs, protected coves and nature reserves across different regions.

Historical structures in France range from Roman amphitheaters to modern bridges. The buildings display engineering and architectural techniques through multiple periods. Monuments include Gothic cathedrals, Renaissance castles, medieval fortresses, Roman bridges, and contemporary architectural designs. These constructions represent significant periods in French history and architecture.

France features a notable variety of protected natural areas, showcasing the country’s geological and ecological richness. From Lake Allos in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence to the underground rivers of Padirac in Dordogne, from the mountain ranges of Savoy to the limestone formations of the Ardèche gorges, each region displays landscapes shaped over millennia of natural evolution. This collection gathers sites where nature is expressed freely: primary forests, karst systems, high-altitude lakes, moving dunes of the Atlantic coast, and rock formations carved by erosion. These areas provide diverse ecosystems, home to species adapted to different environments, from Alpine flora and fauna to dune communities and underground cave biodiversity. Each natural site in this selection serves as an open-air laboratory where geological processes, ecosystem dynamics, and living adaptation to local conditions can be observed. These sites invite discovery of authentic landscapes, removed from human impact, where geological time is evident in every rock formation and glacier valley.

From the Renaissance gardens of Villandry to the Alpine Garden in Chamonix, this selection presents French garden design. The collection includes historical city parks, botanical gardens and greenhouses with international flora.

Throughout France, stone silhouettes still stand in fields, forests, or by the sea. They existed long before villages and roads, witnesses to a world that believed in the sky and hidden forces of the earth. These menhirs, erected over five thousand years ago, in their own way narrate the dawn of civilizations. Some are solitary, others are arranged in rows of hundreds. Some bear engraved faces, others remain silent, smoothed by Breton winds or the rain of the Central Massif. From Carnac to Corsica, from Poitou to the Côtes-d’Armor, these upright stones maintain a strong presence, almost human. Approaching them, one senses the ancient connection between human hands and the memory of the land.