French Travel Blog

At the time of writing, we’re in the midst of the grape harvest! Farmers markets all over France are bustling all year round as locals continue to prefer fresh produce over the grocery store chains. And this is even more true during the fall harvest season, with its abondance of new winter vegetables. In this post, we spend a week exploring markets in Provence in southern France. As well as farmers’ markets, we’re including antiques, handicrafts, textiles and other markets that are wonderful for buying authentic French souvenirs . So make sure you keep this list handy the...

This gougères recipe comes from France Just For You's Senior Trip Planner, Laura. This is one of my favorite recipes. I discovered gougères when meeting my future family-in-law for the first time. They are “Bourguignon” (from Burgundy), as are gougères . While traveling in Burgundy, you may be served gougères during a wine tasting. But don’t wait until then, these are not complicated to make and I guarantee they will be a success. I like to serve them before dinner, with a glass of Chablis, also from Burgundy. This recipe makes about 40 ...

We finally have some tomatoes ripening in our garden and this Tomato Tarte Tatin is one of my favorite things to make for a light summer meal. Unfortunately, there was not quite enough tomatoes ready in the garden, so I had to add some from the market. Emptied tomatoes (Photo© France Just For You) This recipe feeds about 8 people. I like to serve it with a simple green salad with garlic croutons and a crisp and cold white wine from the Mâcon area. Ingredients: 12 medium sized tomatoes, cut into halves and emptied 5 tablespoons of tapenade, preferably made from black olives, but green will...

This delicious, garlicky sauce is a specialty from Provence. It goes very well with summer vegetables, salted cod fish, crispy bread and croutons, snails, mussels, potatoes, and eggs. We hope you enjoy this very quick and simple recipe! Ingredients 1 garlic clove 2 egg yolks 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1⁄2 cup olive oil 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil 2 pinches of salt Instructions Cut off the ends of the garlic clove, peel it, and put it through a garlic press. Put the garlic in a pestle and mortar, add the salt and grind it until you have a paste. In a glass/ceramic mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks, the...

We understand that travelers will be worried about the risks of traveling while the coronavirus pandemic continues across the globe. We will update this post with the latest information about France regarding travel, safety measures and the benefits of traveling in late 2020 and 2021. In June 2020, after lockdown had ended, we hit the road and left our home in the Loire Valley to visit some of our favorite parts of France. We felt very safe at every attraction, B&B and restaurant we visited. People are still being careful about observing the social distancing rules. And apart from seeing...

The preferred aperitif in the Dordogne region of France is Walnut Wine. This sweet dark wine is made from green walnuts picked between La Fete de St. Jean (June 24th) and Bastille Day (July 14th). These are immature walnuts that haven’t yet developed hard shells. This wine’s unique flavor is due to the walnut’s smooth green skin and soft interior. The longer the wine ages in the cupboard, the better the flavor - it’s definitely worth the wait! Here we share the typical recipe for making Vin de Noix , but we’ve also added some of our own suggestions to make your wine extra...

Many of our travelers ask to include a wine tour , wine-tasting or vineyard tour in their self-drive trips. Therefore, we wanted to write a post on some of the famous French wine regions, including some top tips on the best wineries and wines. Bordeaux Bordeaux , in the French region of Aquitaine, is one of the most famous French wine regions, along with Champagne and Burgundy. This is partly due to Bordeaux being next to the coast, which led to it becoming a major wine exporting region for centuries. Bordeaux became the main wine supplying region to...

Serves 6 people Ingredients 6 apples 2 pears a small packet of vanilla-flavored sugar 120g butter 160g all-purpose flour 125g granulated brown sugar Emilie preparing the apple and pear crumbles. Photo © France Just For You Instructions Cut the apples into pieces and cook them in a pan until they get quite dry. Add the pears, without cooking them, cut into smaller pieces In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, vanilla sugar and soft (not melted) butter by hand Put the fruit at the bottom of a dish and spread the paste across the top. Cook at 190°C for about 15 minutes, until they...

Both Guillaume and I and our girls love cooking together when we’re at home, and this week we were making yummy profiteroles! This popular dessert is normally a popular option among dinner guests, so we invite you to try our recipe at home. Guillaume helping Jeanne and Pauline with the chocolate sauce... mmmm! ( Photo © France Just For You) INGREDIENTS For about 8 to 10 profiteroles (we usually serve 3-4 profiteroles per person) choux buns: 50cl of milk 7cl water 1 small teaspoon of salt 2 small teaspoons of sugar 2 eggs 75g of all-purpose...