Language · 11 published
Country guide
France is 18 regions and 632,702 km2, and five of those regions are overseas - French Guiana in South America, the French West Indies, islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Metropolitan France alone runs from the Rhine to the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, so a week here is a choice rather than a circuit. Of the 69.1 million people estimated in 2026, more than 13 million are in the Paris metropolitan area, which is why the capital tends to win the first visit. The corners - Alpine, Atlantic, Mediterranean - are further from one another than the map's familiarity suggests.
Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor
Every city catalogued in this country so far, ranked by how much there is to see.
Photograph · Yann Caradec from Paris, France · CC BY-SA 2.0
Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.
26 places match
Category
Typical visit duration
Jardin des Tuileries
The Tuileries is the first royal garden in Europe that let the public in, and it has outlived the palace it was built for. Catherine de' Medici created it in 1564.
The Coulée verte René-Dumont is a footpath laid along the top of a disused railway viaduct — a park built above the street rather than beside it.
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne is a former royal hunting forest turned into an English-style public park, and at 846 hectares it covers more than double the area of New York's Central Park.
At roughly 995 hectares, the Bois de Vincennes is the largest public park inside Paris, wrapping the eastern edge of the 12th arrondissement.
Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau began in 1769 as a private pleasure garden for Philippe d'Orleans, Duke of Chartres, laid out by the writer and painter Louis Carrogis, known as Carmontelle, in the English landscape style then fashionable as a counterpoint to the…
The Petite Ceinture du 16e is a surviving stretch of the Petite Ceinture, the circular railway built between 1852 and 1869 to link Paris's mainline terminus stations for freight and passengers around the edge of the city.
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont sits on ground that had no reason to become a park: a bare, chemically poor hill called Chauve-Mont that once held the Gibbet of Montfaucon, where hanged criminals were displayed from the thirteenth century until 1760, and…
Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette occupies the site of the huge Paris abattoirs and wholesale meat market that Napoleon III had built here in 1867 and that were finally cleared away in 1974, leaving 55.5 hectares of northeastern Paris to redevelop.
Place Dauphine
Place Dauphine is a triangular square at the western tip of the Ile de la Cite, laid out from 1607 on the orders of Henri IV as the second of his two Paris square projects, after the Place Royale …
Jardins du Trocadéro
The Jardins du Trocadéro are public gardens located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. They sit on the hillside facing the Eiffel Tower across the Seine River, forming a significant part of the Trocadéro area.
Parc de Belleville
Square du Vert Galant
Jardin d'agronomie tropicale René-Dumont
Square Lamartine
Parc de Passy
Square Tolstoï
Carré Marigny
Jardin Marie-Thérèse Auffray
Square Claude-Charpentier
Square Léon
Jardin Jan Doornik
Square Laurent Prache
Jardin du Palais de l'Élysée
Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·
Ten to fourteen days supports four or five days in Paris plus one coherent regional direction, such as Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, or Marseille. Avoid routing every extension back through Paris, because even fast TGV journeys leave local connection time at each end.
France applies Schengen entry rules, but the required passport validity or visa still depends on nationality and route. France-Visas is the official place to verify the exact requirement before booking and again before entering from outside Schengen.
TGV trains join France's largest cities, while TER services handle regional links and many rural areas still favour a car. Long-distance reservations may be mandatory, and each city retains its own urban ticket system rather than accepting one national visitor card.
April to June and September to October suit the Paris-plus-region route described here. Alpine access, Mediterranean heat, Atlantic weather, and rural seasonal services differ enough that the selected second region should determine the final dates.
France uses the euro (EUR). Bank cards are common, yet a small euro reserve remains useful for markets or local machines; confirm any terminal conversion choice before accepting it because this page does not record changing fees.
For urgent help anywhere in France, call 112; medical emergencies also use 15 and police matters 17. The electrical standard is 230 V with Type C and E plugs. This dataset has no recorded national tap-water finding, so consult the municipality or lodging for the specific stop.
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