France is on the western edge of Europe, and lies within the northern temperate zone. It covers 551,500 km2, about 1000 km from north to south and from east to west.
People come to France for many a reason: its cities contain some of the greatest treasures on the continent, its countryside is prosperous and well-tended, and it boasts dozens of major tourist attractions, including Europe’s most popular, Disneyland Paris. France is one of the most geographically diverse countries in Europe, containing areas as different from each other as urban chic Paris, the sunny French Riviera, windswept Atlantic beaches, the snowy resorts of the French Alps, the Renaissance châteaux of the Loire Valley, rugged Celtic Brittany and the historian’s dream that is Normandy.
I have visited France several times:
- In 1973 I drove around Europe with a friend. We came from Monaco, stopped in Nice and Paris, and continued to Belgium.
- In 1980 I flew to Paris to meet a friend, and we took the train all the way to Athens for a vacation in the Greek islands.
- In 2000 we arrived by train in Nice from Italy to visit friends in Lorgue in Provence.
- In 2001 we drove by car from Amsterdam through Germany to visit Disneyland Paris.
- I have also had a few transit stops in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.