Explore France

The carpenter’s tales that laid open village’s secrets - or what a 19th-century artisan’s diaries, hidden under the floor of a Hautes-Alpes château, said about rural life

Mick the miller gets the old water wheels turning again

Architecture of France... Colmar

The ancient monastery that turned into a village: a look at the long religious history of the tiny Loire commune that was born shortly after the Revolution

Whether they are ancient or modern, l’Hexagone boasts a fine array of man-made wonders. Samantha David presents a well-engineered selection.

Jane Hanks discovers that Locronan, in Finistère, is much more than a perfectly preserved setting for filming historical dramas

If cathedrals were built as monuments to the glory of God, then it could be argued that railway stations were intended to glorify the Industrial Revolution. 

The key to creating a French country bedroom is to keep it clean and simple, says Courtney Allison

With his new book on Art Deco on sale now, design legend and Oscar-winning film-maker Arnold Schwartzman tells Samantha David about his love of the 20th-century art movement

The very big secret history of France’s smallest commune - Jane Hanks tells the remarkable history of the tiny Gironde village that was the birthplace and occasional home of royalty

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Samantha David marks the 60th anniversary of Unesco’s distinctive Paris HQ by exploring the cultural organisation’s work

Europe’s highest village, in the southern Alps, has an architecture all its own. Jane Hanks finds out why from one of its residents

In the latest of her explorations of small French villages with secret histories, Jane Hanks visits Peyrusse-le-Roc in Aveyron

With a film about the moon landings and lunar anniversaries coming up, Samantha David examines France’s space-bound history and talks exclusively to its only female astronaut

Keen to explore France’s long history of space exploration, intrepid Samantha David visits Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse