France

The most visited city in the world for consistent reasons — the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and Versailles are among the great monuments of human civilisation. But Paris rewards beyond the headline sights: the hidden courtyards of the Marais, the covered passages of the 2nd arrondissement, the morning market at Marché d'Aligre, and the contemporary art scene of the Belleville neighbourhood offer layers of discovery that most visitors never reach.

The world's most hallowed wine region, where a strip of limestone hillside 50 kilometres long between Dijon and Beaune produces wines — Romanée-Conti, Chambolle-Musigny, Gevrey-Chambertin — that command higher prices than any other agricultural product on earth. Private visits to domaines at the grand cru level, where the winemaker opens bottles that rarely appear at public tastings, are among the most memorable food and wine experiences available anywhere in the world.

The landscape that Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Matisse spent their careers trying to capture in paint — lavender plains between the Luberon and Mont Ventoux, perched villages of golden stone above river valleys, markets selling olives, tapenade, and fresh goat's cheese in the morning light. The hilltop villages of Gordes, Roussillon, and Les Baux-de-Provence are among the most beautiful in France, and the Pont du Gard Roman aqueduct — standing for 2,000 years — is nearby.

The valley of the Loire between Saumur and Blois holds the highest concentration of Renaissance architecture in the world outside Italy — Chambord, Chenonceau (built over the river itself), Villandry with its extraordinary geometric gardens, Azay-le-Rideau reflected in its moat. The valley was the playground of the French court in the 16th century, and its châteaux were built to impress a Renaissance king. Private evening access — after day-visitors have left — turns these monuments from tourist attractions into something closer to what they were intended to be.

The highest mountains in Western Europe — Mont Blanc at 4,808 metres — and the most developed skiing infrastructure in the world combine in a landscape of extraordinary grandeur. Chamonix, in the shadow of Mont Blanc, is the birthplace of mountaineering and offers glacier walks, cable cars to the Aiguille du Midi, and summer hiking on trails beneath permanent snow in conditions entirely different from the winter ski season. The Vallée Blanche ski descent — 20 kilometres of off-piste glacier skiing — is among the great ski experiences in the world.

The Dordogne valley in southwest France is one of Europe's most historic landscapes — the cave paintings of Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume represent the highest expression of Palaeolithic art, created 17,000 years ago and preserved in near-perfect condition. Above ground, the river is flanked by medieval bastide towns, Cathar castles, and the truffle markets of Sarlat, which make this one of the finest regions in France for the combination of prehistoric archaeology, medieval history, and exceptional cuisine.