The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. It was built from 1658 to 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis de Belle Île, Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances of Louis XIV.The château was an influential work of architecture in mid-17th-century Europe. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape architect André le Nôtre, and the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun worked together on a large-scale project for the first time. Their collaboration marked the beginning of the "Louis XIV style" combining architecture, interior design and landscape design. The garden's pronounced visual axis is an example of this style.Once a small château located between the royal residences of Vincennes and Fontainebleau, the estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte was purchased by Nicolas Fouquet in 1641. At that time he was an ambitious twenty-six year-old member of the Parlement of Paris. Fouquet was an avid patron of the arts, attracting many artists with his generosity.When Fouquet became King Louis XIV's superintendent of finances in 1657, he commissioned Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre to renovate his estate and garden to match his grand ambition. Fouquet’s artistic and cultivated personality subsequently brought out the best in the three.To secure the necessary grounds for the elaborate plans for Vaux-le-Vicomte’s garden and castle, Fouquet purchased and demolished three villages. The displaced villagers were then employed in the upkeep and maintenance of the gardens. It was said to have employed eighteen thousand workers and cost as much as sixteen million livres.The château and its patron became for a short time a focus for fine feasts, literature and arts. The poet La Fontaine and the playwright Molière were among the artists close to Fouquet. At the inauguration of Vaux-le-Vicomte, a Molière play was performed, along with a dinner event organized by François Vatel, and an impressive firework show.

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The Verdon Gorge, in south-eastern France, is a river canyon that is often considered to be one of Europe's most beautiful. It is about 25 kilometres long and up to 700 metres deep. It was formed by the Verdon River, which is named for its startling turquoise-green colour, one of the location's distinguishing characteristics. The most impressive part lies between the towns of Castellane and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, where the river has cut a ravine to a depth of 700 metres through the limestone mass. At the end of the canyon, the Verdon River flows into the artificial lake of Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon.Because of its proximity to the French Riviera, the gorge is very popular with tourists, who can drive around its rim, rent kayaks to travel on the river, or hike. The limestone walls, which are several hundreds of metres high, attract many rock climbers. It is considered an outstanding destination for multi-pitch climbing. The variety of 1,500 routes encompass cracks, pillars and seemingly endless walls, and range in distance from 20m to over 400m. The climbing is generally of a technical nature.

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The Palais Garnier is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre is also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier, and historically was known as the Opéra de Paris or simply the Opéra,as it was the primary home of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when the Opéra Bastille opened at the Place de la Bastille.The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet.The Palais Garnier is probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica."This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and, especially, the novel's subsequent adaptations in films and Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular 1986 musical. Another contributing factor is that among the buildings constructed in Paris during the Second Empire, besides being the most expensive, it has been described as the only one that is "unquestionably a masterpiece of the first rank."This opinion is far from unanimous however: the 20th-century French architect Le Corbusier once described it as "a lying art" and contended that the "Garnier movement is a décor of the grave".The Palais Garnier also houses the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra de Paris. Although the Library-Museum is no longer managed by the Opera and is part of the Bibliothèque nationale de France,the museum is included in unaccompanied tours of the Palais Garnier.

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Opunohu Bay is a bay on the island of Moorea, Tahiti. It is a narrow, straight, 3-km long bay with a water depth of about 80 metres at the mouth.Offshore winds along the axis of the bay generates an outflow at the surface and an inflow below 20 metres depth. It is located not too far away from Papeete.A number of sailboats regularly enter the bay and the bay is part of numerous tours of Tahiti given by tourist Opunohu bay is west of Cooks Bay and Pao Pao.It is located about 20 miles west of Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. Opunohu bay is in western Moorea where Mt. Rotui towers over the bay. Mt. Tohivea is Moorea's highest mountain just to the south. Papetoai is located to the west of the bay. People from the east of the bay would drive through the bay and reach Papetoai. Piheana is located to the east of the bay.People mainly come into the bay to get to Papetoai. They mainly come to Papetoai to shop at the shopping center. Pao Pao is not too far away the bay. Some people stop at a small road that goes all the way to Mount Tohivea with views of the 2 bays of Moorea. International flights land in the Faa'a International Airport. The tourist would take either ferry or airplane to reach Moorea. Air Tahiti would land in the Moorea Airport. Then the tourist would drive westbound toward Opunohu bay.

