Not the whole of France, just the corners I love enough to keep returning to.
People ask me fairly often where I’d go if I only had a long weekend and wanted it to actually feel like something. I don’t have a formula for this, just a running list I keep adding to whenever somewhere sticks with me longer than I expected it to.
France is bigger and more varied than the usual Paris-and-the-Riviera shorthand gives it credit for. Pink granite coastlines, alpine chalets, Corsican coves, a half-timbered canal town, even one detour just over the Spanish border that I’ve never quite been able to leave off the list. I haven’t seen everything, not close, but these ten are the ones I keep coming back to, or the ones I’m still thinking about months later.
So here they are, roughly as I’d tell a friend over a glass of wine: one place to stay, one table worth booking, one thing to actually go and see.
Why these ten: I’ve stayed at every hotel and eaten at every table here myself, this isn’t a wishlist built from other people’s photos. It’s a personal list, not an exhaustive one, and it’ll keep changing as I do.
1. Menton, French Riviera
The unofficial lemon capital of France, in my slightly biased opinion. Menton sits right where the Riviera brushes up against Italy, all pastel facades and citrus trees, and it still flies under the radar compared to its flashier neighbours. Fine by me.
Stay: Villa Genesis. A British-owned boutique hotel a hundred metres from Borrigo beach, done out in soothing blue and white with a pool I never quite want to leave. Ask for a room near the top for the sea view.
Eat: Mirazur. It’s the restaurant that was once crowned the best in the world, so I don’t need to oversell it. Chef Mauro Colagreco cooks according to the phases of the moon using produce from his own biodynamic gardens up the hill. Book months ahead, they mean it.
Visit: The Val Rahmeh Botanical Garden and the old town. Wander the pastel stairways of the Vieille Ville, then lose an afternoon among the palm fronds and lotus ponds of this former English estate turned tropical garden.
2. Morzine, French Alps
Not just a winter address. Morzine in the warmer months trades ski boots for hiking ones, and the mountain air does something to your appetite I’ve stopped apologising for.
Stay: Hôtel & Spa Le Dahu. A proper alpine chalet-hotel with panoramic views over the valley and the kind of hospitality that makes me want to cancel my flight home. The rooms are cosy without tipping into twee.
Eat: L’Atelier, where chef Alexandre Baud-Pachon takes traditional Savoyarde cooking and gives it a proper elevation without losing the soul of it.
Visit: The Pointe de Nyon cable car, which lifts you above the treeline for a view across to Mont Blanc. Go for golden hour if you can time it.
3. Ajaccio, Corsica
Napoleon’s birthplace, and the whole city carries a bit of his swagger. Ajaccio is Corsica at its most elegant, pastel townhouses and a gulf so blue it looks retouched.
Stay: Hotel Le Maquis, right on the beach in Porticcio within the Gulf of Ajaccio, housed in a former Corsican family home turned five-star hideaway since 1949, with its own private cove.
Eat: L’Arbousier, the hotel’s own table, where the terrace faces the Sanguinaires Islands and the sunset does most of the work for you.
Visit: The Îles Sanguinaires, a short boat trip from the harbour. Watch the rocks turn properly red at sunset and you’ll see why it’s a bit of a local ritual.
4. Perros-Guirec, Brittany
The Pink Granite Coast is one of only three places in the world where you’ll find rock formations quite like this (the others are in China and, funnily enough, Corsica). I go for the sea air, the oysters, and a landscape that looks faintly extraterrestrial.
Stay: Castel Beau Site, a design-forward address right in the heart of the Pink Granite Coast, overlooking the pink rocks and the Château de Costaérès.
Eat: La Table de mon Père, the hotel’s own restaurant, where chef Nicolas Le Luyer builds a menu around Breton produce, facing that same view.
Visit: The Sentier des Douaniers, the old customs officers’ trail between Trestraou beach and Ploumanac’h. The pink granite boulders here have been weathered into shapes people swear look like elephants and stacks of pancakes, and the Mean Ruz lighthouse at the end is worth the walk on its own.
5. Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy
Called the eighth wonder of the world by pretty much everyone who’s seen it, and I’m not about to disagree. It rises out of the bay like something out of a fairytale, and the tides here are some of the most dramatic in Europe.
Stay: Le Relais Saint-Michel, a Châteaux et Hôtels de Collection property facing the bay, where the view changes with every tide.
Eat: Auberge La Mère Poulard, the historic address inside the Mont itself, birthplace of the Poulard omelette, made to the same wood-fire recipe since 1888. Touristy, sure, it’s a tough job etc., but touristy for a reason.
Visit: The Abbey. Climb up through the medieval streets and walk the ramparts as the tide sweeps back across the bay. Genuinely one of the more extraordinary things I’ve watched happen in real time.
6. Antibes, French Riviera
Old Antibes has an unpolished glamour that Cannes lost decades ago, ramparts and market stalls and Picasso’s old studio tucked into a seafront castle.
Stay: Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Fitzgerald practically lived here, and the saltwater pool blasted into the rocks at the tip of the Cap is still one of the most photographed spots on the Riviera.
Eat: La Maison de Bacon, an Antibes institution since 1948 and Michelin-starred since 1979. The saffron bouillabaisse is worth planning a meal around. Ask for a table on the terrace looking back at the old town.
Visit: The Musée Picasso, housed in the Château Grimaldi where Picasso worked for a few months in 1946. Follow it with a wander through the old town’s covered market.
7. Cadaqués, Costa Brava
Full disclosure, this one’s technically Spain. But I’ve always thought of Cadaqués as more Vermeille coast than Costa Brava in spirit, close enough to the border that it feels like an honorary stop.
Stay: Hotel Villa Gala, all sea-facing terraces and a pool worth the trip on its own. Dalí himself called Cadaqués “the most beautiful village in the world,” and I can’t really argue.
Eat: Compartir, a modern Catalan table from former El Bulli chefs, small plates that are inventive without being precious. Book ahead.
Visit: The Salvador Dalí House-Museum in nearby Port Lligat, the artist’s real home for forty years, still full of the eggs, swans and surreal flourishes that ended up in his paintings.
8. Cap Ferret, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Sometimes called the Hamptons of Bordeaux, pine forests and weathered wood and a bay that never quite stops shimmering.
Stay: Villa Colette, a new Philippe Starck-designed five-star property facing the Arcachon Bay.
Eat: Chez Hortense, run by the same family for four generations, right at the tip of the peninsula. The moules façon Hortense and the whole grilled turbot are the reason people queue.
Visit: The Dune du Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe, just across the bay. Climb it at sunset for a view over the Bassin d’Arcachon, the sandy shoes are worth it.
9. Biarritz, French Basque Coast
Napoleon III built this town’s most famous hotel for his wife, and Biarritz has been quietly glamorous ever since.
Stay: Hôtel du Palais. The only Palace hotel on the Atlantic coast, built in 1854 as Empress Eugénie’s summer residence, right above the Grande Plage.
Eat: La Rotonde, the hotel’s own dining room, known for its 180-degree ocean view. Go for sunset if you can.
Visit: The Rocher de la Vierge, a small rocky outcrop crowned with a statue of the Virgin, connected to the mainland by a footbridge built in the Eiffel workshops.
10. Strasbourg, Alsace
Half French, half German, entirely its own thing. The canal-laced old town looks like it was built for a fairytale nobody’s written yet.
Stay: Hôtel & Spa Régent Petite France, a seventeenth-century former mill on the canal in the heart of La Petite France, with rooftop spa hot tubs over the half-timbered rooftops.
Eat: Le Pont Tournant, the hotel’s own restaurant, where chef Julien Rodriguez reworks Alsatian classics into something lighter, while you watch the canal drift past below.
Visit: Strasbourg Cathedral, the pink sandstone spire that dominates the skyline and was the tallest building in the world for over two centuries. Try to catch the astronomical clock strike at solar noon.
That’s my list, ten reasons to book a long weekend without so much as glancing at a Paris flight. Pack light, book the hotel first, and let the rest sort itself out.
