Grand Sites of France
Ever heard of the label Grand Sites of France? I think not. It’s a classification for places in France that get gazillions of visitors each year, and are of great interest because of their natural beauty or historical importance.
The principle is that they have all shown an ability to cope with having 1000000000000 visitors a year without life becoming intolerable for the residents, and without the natural environment being completely crushed underfoot or buried under an enormous car park.
Anyway, it’s Easter and thoughts are turning to travel and summer holidays, so I thought some photos of why we all love France might be in order, and where better to start that a handful of these Grand Sites? If a few of the readers of this blog set off to one or two of them it’s not going to make a big difference I think…
Here are photos of four of them – but do you know where they are? (answers further down):
Answers: these photos are of (1) Sainte-Victoire mountain near Aix-en-Provence (2) Pont du Gard aquaduct near Nimes (3) Aven d’Orgnac caves (4) Pointe du Raz, western tip of Brittany.
You can see the whole list at Grand Sites of France although I am still trying to track down photos for quite a few of them.
In our next thrilling travel instalment we’ll ask you to identify pictures of some of the most beautiful villages of France, then perhaps the UN Heritage sites…then maybe later we’ll move on to Villes Fleurie, followed by Plus Beaux Detour towns and ‘Towns of Art and History’, and then ‘Cities of Culture’
Then will come the towns that get swept up in great swathes like ‘towns on the pilgrimage route to Compostella’ or ‘towns in the north-east with surprisingly interesting belfries’, and those on ‘wine route of burgundy’, ‘cheese route of Auvergne’, ‘normandy cider route’ etc.
You get the idea I think. We are on the Circuit des Bastides’ and another route that refers to ‘castles of the south-west’ if memory serves.
All those out of the way it will be time for the big prize. We will try and track down towns and villages in France that actually haven’t managed to get a single award at all (or have carefully avoided the honour), that don’t exist in a single tourist brochure, or on any waymarked routes, and where you can enjoy your ice cream in complete peace this summer. And that will surely be the greatest list of all!?
Grande Sites de France? After a visit to a few of them, my hubby and I decided to avoid them like the Plague. Since we stay near the Pont du Gard every summer, that is our one exception. But I love the very French manner of labeling these things…sort of like in Japan where every Budda is the biggest, and every wooden temple is the oldest. Love it all.