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Sisteron is a commune in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Sisteron is situated on the banks of the River Durance just after the confluence of the rivers Buëch and Sasse. It is sometimes called the "Gateway to Provence" because it is in a narrow gap between two long mountain ridges.The town's buildings include the citadel and the 12th century former Sisteron Cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Thyrsus. There are three museums of note: the Citadel Museum, the Baden-Powell Scout Museum and Musée Terre & Temps.Tourist attractions include the countryside, the lido and the airfields at Vaumeilh, La Motte-du-Caire and Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, which are dedicated to the sport of gliding. There is an annual festival with many events throughout the summer months. There is a market every Wednesday. A long distance walk, the GR 6 passes east-west through Sisteron.Sisteron is served by the A51 autoroute, which now by-passes the town, eliminating it as a notorious 'bottle-neck' for traffic. There is also a railway station on the line from Marseille to Briançon and Grenoble.

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Bonifacio is a commune at the southern tip of the island of Corsica, in the Corse-du-Sud department of France. Its inhabitants are called Bonifaciens, feminine Bonifaciennes. The commune in this case is identical to the canton and is the largest commune of Corsica.Bonifacio is the setting of Guy de Maupassant's short story, Vendetta.The French leg of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series takes place in Bonifacio.The city of Bonifacio is split into two sections. The vieille ville, or la Haute Ville, on the site of a citadel, is located on the promontory overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The citadel was built in the 9th century with the foundation of the city. The Citadel has been reconstructed and renovated many times since its construction and most recently was an administrative center for the French Foreign Legion. Today it is more of a museum. Historically most of the inhabitants have resided in the Haute ville under the immediate protection of the citadel. The harbor facilities and residential areas below, la marine, line the narrow shelf of the inlet and extend for some distance up the valley, giving the settlement a linear appearance and creating a third residential section limited by St. Julien on the east.The city and its fortifications also extend for some distance along the cliff-tops, which are at about 70 meters elevation. The cliffs have been undercut by the ocean so that the buildings, which have been placed on the very lip of the precipice, appear to overhang it. The appearance from the sea is of a white city gleaming in the sun and suspended over the rough waters below.

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Collioure is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France.The town of Collioure is on the Côte Vermeille, in the canton of Côte Vermeille and in the arrondissement of Céret.There is a record of the castle at "Castrum Caucoliberi" having been mentioned as early as 673, indicating that the settlement here was of strategic and commercial importance during the Visigoth ascendancy.Collioure used to be divided into two villages separated by the river Douy, the old town to the south named Port d'Avall and the upstream port, Port d'Amunt.Collioure was taken in 1642 by the French troops of Maréchal de la Meilleraye. A decade later, the town was officially surrendered to France by the 1659 Treaty of Pyrenees. Because of its highly strategic importance, the town's fortifications, the Château Royal de Collioure and the Fort Saint-Elme stronghold, were improved by the military engineer Vauban during the reign of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Collioure was besieged and occupied by the Spanish troops in 1793, marking the last Spanish attempt to take the city. The blockade was broken a year later by general Jacques François Dugommier.

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Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône River on the west to the Italian border on the east, and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the south.It largely corresponds with the modern administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, and includes the départements of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and parts of Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse.The Romans made the region into the first Roman province beyond the Alps and called it Provincia Romana, which evolved into the present name. It was ruled by the Counts of Provence from their capital in Aix-en-Provence until 1481, when it became a province of the Kings of France.While it has been part of France for more than five hundred years, it still retains a distinct cultural and linguistic identity, particularly in the interior of the region.

