South West

Emmanuel Macron hosted the signing of an agreement involving a special lottery to benefit France's architectural heritage.

LA ROCHELLE – www.holidays-la-rochelle.co.uk

BORDEAUX – www.bordeaux-tourism.co.uk

TOULOUSE – www.toulouse-visit.com

POITIERS – www.ot-poitiers.fr

For more information, visit the Tourist Office of La Rochelle at www.holidays-la-rochelle.co.uk.

City region: Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Population & what they are called: 74,998 inhabitants (2014 census), called Rochelais

Access from Paris:

• by road: about 4 h 30 min (293 miles) via the A10 autoroute l'Aquitaine

• by train: about 2 h 30 min by TGV from the Gare Montparnasse

Famous native daughters & sons:

• Guy Laroche, fashion designer

• Victor Prevost, photographer

• Winschluss, comic artist and filmmaker

Most distinctive and/or unique fact or trait (or little known fact):

• The phare du bout du monde (lighthouse from the end of the world) in the bay facing La Rochelle is a replica of the one near Cape Horn that inspired Jules Verne to write his famous book of the same name.

• The marina of La Rochelle boasts 4,800 moorings and now ranks among the largest marinas in the world.

Notable sites:

• Vieux Port – the old port, lorded over by three impressive historical towers – Tour Saint-Nicolas, Tour de la Chaîne and Tour de la Lanterne – and, via the 14th-century Porte de la Grosse Horloge, adjacent to the old town of medieval half-timbered houses set along arcaded streets

• Aquarium La Rochelle – a state-of-the-art aquarium, one of the largest in Europe (aquarium-larochelle.com/en)

• Le Bunker – untouched for decades, this World War II-era, German-built bunker explores La Rochelle's war history (bunkerlarochelle9.wixsite.com/lebunkerdelarochelle)

Top annual events:

• Francofolies – a festival of French contemporary songs and music (francofolies.fr)

• Festival International du Film – a program designed to be eclectic and both geographically and thematically diverse (festival-larochelle.org)

• Grand Pavois – a major event in the international boat show calender (grand-pavois.com)

Most notable museums:

• Musée Maritime – a fleet of model and full-sized ships brings to life city's maritime heritage (museemaritimelarochelle.fr)

• Musée du Nouveau Monde – devoted to the discovery and conquest of the New World as seen from La Rochelle, a main port for trade and emigration toward the Americas

• Musée des Beaux-Arts – European painting from the 15th to early 20th century, set in an 18th-century palace

Culinary specialties:

• fresh seafood – everything from ocean fish to scallops, oysters and mussels, and a variety of shellfish

• galette de Beurlay – a flat, crumbly, savory cake made of flour, eggs, butter, sea salt and one special ingredient: angélique, or wild celery

• farci charentais – a pâté made of green vegetables

Local wines & spirits:

• Cognac – the world's best-known brandy, produced in vineyards that reach as far as La Rochelle, with strong local representation by Cognac J. Normandin-Mercier (cognaccnm.fr)

• Pineau des Charentes – a fortified wine made from a blend of local grape juice and Cognac

• guignette – a very popular, local and light aperitif of fruit-flavored white wine, drunk chilled

Shopping:

• Marché Central – the large, daily covered market in the 19th-century building in the town center

• Rue des Merciers – a major arcaded shopping street with a lively atmosphere

• Made in La Rochelle – near the Espace Encan event space (located in the former fish market): Comptoir Charentais (regional food products), Matlama (bags/accessories), Farol (sailor’s knives) and more

Most popular night spots:

• La Coursive – a national theatre and event space that stages contemporary circus shows, theatre, dance and musical events, as well as major annual festival (la-coursive.com)

• Bar du France 1 – located on the upper deck of the France 1 ship (which houses the Maritime Museum)

• Quartier Saint-Nicolas – a bohemian and artistic district with vintage shops, art galleries, wine bars, atmospheric local bars and restaurants

Local population’s favorite activities (or hangouts):

• parks – from Parc Charruyer, a long park following the old town fortifications, to Parc Franck Delmas, connected by the Allée du Mail, a majestic avenue lined with elm trees

• beaches – the small, central Plage de la Concurrence was the first and most historic beach, followed by the larger Plage des Minimes and Plage Chef de Baie, although much prettier beaches are found on the nearby islands of Ile de Ré and Ile d'Oleron

• cycling – more than 100 miles of cycle paths make it easy for bikers to get acquainted with La Rochelle and its surroundings

Local industries:

• maritime services – taking advantage of La Rochelle's position and history it provides naval architects, designers and engineering consultants, specialists, renovation professional... and the marina

In Pop Culture:

• Fort Boyard – a French game show set in a 19th-century Napoleonic sea fort located off the coast of La Rochelle

• Raiders of the Lost Ark – the 1981 action movie by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford filmed scenes for the World War II German submarine base

• Das Boot – the 1981 German drama film about life on a World War II German U-boat

For more information, visit the Toulouse Tourist Office at www.toulouse-visit.com.

