The food, of course, is worth the journey on its own. Not just croissants and the Eiffel Tower, though both are precisely as wonderful as advertised. It is the real France: a glass of Burgundy poured by someone whose family has cultivated that same vineyard for generations. A cheese from a fromagerie that has occupied the same corner since before your grandparents were born. A bowl of French onion soup on a cool evening that, quite simply, makes everything right with the world.

Beyond Paris — magnificent, overwhelming, endlessly layered Paris — France unfolds into something quieter and just as extraordinary. The sunflower fields of the Loire Valley. The terracotta rooftops of the south. The dramatic peaks of Chamonix. Each region carries its own distinct character, its own pace, its own way of being French.

France is history you can walk through, art you can stand in front of, and meals you will find yourself describing to people who were not there. It is a country that has been shaping the world’s sense of beauty, thought, and pleasure for centuries — and it shows.