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The Seine is a 776 km long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Source-Seine, 30 kilometers northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre.It is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen, 120 km from the sea. Over 60% of its length, as far as Burgundy, is negotiable by commercial riverboats and nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating; excursion boats offer sightseeing tours of the Rive Droite and Rive Gauche within the city of Paris.There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city. Examples in Paris include the Pont Louis-Philippe and Pont Neuf, the latter of which dates back to 1607. Outside the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, which links Le Havre to Honfleur.After the burning at the stake of Joan of Arc in 1431, her ashes were thrown into the Seine from the medieval stone Mathilde Bridge at Rouen, though unserious counter-claims persist.According to his will, Napoleon, who died in 1821, wished to be buried on the banks of the Seine. His request was not granted.At the 1900 Summer Olympics, it hosted the rowing, swimming, and water polo events. Twenty-four years later, the river hosted the rowing events again at Bassin d'Argenteuil, along the Seine north of Paris.Until the 1930s, a towing system using a chain on the bed of the river existed to facilitate movement of barges upriver.World Canals by Charles Hadfield, David and Charles 1986The Seine River was one of the original objectives of Operation Overlord in 1944. The Allies' intention was to reach the Seine by 90 days after D-Day. That objective was met. An anticipated assault crossing of the river never materialized as German resistance in France crumbled by early September 1944. However, the First Canadian Army did encounter resistance immediately west of the Seine and fighting occurred in the Forêt de la Londe as Allied troops attempted to cut off the escape across the river of parts of the German 7th Army in the closing phases of the Battle of Normandy.

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Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère. The proximity of the mountains, as well as its size, has led to the city being known in France as the "Capital of the Alps".Grenoble's history goes back more than 2,000 years, at a time when it was a small Gallic village. While it gained in stature by becoming the capital of the Dauphiné in the 11th century, Grenoble remained for most of its history a modest parliamentary and garrison city on the borders of the kingdom of France.Grenoble grew in importance through its industrial development, the city having experienced several periods of economic expansion in the last centuries. It started with its booming glove industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, continued with the development of a strong hydropower industry in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and ended with its post-World War II economic boom symbolized by the holding of the X Olympic Winter Games in 1968. The city is now a significant scientific centre in Europe.The population of the city of Grenoble at the 2008 census was 156,659. The population of the Grenoble metropolitan area at the 2008 census was 664,832. The residents of the city are called "Grenoblois".Among the numerous communes that make up Grenoble are the city's largest suburbs, Saint-Martin-d'Hères, Échirolles, and Fontaine, each with a population exceeding 20,000.

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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It is situated on the River Seine, in the north of the country, at the heart of the Île-de-France region. Within its administrative limits, the city had 2,234,105 inhabitants in 2009 while its metropolitan area is one of the largest population centres in Europe with more than 12 million inhabitants.An important settlement for more than two millennia, by the late 12th century Paris had become a walled cathedral city that was one of Europe's foremost centres of learning and the arts and the largest city in the Western world until the turn of the 18th century. Paris was the focal point for many important political events throughout its history, including the French Revolution. Today it is one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, media, science, fashion and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major cities. The city has one of the largest GDPs in the world, €607 billion as of 2011, and as a result of its high concentration of national and international political, cultural and scientific institutions is one of the world's leading tourist destinations. The Paris Region hosts the world headquarters of 30 of the Fortune Global 500 companies in several business districts, notably La Défense, the largest dedicated business district in Europe.

