In which the author visits Biarritz, meets a French surfing legend, learns the history of surfing in France, zips up a wetsuit, takes a surfing lesson and eventually glides along with the 3-year-olds. Includes photos.

Accompanying France Revisited’s examination of surfing and museums in Biarritz, here are five notable hotels in the mid and upper price ranges, i.e. 3-,4- and 5-star hotels, including the history of the imperial residence that launched Biarritz as an international resort destination.

Three years ago Polish contributor Justyna Gawąd, her French husband and their European son moved to the Anjou region of France from Warsaw. Justyna is generally no crank, as far as we can tell, but [...]

The French Southwest staked out some new territory in Paris last September when Cécile Castellan opened Canard & Co in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower. Despite the name, there’s much more than mallard on the menu, as Corinne LaBalme explains in her review of this Basque and Béarnais grocery shop and luncheonette.

The Battle of Alesia of 52 B.C., the last major stand of the Gauls, led by Vercingetorix, against the Romans, led by Julius Caesar, is one of the most famous battles in the history of the territory that would become France. Yet until recently there was little a visitor could see, even at the very site of the battle in Burgundy, to help understand the logistics of that great confrontation.

Awards and award ceremonies tell a lot about a country, if not always about the nation that it is then at least about the nation that the award-givers want it to be. Part 2 of this two-part series concerns Pelerin Magazine’s Un Patrimoine pour demain (A Heritage for Tomorrow) and Cigale TV’s Trésors vivants de l’artisant (Living Treasures of Craftsmanship).

I don’t often show pictures of myself with celebrities, artists, winegrowers, chefs, politicians or other living icons that I meet in the course of my work, but that’s the best way to introduce the beautiful local Diva that I met the other day while in Orange, in the Vaucluse area of Provence.

I’d received a letter written in a strange hand inviting me to taste some baked pineapple at one of the tents of the Christmas market near the bottom of the Champs-Elysées. Odd! I went to [...]