Frankrike

Often dubbed the ‘Garden of France’, the Touraine region is known for its rich food, tasty cheeses and famously pure French accent, as well as a first-rate line-up of glorious châteaux: some medieval (Langeais and Loches), others Renaissance (Azay-le-Rideau, Villandry and Chenonceau). The vibrant capital, Tours, offers plenty of good restaurants, château tours and public-transport options.

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.

Named after the mountain range running east–west between Cavaillon and Manosque, the Luberon is a Provençal patchwork of hilltop villages, vineyards, ancient abbeys and mile after mile of fragrant lavender fields. It’s a rural, traditional region that still makes time for the good things in life – particularly fine food and even finer wine. Nearly every village hosts its own weekly market, packed with stalls selling local specialities, especially olive oil, honey and lavender.

An intoxicating cocktail of 18th-century savoir-faire, millennial hi-tech and urban street life, France's sixth largest city is among Europe's most exciting and gutsy players.

Grit and grandeur coexist seamlessly in Marseille, an exuberantly multicultural port city with a pedigree stretching back to classical Greece.

With its rolling pastures and little-visited villages, Limousin might be the most overlooked area of southwestern France. It's not nearly as exciting as the Dordogne to the south or the Loire to the north, but it does offer a chance to get off the beaten path, and aficionados will like Limoges for its porcelain and Aubusson for its tapestries.

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.

The Dordogne, Limousin and the Lot are the heart and soul of la belle France, a land of dense oak forests, winding rivers, emerald-green fields and famously rich country cooking. It’s the stuff of which French dreams are made: turreted châteaux and medieval villages line the riverbanks, wooden-hulled gabarres (traditional flat-bottomed, wooden boats) ply the waterways, and market stalls overflow with pâté, truffles, walnuts, cheeses and fine wines.

With its mix of real-city life, old-world opulence, year-round sunshine, vibrant street life and stunning seaside location, no place in France compares with Nice.

Från tyska Moseldalen till Atlantkustens stränder och Paris gator. Vagabonds chefredaktör tog med vänner och familj på en somrig tågluff genom Västeuropa.