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Mont Saint-Michel is an island commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. 247 acres in size, the island has a population of 44.The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times, and since the eighth century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it. On top God, the abbey and monastery, below this the Great halls, then stores and housing, and at the bottom, outside the walls, fishermen and farmers' housing.One of France's most recognisable landmarks, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and more than 3 million people visit it each year.Mont Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Gallo-Roman culture and power until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in AD 460. From roughly the fifth to the eighth century, Mont Saint-Michel belonged to the territory of Neustria, and in the early ninth century was an important place in the marches of Neustria.Before the construction of the first monastic establishment in the 8th century, the island was called Mont Tombe. According to legend, the Archangel Michael appeared in 708 to St. Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Aubert repeatedly ignored the angel's instruction until Michael burned a hole in the bishop's skull with his finger.Unable to defend his kingdom against the assaults of the Vikings, the king of the Franks agreed to grant the Cotentin peninsula and the Avranchin, including Mont-Saint-Michel, to the Bretons in the 867 Treaty of Compiègne. This marked the beginning of the brief period of Breton possession of the Mont. In fact, these lands and Mont Saint-Michel were never really included in the duchy of Brittany and remained independent bishoprics from the newly created Breton archbishopric of Dol. When Rollo confirmed Franco as archbishop of Rouen, these traditional dependences of the Rouen archbishopric were retained in it.The mount gained strategic significance again in 933 when William "Long Sword" annexed the Cotentin Peninsula from the weakened Dukes of Brittany. This made the mount definitively part of Normandy, and is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the 1066 Norman conquest of England. Harold, Earl of Wessex is pictured on the tapestry rescuing two Norman knights from the quicksand in the tidal flats during a battle with Conan II, Duke of Brittany. Norman Ducal patronage financed the spectacular Norman architecture of the abbey in subsequent centuries.In 1067, the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel gave its support to Duke William of Normandy in his claim to the throne of England. This he rewarded with properties and grounds on the English side of the Channel, including a small island off the south-western coast of Cornwall which was modelled after the Mount and became a Norman priory named St Michael's Mount of Penzance.

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Collioure is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France.The town of Collioure is on the Côte Vermeille, in the canton of Côte Vermeille and in the arrondissement of Céret.There is a record of the castle at "Castrum Caucoliberi" having been mentioned as early as 673, indicating that the settlement here was of strategic and commercial importance during the Visigoth ascendancy.Collioure used to be divided into two villages separated by the river Douy, the old town to the south named Port d'Avall and the upstream port, Port d'Amunt.Collioure was taken in 1642 by the French troops of Maréchal de la Meilleraye. A decade later, the town was officially surrendered to France by the 1659 Treaty of Pyrenees. Because of its highly strategic importance, the town's fortifications, the Château Royal de Collioure and the Fort Saint-Elme stronghold, were improved by the military engineer Vauban during the reign of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Collioure was besieged and occupied by the Spanish troops in 1793, marking the last Spanish attempt to take the city. The blockade was broken a year later by general Jacques François Dugommier.As the town has a strong Catalan culture, its own motto has been adopted by one of the local Catalan rugby teams. Under Michel Moly's leadership, the town has an alternative motto, Collioure sera toujours Collioure quoting French singer Maurice Chevalier's famous song titled Paris sera toujours Paris.The annual Saint Vincent festival is held around August 15, attracting twice the town's population in visitors for several days of celebration with music and fireworks.In the early 20th century Collioure became a center of artistic activity, with several Fauve artists making it their meeting place. André Derain, Georges Braque, Othon Friesz, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, James Dickson Innes and Tsuguharu Fujita have all been inspired by Collioure's royal castle, medieval streets, its lighthouse converted into the church of Notre-Dame-des-Anges and its typical Mediterranean bay. Collioure's cemetery contains the tomb of Spanish poet Antonio Machado, who fled here to escape advancing Francoist troops at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.The British historical novelist Patrick O'Brian lived in the town from 1949 until his death in 2000, and his novel The Catalans graphically describes Collioure life before major changes took place. He also wrote a biography of Picasso, who was an acquaintance. O'Brian and his wife Mary are also buried in the town cemetery.Part of the action in Stephen Clarke's fourth comic novel featuring Paul West, Dial M for Merde, takes place in Collioure.Ninety-eight reproductions of Matisse’s and Derain’s works are exposed exactly where these two masters of Fauvism painted the originals, in the early 20th century.

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Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century, though the Romans had fortified the settlement earlier. The fortress, which was thoroughly restored in 1853 by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997.The folk etymology – involving a châtelaine named Carcas, a ruse ending a siege and the joyous ringing of bells though memorialized in a neo-Gothic sculpture of Mme. Carcas on a column near the Narbonne Gate, is of modern invention. The name can be derived as an augmentative of the name Carcas.The first signs of settlement in this region have been dated to about 3500 BC, but the hill site of Carsac a Celtic place-name that has been retained at other sites in the south – became an important trading place in the 6th century BC. The Volcae Tectosages fortified the oppidum.

Carcassonne became strategically identified when Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcasum. The main part of the lower courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times. In 462 the Romans officially ceded Septimania to the Visigothic king Theodoric II who had held Carcassonne since 453; he built more fortifications at Carcassonne, which was a frontier post on the northern marches: traces of them still stand. Theodoric is thought to have begun the predecessor of the basilica that is now dedicated to Saint Nazaire. In 508 the Visigoths successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish king Clovis. Saracens from Barcelona took Carcassonne in 725, but King Pepin the Short drove them away in 759-60; though he took most of the south of France, he was unable to penetrate the impregnable fortress of Carcassonne.A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and its environs. It was often united with the County of Razès. The origins of Carcassonne as a county probably lie in local representatives of the Visigoths, but the first count known by name is Bello of the time of Charlemagne. Bello founded a dynasty, the Bellonids, which would rule many honores in Septimania and Catalonia for three centuries.In 1067, Carcassonne became the property of Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes, through his marriage with Ermengard, sister of the last count of Carcassonne. In the following centuries, the Trencavel family allied in succession either with the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Celse. In 1096, Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral.

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The Seine is a 776 km long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Source-Seine, 30 kilometers northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre.[1] It is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen, 120 km from the sea. Over 60% of its length, as far as Burgundy, is negotiable by commercial riverboats and nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating; excursion boats offer sightseeing tours of the Rive Droite and Rive Gauche within the city of Paris.There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city. Examples in Paris include the Pont Louis-Philippe and Pont Neuf, the latter of which dates back to 1607. Outside the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, which links Le Havre to Honfleur.The name "Seine" comes from the Latin Sequana.Some have argued that Sicauna is cognate to the name of Saône River. However, a suggested relationship to the River Shannon in Ireland is unlikely, given the very different forms of the two.Some believe the ancient Gauls considered the Seine to be a tributary of the Yonne, which indeed presents a greater average discharge than the Seine.Some identify the river Sikanos, origin, with the river Sequana.According to Pierre-Yves Lambert, a specialist of the Gaulish language, Sequana retains QV, that is unusual in Gaulish, which is normally a P-Celtic language, but he compares with the month name EQVOS, read on the Coligny Calendar. The name of the Gaulish tribe Sequani derives from it.The digram QV of Sequana could recover a whole syllable, that is to say,like ucuetis, but its meaning remains unknown.

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Mont Saint-Michel is an island commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. 247 acres in size, the island has a population of 44.The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times, and since the eighth century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it. On top God, the abbey and monastery, below this the Great halls, then stores and housing, and at the bottom, outside the walls, fishermen and farmers' housing.One of France's most recognisable landmarks, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sitesand more than 3 million people visit it each year.Mont Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Gallo-Roman culture and power until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in AD 460. From roughly the fifth to the eighth century, Mont Saint-Michel belonged to the territory of Neustria, and in the early ninth century was an important place in the marches of Neustria.Before the construction of the first monastic establishment in the 8th century, the island was called Mont Tombe. According to legend, the Archangel Michael appeared in 708 to St. Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Aubert repeatedly ignored the angel's instruction until Michael burned a hole in the bishop's skull with his finger.Unable to defend his kingdom against the assaults of the Vikings, the king of the Franks agreed to grant the Cotentin peninsula and the Avranchin, including Mont-Saint-Michel, to the Bretons in the 867 Treaty of Compiègne. This marked the beginning of the brief period of Breton possession of the Mont. In fact, these lands and Mont Saint-Michel were never really included in the duchy of Brittany and remained independent bishoprics from the newly created Breton archbishopric of Dol. When Rollo confirmed Franco as archbishop of Rouen, these traditional dependences of the Rouen archbishopric were retained in it.

