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France

When you talk about Western civilization, you associate the idea with the European civilization and its most forefront place that comes to your mind is France. Blessed with an amazing combination of landscape, from jagged peaks and glaciers to an endless southern sea coast specked with lots of resorts, and with a remarkable mild climate the country is a major destination for any traveler. It had a turmoiled but fruitful history and the continuos wars added to its size making it today one of the largest country of Europe.

But the reason France stands out in the European mind is its long and influential cultural tradition. It has lots of sites to offer from the cathedrals of the North to the beautiful southern cities, that hosted in times many famous writers, philosophers and painters.
Paris, the city of lights, (Quicktime, Real, Windows) is the European symbol of culture and civilization, a Mecca of the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, a place that any European wanted to visit.
Painters and writers congregated on Montmartre and Montparnasse, thinkers of different orientations clogged the cafes talking till the morning hours about how to create a better world, and people from all over Europe came here to taste first hand the life of the great city.
Also, for many, France associates itself with fashion and fragrances, with cheese, wine and fine gourmet dinners or cabaret and other entertainment.

Come with us and visit in the southern part of the country, Languedoc and Roussillion.
We start our tour in Montpellier, and we stroll through the cities on the Mediterranean coast and visit, the magnificent cathedrals of Beziers and Narbonne, Sette with its picturesque canals, Carcassonne, the best preserved medieval city of Europe, the Cathar castles from Les Corbiers region, testimony of a successful but short lived civilization of Pays d'Occitane. Here we will talk about the the 13th century Albigense crusade of the Papality against these citadels that brought the demise of the Cathars rule and religion and brought the establishment of the Inquisition that will loom for hundreds of years over Western Europe. Latter we will go to Collioure, a very picturesque city on the Mediterranean coast that hosted several famous fauvist painters incliding Matisse and Derain, the reproduction of their paintings being hanged in the places where they painted them.
We continue to Roussillion, the French Catalonia, and visit its beautiful monasteries of Serabonne, St. Michael de Cuxa and St. Martin de Canigou stopping also at several fortified cities on the way. We cross the Pyrinees in Andorra, a independent principality, and we go further to visit Lourdes, the most important pilgrimage place for the Catholics of Europe. From there we continue to go west, and visit Pau, the birthplace of Henry de Navarre, Biarittz, the in resort for the aristocracy at the end of the 19th century, the Basque city of St. Jean de Luz and return all the way to spend several days on the Mediterranean coast at Grande Motte, a futuristic resort built in the 70s. From here we will do short incursions to Nimes, to visit its famous Roman amphitheater and to Aigues Morte, a city surrounded by fortified walls.

Later, we returned to France and visit its famous Cote d'Azur with the world reknown cities of Nice, Cannes, Antibes and the Principality of Monaco, with picturesque villages like Eze, going all the way to Cap Ferat and Menton near the Italian border and, opposite, to St Tropez. From there we went to Provence, and visit Grasse, St Paul de Vence, Avignon, Arles, Aix-en Provence and Marseille, strolling in Van Gogh's steps in St Remy de Provence and visiting the beautiful citadel of Les Baux de Provence. We end out this part of the tour with the impressive Roman ruins of Orange and Pont du Gard.

See our travel video and you'll never forget these places.