City region: Occitanie

Population & what they are called: 466,297 inhabitants (2014 census), called Toulousain

Access from Paris:

• by road: about 6 h 30 min (420 miles) via the A20 autoroute l'Occitane

• by train: about 4 h 10 min by TGV from the Gare Montparnasse

• by plane: about 1 h 20 min to the Toulouse-Blagnac Airport

Famous native daughters & sons:

• Abdelilah Chouari, breakdancer world champion

• Claude Nougaro, singer

• Bernard Werber, writer

Most distinctive and/or unique fact or trait (or little known fact):

• Toulouse is nicknamed La Ville Rose (The Pink City) due to the red-brick façades seen all across town.

• The 38 stations of Toulouse’s metro system are unique in that they all house works of contemporary art.

Notable sites:

• Capitole – the 18th-century home of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), Théâtre du Capitole (opera house) and the Salle des Illustres (a display hall of 19th-century masterpieces by local artists)

• Basilique Saint-Sernin – the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, containing the most beautiful pipe organ in the country

• Couvent des Jacobins – a significant monastic building and the city's red brick jewel of Meridional Gothic architecture

Top annual events:

• Festival Tangopostale – tango and Argentinian culture take over the city with performances, concerts, workshops and numerous cultural events (tangopostale.com)

• Rio Loco – a lively open-air festival combining world music, visual arts, cinema and international cuisine (rio-loco.org/en)

• Siestes Electroniques – free festival of electronic music in an open-air garden (les-siestes-electroniques.com)

Most notable museums:

• Cité de l'Espace – a unique museum and park centered around space exploration (cite-espace.com)

• Musée des Augustins (Musée des Beaux-Arts) – France's second oldest museum, with a large collection of European paintings (augustins.org)

• Les Abattoirs (Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain) – a modern art museum built into the area's old slaughterhouse (lesabattoirs.org)

Culinary specialties:

• saucisse de Toulouse – a special sausage composed of diced pork with no additives or preservatives

• cassoulet toulousain – a slow-cooked stew of white haricot beans, duck confit and saucisse de Toulouse, served in a traditional earthenware pot

• garbure – a hearty and thick peasant soup of cabbage, pork and a mix of other ingredients

Local wines & spirits:

• wines of the Southwest – over 300 grape varieties, 14 named geographical areas and 29 protected appellations all regrouped as “vins du Sud-Ouest,” including the Candie estate within Toulouse and the nearby Fronton vineyard

• crème de violette – a liqueur with taste and color of violet blossoms

Shopping:

• Quartier de la Daurade – the best place for vintage and second-hand shops

• Marché Victor Hugo – the biggest covered market, with restaurants on the first floor

• Quartier Saint-Etienne – antique shops fill the little streets of neighborhood around the Saint-Étienne Cathedral

Most popular night spots:

• Quartier des Carmes – one of the most active and dynamic neighborhood, with a vibrant range of popular bars and tapas restaurants

• Place Saint-Pierre – a main nightlife area with many bars full of students

• Rue Gabriel-Peri (near Jean-Jaurès Metro) – a good cluster of nightclubs, concert halls and bars

Local population’s favorite activities (or hangouts):

• Canal du Midi – crowds of walkers, cyclists and rollerbladers take move along its banks every day

• Garonne riverbank – a great place to observe the city skyline or step into a floating guinguette for a bite to eat in summer

• Jardin des Plantes – a 200-year-old sculpture garden for people in search of nature

Local industries:

• aerospace industry – home to one of the world’s largest aeronautics manufacturers, Airbus, as well as the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Aerospace Valley and more

In Pop Culture:

• The Musketeer (D’Artagnan) – the 2001 film by Peter Hyams with Catherine Deneuve, shot in the Salle des Illustres of the Capitole

• Lemming – the 2005 movie by Dominik Moll about love and betrayal

• The Frozen Dead (Glacé), by Bernard Minier – a thriller novel, the first of the series involving Commandant Martin Servaz, a Toulouse city cop

For more information, visit the Poitiers Tourism Office at www.ot-poitiers.fr.