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The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica and often simply Sacré-Cœur, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Paris, France. A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. Sacré-Cœur is a double monument, political and cultural, both a national penance for the excesses of the Second Empire and socialist Paris Commune of 1871 crowning its most rebellious neighborhood, and an embodiment of conservative moral order, publicly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was an increasingly popular vision of a loving and sympathetic Christ.The Sacré-Cœur Basilica was designed by Paul Abadie. Construction began in 1875 and was finished in 1914. It was consecrated after the end of World War I in 1919.

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The Chemin de Fer de La Mure is a tourist railway in the department Isère near the city of Grenoble, France. Following threats of closure in the mid-s1970s, the line was saved by an oil crisis, getting the chance of a further life to become one of the finest tourist railways in Europe with spectacular views over dams and lakes, and mountain scenery. It can be reached easily by road from Grenoble, or by trains on the SNCF line towards Gap.On October 26, 2010, shortly before the end of the season, a landslide destroyed the Viaduc de la Clapisse and parts of a tunnel entrance.On the railway website, the General Council of the Department of Isère expresses hope to re-open part of the line from La Mure for the 2011 season, but is unclear if and when service will be resumed.The line was built between 1882 and 1886, to link Saint-Georges-de-Commiers and La Mure through a mountainous region of the department of Isère.The 30-kilometre long, metre gauge line runs from La Motte-d'Aveillans and La Mure to a connection with the main line of the PLM railway at Saint-Georges-de-Commiers. The line was almost closed in the mid-1970s and if the country hadn't been suffering an oil crisis the line would have met its end. Its life was extended by fifteen years, which proved to be its saviour. Unlike many other lines this became a tourist attraction which combines an area of industrial heritage with some of the finest scenery on any similar line on the continent.

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The Château Lagorce is a former castle, converted into a château, in the commune of Haux in the département of Gironde, France. It acquired its name "Lagorce" or "The Great Gorce", from a type of vegetation which appeared at the beginning of the 16th century.According to a document from the 18th century, the château originally had a moat. The oldest tower has walls 1.2 meters thick, and both of these features helped it to defend itself, as it became embroiled in feudal wars during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The residence was partly destroyed during the latter of these centuries.In the 15th century it changed hands with regularity as marriages took place. Bonnaventure de Faugeres claimed to hold the rights to the "Great Gorce" and initiated proceedings against his brother, Estienne Dumenilh de Faugeres. The claims were founded, as in June 1599, Lord Dumenilh gave him 16,500 pounds in payment for his rights. Bonnaventure seized the profit from his rent and from his agricultural activities, and in 1607 recuperated the whole of the property.In 1636 it was owned by Menaud de Maonaudon, married to Marguerite de Cursol. At the time of their installation at Lagorce, they accomplished major work on the property. However, their signature is preserved in a key-stone in the form of a coat-of-arms uniting the Montaudon and Cursol family.After the French Revolution, in 1793, Francois Galatheau sold Lagorce to Hyacinthe Feger, whose nephew, Pierre resold the property in 1802 "in a very bad state" to Elie Faux, a local a wine producer.The Faux family undertook important excavation works and planted Barsac and Sauternes vines. Therefore the price of a tonne of wine reached 900F in 1858, compared to 250-600F for the other best wines in Haux.In 1859 the property was sold to Jules Beyssac. After his death in 1895, and that of his wife in 1905, his children had joint possession at Lagorce. After the house was briefly passed onto the Burette family, the Baudier family had the house until 2003. In 2003, the Holmes family bought Lagorce. The building underwent complete internal renovation to how it would have looked a few hundred years ago.

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The Château des Milandes is a small castle in the commune of Castelnaud-la-Chapelle in the Dordogne département of France. Built around 1489, it was the main house of the lords of Caumont until 1535, who preferred to live in this manor house instead of the large, uncomfortable medieval castle of Château de Castelnaud-la-Chapelle.In 1940, the entertainer Josephine Baker rented the château and then bought it in 1947.It has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1986.

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