Country Roads of France

You’ll arrive in Paris with time to follow its broad boulevards, pause beneath elegant balconies and hear cafe chatter spilling onto the pavements. At the hotel, you’ll meet your Travel Director and fellow guests before heading to a local restaurant, where dinner is served from recipes made with fresh ingredients and the scent of home-style cooking drifts from the kitchen. As glasses are raised and plates are passed around the table, you savour your first dinner in Paris.

Through Champagne’s vineyard country, neat rows of vines line your route, changing with the seasons from tender green shoots to dense summer leaves and copper-toned autumn colour. In Troyes, you wander through the medieval Old Town, looking up at crooked timber frames and painted houses leaning towards narrow streets. A glass of Champagne follows, with a soft pop of the cork, fine bubbles rising and the crisp taste of the region’s best-known export on your lips. In Dijon, your Travel Director leads you through streets lined with carved stone façades and traces the history behind the city’s architecture.

In Dijon, you wander through old courtyards, gazing at the grand architecture left by the Dukes of Burgundy, whose power once rivalled that of France’s kings. You may choose an Optional Experience to Beaune, Burgundy’s wine capital, where glazed rooftops catch the light and cool cellars offer the scent of oak and ageing wine. Later, another Optional Experience takes you to the Premier Cru village of Fixin. Here, you raise a glass of Burgundy, taste its dark fruit and savour a traditional dinner as candlelight flickers across the table.

As you climb into the high Alps, Mont Blanc rises above the valley and the air turns cooler around you. In Chamonix, you might ride the cable car for wide views across the mountain peaks and the resort far below, or explore the streets at your own pace beneath the surrounding slopes. This evening, you may choose an Optional Experience in a traditional chalet.

Between the lake and mountains, Annecy invites you into lanes crossed by narrow canals, where water laps against the banks beneath old bridges and medieval buildings lean towards one another. With free time in the Old Town, you can choose a place for lunch, follow the winding lanes through Little Venice and pause on the bridges to watch the reflections ripple below. From Annecy, you continue to Grenoble, then settle in for dinner at a local restaurant as the city lights begin to glow outside.

Following the mountain road once travelled by Napoleon, you wind through steep passes and deep valleys before Provence opens towards the French Riviera. In Nice, you step into streets washed with Mediterranean colour and set out to explore at your own pace. Later, you might wander through the Old Town, listening to voices echo between ochre buildings before reaching Cours Saleya, where fresh flowers fill the stalls and their perfume drifts between rows of bistro tables.

On the Côte d’Azur, you begin among stoppered bottles and carefully blended fragrances at a local perfumery, where floral, citrus and woody notes unfold one by one. In Monaco, you'll follow the bends of the Grand Prix circuit before selecting your preferred experience. At the Oceanographic Museum, you watch tropical fish move through blue-lit aquariums above the sea. Or enter the Royal Palace beneath painted ceilings, then step into the hush of Monaco Cathedral, where Princess Grace lies at rest. Later, you may join an Optional Experience to Èze, climbing through its medieval lanes to the Botanical Gardens, where sculptural cacti and succulents weave among the ruins of a fortress high above the sea.

High above the Riviera, you'll wander through Saint-Paul de Vence, passing fountains, vine-covered walls and glimpses of mountains and sea between the medieval lanes. Next, you try your hand at pétanque, weighing the metal boule in your palm before sending it skimming across the gravel. After the game, you'll raise a glass of anise-scented pastis. In Aix-en-Provence, the journey continues beneath the plane trees of Cours Mirabeau, where elegant mansions line the avenue on the way to your hotel.

At Pont du Gard, you stand beneath vast tiers of arches supporting the Roman aqueduct before continuing to Avignon, where medieval walls and the legacy of the 14th-century papacy surround you. Your MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience takes you into a local olive estate, where leaves rustle through the groves and you find out how olives travel from tree to table. During the tasting, you'll learn how to distinguish each note on the palate by comparing each oil’s aroma, colour and texture. Back in Aix-en-Provence, the evening is yours to linger over a cafe table, browse the boutiques or enjoy the city at your own pace.

Among Arles’ honey-toned buildings, you pass the Roman Arena and the broken columns of the ancient theatre, following streets that later caught Vincent van Gogh’s eye. Across the Languedoc, Carcassonne rises behind two rings of fortified walls. You enter beneath its towers, cross the worn paving within the UNESCO-listed fortress and look up at the medieval keep. In Albi, your Travel Director guides you past the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum and the immense red-brick walls of Sainte-Cécile Cathedral. Afterwards, you can wander at your leisure, perhaps pausing beside the Tarn, where the medieval arches of Pont-Vieux stretch towards Albi’s terracotta skyline.

With a full day at leisure, you might follow Albi’s russet lanes to where the nutty scent of local cheeses mingles with butter-rich pastries beneath the ironwork of the covered market. Perhaps wander through the gardens of the Palais de la Berbie, among sweeping arabesques of deep-green boxwood curled across white gravel. This evening, you'll settle into a local restaurant and savour a dinner prepared with carefully selected fresh ingredients.

In Cahors, you stand before the three fortified towers of Pont Valentré. Weaving through the open-air market, you may pause over baskets of seasonal produce and bottles of the city’s deep-red Black Wine with its notes of blackberry, plum and black pepper that dance on the tongue. Continue to Rocamadour, where stone lanes rise in tiers above the Alzou canyon, tracing a pilgrimage route travelled for centuries on the Camino de Santiago. Later, take your seat for a Farm-to-Table Dinner, tasting ingredients sourced nearby and sipping regional wine as each course arrives.

Travelling through the Dordogne Valley, you step into the cool half-light of Lascaux II, where reproductions of prehistoric horses, bulls and deer sweep across the cave walls in ochre, charcoal and rust. In Sarlat-la-Canéda, wander through a medieval centre of honey-gold limestone, passing carved doorways, shuttered windows and narrow lanes that glow warmly in the light. The scent of baking pastry and coffee may drift from nearby cafes as you linger beneath the old façades and watch the town move around you. This evening, the journey winds through the wooded Dordogne countryside back to your hotel for dinner.

Arriving in Paris, you’re free to follow its broad avenues, settle at a cafe table or wander along the river as the scent of warm bread drifts from nearby boulangeries. After dusk, bridges and elegant buildings glow against the night, their reflections trembling across the Seine. Later, you settle in for French cuisine and wine, tasting each course as glasses catch the soft light across the table.

From your coach, you’ll see the Eiffel Tower’s iron lattice sweep above the Champ de Mars, its four great arches narrowing towards the summit. At Place de la Concorde, the carved hieroglyphs of the Luxor Obelisk rise above fountain water pattering into the basins, while a fine spray cools the air. The Champs-Élysées carries you between theatre façades, cafe terraces and glossy shopfronts towards Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe, where vast sculpted figures surge from the stone above the circling traffic. Later, you may choose an Optional Experience at one of Paris’s celebrated cabarets.

Today, you'll leave the French countryside behind as you transfer to the airport.