Corsica Boat Tours: Ajaccio, Bonifacio and Beyond
Napoleon was born in Ajaccio. He left at 9, conquered most of Europe, and never came back for more than…
Marseille Calanques Boat Tours and City Guide
The boat turned a headland and the Calanques appeared — limestone cliffs dropping vertically into water so clear you could…
Lyon Walking and Food Tours Worth Booking
Lyon has more restaurants per capita than any other city in France. That includes Paris. The locals will tell you…
Champagne Day Trip from Paris: Reims and Epernay
The monk did not invent champagne. Dom Perignon did not cry “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!” That quote…
Strasbourg and Alsace Wine Route Tours
Strasbourg confused me. Half-timbered houses that look German. Wine that tastes German. Food that is French but not really. A…
Best Walking and Food Tours in Nice
I ordered socca from a woman at the Cours Saleya market who looked like she had been making it since…
Chamonix and Mont Blanc Day Trip from Geneva
The cable car doors opened at 3,842 metres and the temperature dropped 20 degrees in three seconds. I stepped onto…
Booking a Paris Photo Shoot at the Eiffel Tower
My friend proposed to his girlfriend at the Eiffel Tower. He asked a stranger to take the photo. The stranger…
Dining at the Eiffel Tower: Madame Brasserie Guide
I booked Madame Brasserie for lunch on a Tuesday in March. No special occasion. I just wanted to eat inside…
Paris Cooking and Baking Classes Worth Booking
The croissant I made in a Paris baking class looked like a crescent moon that had been in a fight.…
Visiting the Pantheon in Paris
Marie Curie is buried in the Pantheon. So is Victor Hugo. And Voltaire. And Alexandre Dumas. And Josephine Baker. And…
Booking Orangerie Museum Tickets in Paris
Eight paintings. Two oval rooms. That is the entire reason the Musee de l’Orangerie exists. Claude Monet spent the last…
Visiting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
It took 182 years to build Notre Dame. It took 56 minutes for a fire to nearly destroy it. And…
Taking a Paris Bike Tour: A First-Timer’s Guide
A bike tour is the best way to see Paris in a single afternoon. You will cover three times more…
Disneyland Paris Tickets & Tips
Disneyland Paris is the most-visited theme park in Europe and one of the easier day trips you can do from…
Saint-Emilion Wine Tour from Bordeaux
Saint-Emilion is the wine region a lot of Paris first-timers hear about and then quietly give up on because it…
Booking Moulin Rouge Tickets in Paris
Moulin Rouge is the oldest working cabaret in Paris, it has been running since 1889, and it is still probably…
How to Do a Loire Valley Day Trip from Paris
The Loire Valley has roughly 300 chateaux, and on a one-day trip from Paris you will see exactly two of…
The Paris Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Guide
Paris hop-on hop-off buses are the single most divisive way to see the city. Half the travel writers love them…
A Day at Monet’s Garden in Giverny
Giverny is the single most Instagram-famous garden in France, and also the single most misunderstood. Half the people who visit…
Walking Montmartre in 3 Hours
Montmartre is the hardest neighbourhood in Paris to get right. Do it wrong and you spend three hours fighting crowds…
Visiting Sainte-Chapelle in Paris
Sainte-Chapelle is the single most underrated building in Paris. People queue two hours for the Louvre, another hour for Notre-Dame’s…
How to Book Paris Catacombs Tickets
Here is the thing about the Paris Catacombs: 6 million dead Parisians are stored in an abandoned limestone quarry 20…
Mont Saint-Michel Day Trip from Paris
Mont Saint-Michel is the one French day trip that is absolutely worth the effort — a fortified abbey-island rising 80…
The Palais Garnier: A Paris Opera Guide
The Palais Garnier is the most beautiful building in Paris that most first-time visitors skip. It is right there in…
Paris Food Tour: Cheese, Wine & Pastries
Paris has a lot of bad food tours. The city has so many travelers with so much money and so…
French Riviera Day Trip: Eze, Monaco, Monte Carlo
The French Riviera is one of the world’s great road trips, and you can do a surprisingly good version of…
Visiting the D-Day Beaches from Paris
Normandy’s D-Day beaches are one of those trips that almost everyone wants to do and almost nobody does properly. People…
How to Book Eiffel Tower Tickets in Paris
The Eiffel Tower is the one landmark in Paris that almost every visitor queues for twice — once at the…
Musée d’Orsay Tickets: An Impressionist Guide
Here’s the conversation I have with every friend planning a first Paris trip: “Which museum — the Louvre or the…