Top 5 French cities you’d never thought to visit (but should)
Toulouse
Fred Mawer writes: “Though overshadowed by Toulon of late, the Stade Toulousain remains the absolute reference in French rugby union, with more French championship wins than anyone else. Excitement generated at the Ernest Wallon stadium surges through the town, culminating in the bars of pint-sized Place St Pierre. Meanwhile, the city’s famous talent for planes and space are celebrated, first, at the brilliant Citéde-l’Espace theme-park-cum-museum (cite-espace.com). It was joined in 2014 by a new aeronautic museum, Aeroscopia (www.musee-aeroscopia.fr). This just leaves all the rest of Toulouse to discover, from the pink-brick streets struggling to contain southern life to the St Sernin basilica, Europe’s mightiest Romanesque church. A drink by the River Garonne, or on the vast Place-du-Capitole, a cassoulet chez Emile on Place-St-Georges, and the conversion’s complete.”
Strasbourg
“Together with Brussels, Strasbourg has become a byword for European Union bureaucracy,” says Lee Marshall. “But there’s a lot more to the capital of France’s Alsace region than pen-pushing Eurocrats. Long a free city within the Holy Roman Empire, Strasbourg would later alternate periods of French and German rule. This has given the ancient centre of the modern city a unique cross-border appeal, with half-timbered Medieval houses straight out of the Brothers Grimm coexisting with elegant French-style mansions and townhouses. It also means that this is an easy place for visitors to fit into — beneath its veneer of Alsatian folksiness, Strasbourg is suavely international and multi-lingual.”
Nantes
“Long rated as one of France’s best places to live, the capital of the western Loire has changed from provincial town to buzzing, and relentlessly fun, city,” says Kathy Arnold. “Nowhere is that more apparent than on the Île de Nantes, a three-mile-long island in the Loire. Here, at the Machinesde-l’Ile, you may ride a 40-foot diesel-driven elephant or bestride a giant jellyfish on Europe’s most delirious roundabout.
“Some buildings are new, such as the dramatic Palais de Justice; many are historic, including warehouses converted into cafés and artists’ studios. There are parks, gardens — and some of the quirkiest art installations I have seen. Nantes is also known for its art de vivre, and is home to one of France’s top symphony orchestras and a fine opera company that performs in the Théâtre Graslin.”
Nimes
“The Romans settled in Nîmes, France, when they were building the road between Rome and Spain,” explains Janette Griffiths. “Their legacy includes a 20,000seat arena, the spectacular Pont du Gard aqueduct, and the remains of baths and temples dotted through the Jardins de La Fontaine, where today the Nîmois play petanque. Be sure to also visit Les Halles, the central food market, for specialities such as brandade de morue (a purée of salt cod and olive oil) or delicious crunchy green picholine olives.”
Lille
Helen Pickles writes: “The charm of this city is that, despite being the largest in northern France, it doesn’t behave like a grand French city — all icy hauteur and spike-heeled arrogance. Possibly this agreeableness is because the Lillois feel no need to impress. Who would when the heart of your city is such a pleasing cat’s cradle of streets? Paved with stone and lined with steeply gabled houses, handsome in brick and golden sandstone, its 17th- and 18th-century buildings — now elegant shops — hint at its Flemish roots. The city only became French when Louis X1V captured it in 1667.”
Lille, as the first stop on French soil for Eurostar trains, is also one of the easiest French cities to reach from the UK, with travel times from as little as 88 minutes.