City of Toulouse

Toulouse counts three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Canal du Midi, and the Basilica of St. Sernin (map), the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 along with the former hospital Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques (map) because of their significance to the *Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route.

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Toulouse is a big city, but the historical centre is quite small, and mostly pedestrianised. You can walk to most attractions. The old centre of Toulouse is east of the River Garonne: it’s compact and most places of interest can easily be visited on foot. It’s bounded to the east & north by Bvd Lazare Carnot (map) / Bvd de Strasbourg (map), and to the south by the cathedral, rue Metz (map) and Pont Neuf (map).

Le Château d’Eau (map), an old 19th-century water-tower, was converted as a gallery in 1974 by Jean Dieuzaide, a French photographer from Toulouse and is now one of the oldest public places dedicated to photography in the world.

The *French Riviera (Côte d’Azur, map), in southeastern France, is the second leading tourist destination in the country, after the Parisian region. Main cities on the French Riviera include Nice (map), Antibes (map) and Cannes (map); Cap Ferrat (map) is also a popular destination.

Provence – numerous famous natural sites can be found in the region, as the Gorges du Verdon (map), the Camargue (map), the Calanques National Park (map) and the typical landscape of *Luberon.

Loire Valley – This World Heritage Site is noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in its historic towns such as Amboise (map), Angers (map), Blois (map), *Chinon (map), *Orléans (map), and Saumur (map) >> +*Châteaux of the Loire Valley)

French Alps are the portions of the Alps mountain range that stand within France, located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (map) and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions. Notable towns in the French Alps include Grenoble (map), Chamonix (map), Annecy (map) is called “the Venice of Savoie”, Chambéry (map), Évian-les-Bains (map) and Albertville (map).

Corsica – is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea after Sicily, Sardinia and Cyprus. It is a popular attraction for tourists with both cultural aspects (cities *Ajaccio and *Bastia) and geographical features (Parc naturel régional de Corse, map).