When planning a vacation, there are so many choices one has to make. Where to go? How long to stay? What to do?
Then you have to decide what type of trip it will be. Will you take an adventure trip? A scenic tour? Country or city scape?
Next, the transportation. Will you go by plane, train or automobile? Or do you prefer to take a cruise?
Â
If you decide that this trip will take you on the scenic route, one of the best ways to experience that is on a cruise. If your destination is France, you will of course want to consider one of those five-star French river cruises.
To travel to France is to take a scenic vacation, whether that is the plan or not. This happens because there is just so much beauty to behold, wherever your journey takes you.
Suppose you start in the City of Lights, Paris. Well, right there in the nickname, you know you’ll be looking around in awe. Even when you think you are walking around the most urban of urban streets, you will turn a corner and there you will see a beautiful jardin. Or you will find yourself on the bank of the Seine. There is no escaping the joy of place that exists throughout the country.
Photo:Â www.flickr.com/photos/allylic
While in Paris, to enjoy the scenery, you must take in the gardens of the Tuileries. Dating back to the sixteenth century, these gardens were created by Catherine de Medici. Today they are nestled between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde.
Venture out of the city proper and you can visit the Palace of Versailles and the breathtaking gardens there. Visit on the weekend and you can see the mythical fountains set to music.
www.polopixel.com/2014/01/palace-of-versailles-france.html
Or head to Giverny to see Monet’s gardens. Not only was he an inspired painter, but a master gardener as well. Monet planted many of the landscapes that he painted.
If you can’t get enough of Monet, continue on to Rouen. Spend the day at St. Catherine’s Hill and you might just feel you have gone back in time, to see Monet paint his masterpieces.
 Photo: www.millerswebsite.co.uk
If your impressions of France tend more toward the vineyards, head to Macon to see the Beaujolais vineyards, or to Chauteaneuf-de-Pape, and tour one of the famous Cotes de Rhone vineyards.
A must see on any scenic tour of France includes Avignon and the Luberon region. Mere words can not do the region justice, yet British author Peter Mayle entertained millions at the end of the twentieth century with his expatriate chronicles of life in the Luberon. If you have read and loved these books, see if you can find some of your favorite spots. If not, just spend the day enveloped in a land of rolling hills and beautiful valleys.
Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/dmitry_shakin
It has been said that France hosts some of the most amazing views in the world. So head on over for your own scenic tour of one of the most beautiful places in the world.