City region: Poitou / Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Population & what they are called: 90,115 inhabitants (2014 census), called Poitevins

Access from Paris:

• by road: about 3 h 30 min (215 miles) via the A10 autoroute L'Aquitaine

• by train: about 1 h 20 min by TGV from the Gare Montparnasse

Famous native daughters & sons:

• Michel Foucault, philosopher

• Joël Robuchon, chef and restaurateur

• Brian Joubert, champion figure skater

Most distinctive and/or unique fact or trait (or little known fact):

• There is a Statue of Liberty in Poitiers! In 1903, a smaller version of the famous work that Bartholdi presented to New York City was placed on Place de la Liberté to remember General Jean-Baptiste Breton, who was executed there in 1822 for plotting against Louis XVIII.

• With more than 27,000 students in Poitiers, half of the population is younger than 30 years old.

Notable sites:

• Eglise Notre-Dame-la-Grande – a masterpiece of Romanesque church architecture particularly notable for its sculpted facade, illuminated every evening in summer and during the Christmas holidays

• Palais des Comtes de Poitou et Ducs d'Aquitaine – the 12th- to 13th-century former palace of the counts of Poitou and dukes of Aquitaine, currently the city’s court building

• other significant religious monuments – the list of important sites includes the Eglise St-Hilaire le Grand (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Baptistère Saint-Jean (one of the oldest baptisteries in Europe) and Cathédrale Saint-Pierre with its wonderful Gothic paintings, discovered in 2016

Top annual events:

• Poitiers, l’Eté – the city fills with venues for music, theater, dance, movies and street art

• Festival à Corps – an April festival of contemporary dance and theater (festivalacorps.com)

• Noël en Ville – when the spirit of Christmas settles in

Most notable museum:

• Musée Sainte-Croix – leading regional museum, with one special section devoted to regional archaeology covering Poitou history and another given over to Camille Claudel sculptures

Culinary specialties:

• farci poitevin – a vegetable pâté (sorrel, chard, spinach) flavored with lard and wrapped in cabbage leaves

• agneau du Poitou – parsley lamb usually accompanied by white haricot beans

• broyé du Poitou – a salted butter biscuit, best when broken into uneven chunks

Local wines & spirits:

• Haut-Poitou AOC wines – Fresh and light, these wines come in white, red and rosé colors

• beer – look out for local beers from regional breweries like Les Pirates du Clain, La Manufacture de Bières and La Brasserie de Bellefois

Shopping:

• Marché de Notre-Dame – right at the foot of the church, the best place for local product

• Flea and antique market – a weekly event that takes place on Place Charles-de-Gaulle

• Rue des Cordeliers – national and international shops, including bakeries, clothes retail stores and the Centre Commercial Cordeliers

Most popular night spots:

• La Serrurerie – a relaxing city-center concept bar and restaurant

• La Tomate Blanche – great for after-work drinks, restaurant meals and as a nightclub

• Le Confort Moderne – a free-to-enter arts and culture hotspot known for electronic music, popular DJs and much more (currently closed for renovation, but reopening on December 16)

Local population’s favorite activities (or hangouts):

• Futuroscope – a vision of the future in a multimedia theme park, France's second most visited (futuroscope.com)

• a little exercise – more than 250 miles of signposted trail stretch across the greater metropolitan area, taking in parks like Parc de Blossac, built along the old city walls, and Jardin des Plantes, a lovely botanical garden

• Le TAP-Scène Nationale – an arts center for theater, contemporary music, comedy, dance and more (tap-poitiers.com)

Local industries:

• research laboratories – organized around six scientific pillars, with 20 of the labs connected to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (French National Center for Scientific Research), the country’s largest governmental research organization

In Pop Culture:

• La Fanzinothèque – France’s first library devoted entirely to fanzines (fanzino.org)

• Jabberwocky – a song (“Photomaton”) by this new electro-pop group of three local students has been selected as the background music of the new Peugeot 208 ad campaign

• Fanny Laugier – a talented local ceramicist who already sells through the Musée Picasso in Barcelona has just provided 30 or so pieces to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC for sale in their museum store

For more information, visit Bordeaux Tourism at www.bordeaux-tourism.co.uk.

