UNESCO tour in Southern France

«UNESCO Tour in Southern France»

a journey from UNESCO site to UNESCO site

All the year
Number of participants: up to 8

Activity Details

A unique UNESCO tour in the Southern half of France is designed for you to get a chance to visit many UNESCO spots.
During 7 or 8 days all including, your accommodations (private home, hotel and Provencal farmhouse) are selected to give you different ways of living in France.
You will be accompanied for the duration of your tour by an English speaking person (French native) and local guides. They will lead you to discover a slice of France and make you travel through French heritage and culture.
The program varies between natural discovery, local producers encounter, cave exploration, architectural wonders...
We will try to share a part of our French heritage absolutely breathtaking!
Bienvenue...

Accommodation

ACCOMMODATION IN ST CYPRIEN
This is a wonderful and gorgeous home in a fairy tale village. It is located directly across from the main cathedral. The home is beautifully decorated and renovated, so it is abounding with charm. You can easily wander down to the main street to enjoy the bakery,  restaurants or other retail shops. The house is very nearby other charming towns as well as multiple chateaus... and of course the Dordogne river.

CITY'S HOTEL IN CARCASSONNE
As the evening draws near and the last daytime visitors wander away, a magical atmosphere settles over the Citadel of Carcassonne. As your footsteps echo on the cobblestones, you will soon discover why "Hôtel de la Cité" is the ideal place to start exploring this fairytale citadel. Nestled within the ramparts of the citadel and amidst its romantic gardens, the hotel offers a unique experience to each of its guests: a blend of the medieval and the contemporary!

LE MAS DU TERME IN BARJAC
Your accommodation was selected to be located near UNESCO sites in the South of Ardèche in Barjac. It is a 4-stars family hotel whose rooms are marked with sheepfold and silk culture history. Let yourself be charmed by this one-hundred-year-old place between vines and lavender fields. The main stone construction is placed in a calm, beautiful and natural spot. All the rooms are modern and have the contioning air. They also own private bathroom and double bed. For meals, the "Carré des saveurs" restaurant offers you creative cooking based on regional products.

Transportation

Every transfer or day trip transportation is performed with a high standard vehicle with double air-conditioned system. The Carvelle Volkswagen is an 8+1 comfortable seats minivan equipped with a cool box. Your driver-guide will be bilingual and knowledgeable about the French culture and local environment.(Detailed program available HERE)

We welcome you...

Pierre GERAULT
Fascinated by traveling, I live in Ardèche and love to welcome foreign guests. I am always looking for cultural exchanges and willing to share our French culture with a fluent English language. Tourist guiding is my favorite way of gaining knowledge and personal growth.
When you participate in Slice of France tour, I guarantee you will receive a warm welcome... Just like old friends do. I hope you will have a chance to travel with us and experience a taste of French culture!

Bordeaux

Bordeaux has many historic locations to discover. The city, once nicknamed "Sleeping Beauty", has definitely awakened! A far-reaching urban development program in recent years has made Bordeaux very attractive. Don't miss the main monuments such as Pey-Berland Tower, Saint-André cathedral, and Place de la Bourse. But also, the UNESCO site “the port of the moon” which played an important historical role as a centre for the exchange of human values over a period of more than two thousand years.
Bordeaux is also a region of wine production with famous red wine. Behind this kind of wine, do you know that white wine exists too?
The Saint-Emilion area located on the road of Santiago de Compostela which was granted of a 'jurisdiction' during the 12th century and labelled UNESCO site in 1999. It was the first time UNESCO label had recognized a wine-making landscape. It is an exceptional landscape devoted entirely to wine-growing, with many fine historic monuments: churches, monasteries and hospices.

Dordogne and the Lascaux Cave

The department of the Dordogne has many popular areas. Discover Perigueux, a city which has a beautiful historic centre, around its ancient Cathédrale Saint Front, one of the oldest in France (model for the construction of Sacré Coeur in Paris). Then, you will travel through years with the caves and prehistory area of the Vézère valley between Montignac, Lascaux and Les Eyzies. 15 UNESCO sites are labellised in this area like caves: Lascaux,  Font de Gaume, Combarelles, Rouffignac…
You can’t travel in Dordogne without visiting the site of Lascaux II which is the replica of the original Lascaux cave discovered In 1940 by four Périgourdin young boys. This cave contains prehistoric paintings which are meticulously reproduced - same paintings, same techniques, same pigments – in Lascaux II. This cave called “sixtine chapel of prehistory” incorporates paintings from 17 000 years ago. Comtemplate horses, bulls, stags, ibex, felines, bears, rhinoceros and even more a fantastic representation of a unicorne!

Albi

A unique city of medieval brick... Unique because of its colours, its history, and its situation. The Episcopal City is centered round two immense medieval buildings: the Saint-Cecile Cathedral, the largest brick-built cathedral in the world, and the Berbie Palace, the former fortified residence of the Albi bishops, and now the home of the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum with the largest public collection of the artist’s work. A near by city of Albi was labelled UNESCO two years ago. The speciality in the area is Duck Meat eaten in all possible manners. (Of course the delicatessen Foie Gras originally comes from this area). This si called PINK CITY as every building is made out of bricks. Albi Is also the latest labelled city under the UNESCO heritage list.

Carcassonne and the Canal du Midi

Carcassonne is a splendid city riched from its cultural and religious heritage. There are two UNESCO sites in this region : the medieval city of Carcassonne and the Canal du Midi. Situated on the right bank of the Aude, the Medieval City is a fortified city unlike any other in Europe, on account of its size and its state of preservation. The Canal du Midi is the work of Pierre-Paul Riquet and excavated in the XVIIth century to link the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Canal du Midi, formerly used for transporting goods and people, is today frequented by numerous boaters and tourists.

Avignon and Orange

In Avignon, the so called city of Popes, you will visit the Popes castle that is one of the largest gothic palaces in the world with a surface equivalent to 4 cathedrals. You’ll get a chance to visit the former Pope private apartments and their famous paintings from the Italian artist Matteo Giovannetti. The second major element of Avignon is the Bénezet bridge partly destroyed and famous across the world due to the children song. It made Avignon the most famous city after Paris across borders. Some free time will allow you to adventure your own discovery.

Once upon a time the city of Orange was inhabited by the roman who left major marks of their passage such as the Amphitheater which you will visit as one more UNESCO sightseeing of your trip.

The Pont du Gard

The Pont du Gard is one of the most known UNESCO Site in France. It the highest roman aqueduct in the world…you will have a memorable day!

Ardèche Canyon

Within a couple of hour drive you will travel through geological time along the 32 km of Ardèche Canyon. The stunning cliffs of more than 200 meters will give you astonishing Point of view on this natural wonder along several lookouts.
The drive passes at the foot of the Chauvet prehistory cave registered on the UNESCO heritage list as the world oldest paintings nested in a nearby cliff.
During the drive we will pass by the amazing natural arch made of limestone that already was the scenery for the artists some 35000 years ago.

Chauvet Cave Replica (la Caverne du Pont d'Arc)

Locates in southern Ardèche the so called Chauvet cave was discovered in 1994 by 3 cavers. The site was recently registered on the UNESCO list as it features the world oldest paintings dating from 36 000 years.
The Cavern is an accurate copy of the original cave which allows you to remain with your eyes wide open in front of the Chauvet cave painting replica over more than 3000 m² in an identical environment where you shall travel amongst cavern lions, rhinos, horses, mammoths’… A stunning immersion visit into our prehistory past!