Frankrike

So named because international students communicated in Latin here until the French Revolution, the Latin Quarter remains the hub of academic life in Paris. Centred on the Sorbonne’s main university campus, graced by fountains and lime trees, this lively area is also home to some outstanding museums and churches, along with Paris’ beautiful art deco mosque and botanic gardens.

At the crossroads of central Europe and the Atlantic, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean, grand old Lyon is France's third-largest metropolis and its gastronomic capital. Savouring timeless traditional dishes in checked-tableclothed bouchons (small bistros) creates unforgettable memories – as do the majestic Roman amphitheatres of Fourvière, the cobbled Unesco-listed streets of Vieux Lyon, and the audacious modern architecture of the new Confluence neighbourhood.

High up in the French Alps, it's enthralling to imagine the forces that shaped these colossal peaks. The African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided some 35 million years ago, forcing the land skyward into a 1000km chain of saw-edged mountains.

For many people, the pastoral landscapes of Provence are a French fantasy come true. Provence seems to sum up everything enviable about the French lifestyle: fantastic food, hilltop villages, legendary wines, bustling markets and a balmy climate. For decades, it's been a hotspot for holidaymakers and second-homers, inspired by the vision of the rustic good life depicted in Peter Mayle's classic 1989 travelogue, A Year in Provence.

If it's French splendour, style and gastronomy you seek, the Loire Valley will exceed your expectations, no matter how great. Poised on the crucial frontier between northern and southern France, and just a short train or autoroute ride from Paris, the region was once of immense strategic importance. Kings, queens, dukes and nobles came here to establish feudal castles and, later on, sumptuous pleasure palaces – that's why this fertile river valley is sprinkled with hundreds of France's most opulent aristocratic estates. With crenellated towers, soaring cupolas and glittering banquet halls, the region's châteaux, and the villages and vineyards that surround them, attest to over a thousand years of rich architectural and artistic creativity. The Loire Valley is also known for its outstanding wines (red, white, rosé and sparkling) and lively, sophisticated cities, including Orléans, Blois, Tours and Angers – yet more reasons why the entire area is an enormous Unesco World Heritage Site.

De lämnade sina karriärer, sitt hem och livet i Stockholm för drömmen om Frankrike. Idag bor svenska paret Yvonne och Micke i Languedoc där de driver ett bed & breakfast i byn Neffiès.

Ingen huvudstad är väl så romantisk som Paris och vill man förena den känslan med en vidunderlig utsikt – då är det till varuhuset Galeries Lafayette man ska bege sig.

Provence might conjure up images of rolling fields and gentle hills, but east of the Luberon you’ll find yourself travelling through altogether more dramatic landscapes. Rising like a tooth-lined jawbone along the border with Italy, just an hour’s drive north of Nice, lie the Alps – France’s most famous mountain range, a haven for mountaineers, hikers and wildlife spotters, and home to some of the region’s most unforgettable scenery.

At the lower edge of the Atlantic Coast, the Gironde département extends to the Dordogne in the east and the Basque Country in the south. The gateway to its wealth of attractions, set amid glorious vine-ribboned countryside, is the capital city of Bordeaux.

Burgundy (Bourgogne in French) offers some of France's most gorgeous countryside: rolling green hills dotted with mustard fields and medieval villages. The region's towns and its dashingly handsome capital, Dijon, are heirs to a glorious architectural heritage that goes back to the Renaissance, the Middle Ages and into the mists of Gallo-Roman and Celtic antiquity.