French Travel Blog

What is a happy home without an equally happy garden to go with it? For many of us, our garden played a pivotal role in our childhood. It’s where our adventures took place, where our imagination was free to develop and where we learnt to value the great outdoors. Years on and gardens are no less important in our life, the only difference is that instead of falling out of trees, we are working out the best place to put a tomato plant. In 1992, the gardens of chateau Chaumont sur Loire opened up for the first ever International Garden Festival and was such a success that the...

As part of the service we offer to our travelers, we plan itineraries according to your personal interests and requests. Will you be celebrating a birthday or wedding anniversary in France? Tell us how you'd like to celebrate and we will make it a day to remember! Here are some ideas below, or contact us and we'll give you a list of ideas, just for you! Paris is known throughout the world as being the world’s romantic capital, and understandably so. But the rest of France also has so much to offer: medieval villages, castles, stunning gardens, culinary delights to...

This is my grandmother's special chicken pie recipe. We love to eat it to warm up in the winter! We hope you enjoy it. Serves 8 people. Ingredients 1kg of chicken (entire chicken) 200g of chopped bacon 250g of small onions 1 glass of Port (fortified wine) 200g of black olives 200g of mushrooms salt, pepper and herbes de provence garlic, parsley To make the dough: 500g of flour 250g of butter 1.5 cups of water 1 teaspoon of curry powder Cut the chicken into pieces taking out the bones, marinate it with salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, onion, parsley and oil and leave for a few hours. This is the...

Cl aude Monet and Impressionism Claude Monet was one of the most famous and accomplished French artists of all time. In this article, we focus on two beautiful locations in France, Paris and Giverny in Normandy, where Monet spent most of his life. Many visitors to Paris will seek out Monet’s masterpieces as they tour some of the city’s beautiful art museums, without realizing that Monet’s gardens, arguably his greatest source of inspiration, are located just an hour outside of Paris in Giverny, Normandy. For this reason, we recommend a...

As we do not have the Ile de Ré in our scope, we rely on our friend Laurent – who is specialized in this beautiful region - to advise our travelers. It you plan to spend your next summer holiday on the island of Re, we strongly advise you to book your holiday rental as soon as possible, especially if you look for a villa with swimming pool in Ile de re . On the site My Home In, sixty villas with swimming pool are available for rent throughout the year. Considering the demand during the summer months, this is in fact very little considering the number of tourists looking for a quality holiday...

A new thrilling glass floor at the first level of the Iron Lady Since yesterday (Monday October 6th), the Eiffel Tower – Paris’ most visited tourist site – unveiled its renovated First Floor allowing visitors to look down through a solid glass floor. To increase the frisson of walking on air still further, the glass safety barriers have been inclined outwards. Previously the first floor was the least visited part of the tower and this new floor should attract more people. The €30-million ($37.5-million) refit - which took two years - includes shops, restaurants and a museum...

I’d like to share with you a very easy recipe I prepared all summer to accompany the « apéritif ». You might already know that for French people l’apéritif – also called l’apéro – is a very important time of the day…moreover during vacation time. It takes place between 6pm and 8 to 9pm and we usually drink either some wine, beers, local alcohol like Pastis in Southern France or homemade mixtures (such as the Walnut Wine or the Orange Wine). But what we eat while having the “apéro” is also very important to us. On special occasion (if you have guests) some biscuits and few...

When we are buying something important to us – such as a nice vacation package to France – we want to make sure that we pay the right price. Often looking for a vacation package on the best travel destinations, we end up caught in the “cheap vacations” websites, “cheap hotel deals”, “last minute offers” and so on and so forth. All these websites have great pictures to reassure the traveler that he will have a wonderful hotel (he is the only one to get such a good rate on) and the best seat on the flight to Paris. Honeymoon packages, romantic getaways, family vacation packages, everybody can...

The French government has decided to create a new seal of approval for the French restaurants…one more: you can tell we are in France: everything is complicated and any branch decision has to come from the government. The main objective is commendable: find out if you go to a restaurant where they actually cook the food or if they buy “already made” dishes, sauces, deserts, etc. This is a good thing, especially for travelers to France, who are going only once to each of the restaurant so you want it to be perfect! This is why, we always test the restaurants we recommend to our travelers…But...