City region: Aquitaine / Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Population & what they are called: 250,776 municipality inhabitants (2016 census), called Bordelais

Access from Paris:

• by road: about 5 h 40 min (363 miles) via the A10 autoroute called L'Aquitaine

• by train: about 2 hours by TGV from the Gare Montparnasse

• by plane: about 1 h 15 min from Paris

Famous native daughters & sons:

• François Mauriac, writer and Nobel laureate

• Michel de Montaigne, philosopher and essayist

• Jean-Jacques Sempé, cartoonist

Most distinctive and/or unique fact or trait (or little known fact):

• Bordeaux is the most extensive urban environment in the world to be honored as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

• 22 bottles of wine from Bordeaux are sold every second all over the world.

Notable sites:

• Vieille ville – Old Bordeaux, its historic sites (the big bell tower, Place Pey-Berland, Opera House), elegant architecture and numerous wine bars

• Cité du Vin – a unique immersive journey into the discovery of wine cultures (laciteduvin.com/en)

• Miroir d'eau – world's largest water mirror, located on the Place de la Bourse

Top annual events:

• Bordeaux Fête le Vin – a large biennial four-day wine festival that celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2018 (June 14 to 18) with the arrival of the Tall Ships Regatta (bordeaux-wine-festival.com)

• Bordeaux S.O Good – a three-day festival of epicurean and gourmet food, 7,000 gourmet dishes cooked by a collective of chefs (bordeauxsogood.fr)

• International Festival of Arts of Bordeaux Métropole – nicknamed the FAB, it's three weeks of “artistic effervescence” (fab.festivalbordeaux.com/en/)

Most notable museums:

• Musée des Beaux Arts – one of France's best painting galleries with artwork by masters from many eras – Rubens to Delacroix to Picasso (musba-bordeaux.fr/en)

• Musée d'Aquitaine – archeological and history museum (musee-aquitaine-bordeaux.fr/en)

• Bernard Magrez Institut Culturel – cultural institute with temporary exhibitions of modern art (institut-bernard-magrez.com)

Culinary specialties:

• oysters – straight from the sea at Arcachon

• canelé – a rum- and vanilla-flavored pastry with a thick caramelized crust and soft custard center

• entrecôte bordelaise – a quality cut of beef grilled over a wood fire

Local wines & spirits:

• Bordeaux wine – famous reds and dry, sweet and even sparkling whites, well worth visiting at the wineries and learning about through a tasting class

• Lillet – made near Bordeaux with wine and fruit liqueur as a great prelude to any meal

Shopping:

• Rue Sainte-Catherine – the main shopping street in town, often acclaimed as the longest pedestrian street in Europe (0.75 miles long)

• Marché des Capucins – Bordeaux’s principal market hall, one of the best and biggest cupboards in the southwest of France

• wine marmalade – all the delicious taste without the alcohol

Most popular night spots:

• La Plage – the largest open-air dance floor in a city in France

• I.BOAT – a concert hall, club and restaurant on a boat moored in a tidal basin

• Mama Shelter – a rooftop bar with amazing city views

Local population’s favorite activities (or hangouts):

• Quays of the Garonne River – run, bike or stroll from the Jacques Chaban-Delmas Bridge to the Pont de pierre (Stone Bridge)

• Marché des Chartrons – an outdoor Sunday market and perfect place for a glass of wine with oysters, or a canelé

• Darwin Ecosystem – a green hub and alternative place dedicated to sustainable economic development and featuring an organic restaurant, urban farm, skate parks etc. (darwin.camp)

Local industries:

• wine – with the largest AOC vineyards of France, Bordeaux is one of the world's most important wine producers and exporters

• laser and plasma technologies – the Bordeaux area has the most important concentration of optical and laser expertise in Europe

In Pop Culture:

• The Mummy – a 2016 movie with Tom Cruise with a scene made in Mérignac, near Bordeaux

• The Flower of Evil (La fleur du mal) – a 2003 movie by Claude Chabrol about a seemingly perfect bourgeois family in Bordeaux

• Les Misérables – a Robert Hossein adaptation of the famous novel, released in 1982

Major 2020 developments:

• The trendy and rejuvenated neighborhood of Bacalan welcomes in spring 2020 the Bassin des Lumières, a grand digital exhibition space housed in the former WWII submarine base. It will also neighbor the Cité du Vin and the new Musée Mer Marine, all a 15mn tram ride from the city’s central Place de la Comédie.

New Aquitaine | Fast Facts


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