Oct
5 top World Heritage Sites in
France?
Where do we begin? Even UNESCO’s shown signs of fatigue over the
country’s pretty much endless parade of historic, significant, ancient,
important, unique and just plain stunning. How else would you explain a
site listed as just ’56 Belfries’? Or ‘The Loire Valley’ – all of it,
the whole lot? Or what about ‘The Banks of the Seine’? Yes indeed, it
seems that France has more than its fair share of nice stuff to
classify. Such a lot in fact, it’s apparently not always possible to
separate it, and you just get great big chunks of lumped together
loveliness in between the charming, breathtaking and astonishing places
that didn’t quite make the cut.
So, in the spirit of égalité, we’re going North to South for our top
five. It’s not a definitive guide but it contains a few all-time
favourites, gives you some coast and mountains, covers France from
pre-history to round about the time the revolutionaries got a bit tetchy
over the lack of food and abundance of gold leaf, mirrors and
relentless topiary. There were one or two candidates on UNESCO’s
‘Tentative List’ we’d like to have thrown in, but couldn’t: the
Camargue? Tentative? Really? Nothing tentative about flamingoes as far
as we’re concerned! And we’ve steered clear of cathedrals because, when
you’ve seen one soaring buttress etc.
Winter approaches and since we’ve a fondness for North West France in the colder months of the year, let’s start with
Mont Saint Michel.
To be clear, Mont Saint Michel is definitely an island. It’s reached
by a causeway (oh, the romance), surrounded by sea, sand and salt
meadows (oh, even more romance) and it’s in Normandy, but just on the
border of Brittany. The island’s Abbey is 11
th century in
origin and has the crypts to prove it, later modifications and additions
are responsible for the iconic fairy-tale appearance and it’s all as
beautifully preserved as you would expect. Mont Saint Michel is
effectively a spiritual hierarchy with God on top (The Abbey) and the
cottages of farmers and fisherfolk at the base (outside the walls). In
between, the grand halls and stores descend, clinging to the island’s
shape so organically that from a distance it’s hard to tell what’s
natural and what’s not. The bay surrounding Mont Saint Michel is also a
World Heritage Site but please don’t be tempted to walk across the sands
to the island, pilgrims didn’t call it ‘St. Michael in peril from the
sea’ for nothing. With only 44 permanent residents, Mont Saint Michel
today has more sheep than people and the area’s famous for unique and
delicious agneau de pré salé (salt meadow lamb). To protect the island
and its fragile surroundings from the impact of over 3 million visitors a
year, Mont Saint Michel is traffic free and the nearest parking is 2 km
away on the mainland – you can walk across the causeway or catch a
shuttle. And if you like your drama heightened, vivid late afternoon
sunsets and mist-tinged frosty mornings, winter is the most peaceful and
(in our opinion) loveliest time to see Mont Saint Michel.
Pious restraint and austere northern beauty not your thing? Then
allow us to lead you 55km to the south of Paris and the riotous romp
through eight centuries of French Royal excess that is
Le Château de Fontainebleau.
Le Château de Fontainebleau © FredArt
The oldest and one of the largest French Royal Palaces, Fontainebleau
has 1500 rooms, 130 hectares of parkland and so much gold and tapestry
and draping and allegory and ornament that it’s quite probably a verb in
Dubai: To Fontainebleau – overwhelm every inch of available space with
eye watering vulgarity. But Le Château de Fontainebleau’s interior is
the original and you have to look at it without pre-conception – hard to
do when faced with 25 acres of frolicking nymphs, but worth it, we
promise. And if all that open-minded appreciation of such richness
brings out The Very Hungry Caterpillar in you, Fontainebleau’s legendary
parkland is hectare after hectare of very nice green leaves and lots of
other delightful natural antidotes to cherubs and Chinoserie.
Surprisingly the parkland isn’t a World Heritage Site, but it is
possibly some of the most magnificent in France and this is not a
country short on great landscaping.
Skipping over the 300 or more châteaux that collectively earn The
Loire Valley its World Heritage status, we’re instead irresistibly drawn
to the
Lascaux Caves in South West France.
One of several pre-historic World Heritage Sites in the Dordogne’s
Vallée Vézère, Lascaux is famous for its cave paintings which are
considered to be the world’s finest and most extensive examples of
Paleolithic art. The Lascaux Caves were discovered in 1940, opened to
the public in 1948 and finally closed in 1963 because in just 15 years
the 17,000 year old art had been almost irreparably damaged by visitors.
Today, Lascaux II is an almost exact replica of the caves recreated
close to the original. The paintings have been faithfully reproduced and
the entire experience is captivating, intelligent and very moving.
When it comes to ‘world’s finest examples’, even the shortest list of French World Heritage Sites has to include the
Cité de Carcassonne at the Mediterranean end of the Canal du Midi (another World Heritage Site) in South West France.
Cité de Carcassonne
The Cité de Carcassonne dominates Carcassonne’s entire skyline with
fairy-tale turrets, ramparts and imposing towers, managing to look both
mighty and ethereal and well up to holding down a siege or keeping back a
Medieval invader or two. The restored Medieval Cité itself is a fairly
austere experience going for atmosphere over ornament, but it has a
‘Torture Tower’ if you’re interested in – unexpected – instruments of
inquisition. And the commercialised ‘old town’ is more than happy to
make up for its fortified counterpart’s minimalism with almost endless
opportunities to buy Medieval souvenirs from surly shopkeepers charging
exorbitant prices. Trust us, you’ll never regret saying ‘no’ to some
curly-toed velvet slippers or a slash-sleeved ankle length robe.
To end on a heritage high note, we had to go for
Scandola Nature Reserve on
Corsica.
Not an island lacking in dramatic landscape, Corsica does rugged and
strange as a matter of course and specialises in towns that teeter off
cliffs, terrifyingly twisty mountain roads and a fair number of rocky
outcrops, sea stacks and grottos. So when we tell you that Scandola
beats just about everywhere else on the island for sheer scale and
almost unearthly beauty, you know this is one to definitely tick on the
World Heritage list. Lying to the west of Corsica, Scandola is primarily
a nature reserve and its vast rock pillars, caves and cliffs are home
to an astonishing variety of sea birds. The reserve is only accessible
by boat so it’s a site less visited which is worth a mention in itself.
Depending on where you stand with Belfries and Cĥateaux, France has
37 or over 300 World Heritage Sites and that’s before you touch the
‘Tentative List’. So even if you aren’t inspired to head out and get
yourself some Medieval garb in Carcassonne, cross the causeway to Mont
Saint Michel or brave the opulence of Fontainebleau, there are still
quite a few alternatives to choose from.
Link from: http://blog.housetrip.com/5-top-world-heritage-sites-france/
Mont Saint-Michel © susanna giaccai
Le Château de Fontainebleau © FredArt
Lascaux Caves © Adibu456
Cité de Carcassonne
Scandola Nature Reserve © Rox More
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