Anthony Peregrine

It’s not all fresh country air and fine wine – the reality entails money worries, battles with French admin and complete exhaustion

I'd just finished the last mouthful of a “Welsh”, and very good it was, too. The northern French have taken the Welsh rarebit, chopped off the second

Anthony Peregrine How the British love a French village. Of course, we love British ones too . But, there's a perception that many French villages are, I think, more village-y.

Good news from across the Channel. The French want us back. Well, maybe not all of them want all of us but, certainly, the good people of Le Touquet are very keen. In the run up to our May bank holiday – from Monday, May 25 – they’re hosting Le French Week during which much will be done to entice English-speakers to this distinguished stretch of the Opal Coast, slightly south of Boulogne.

Affordable hotels, hearty Burgundian cooking and bottles of red that age beautifully: Dijon in France is hard to beat for an indulgent weekend away

It is said that one should never meet one's heroes. I did. It turned out fine. For me, anyway.

British tourists don’t invariably have a great reputation. It’s probably worst of all among, um, other British tourists.

French villages – the ones fabled for markets, bars, boulangeries and a sense of communal purpose – are something we think we’ve lost in Britain. But which villages? I’ve compiled a list of my top 20 ...

France associates it with a dark military history, but visitors to Metz can mess about on the Moselle, wander the Pompidou Centre and admire its gothic architecture

Do the French play French cricket? Do Italians build sandcastles? Do the Spanish ever stop eating? With the help of our overseas experts, we've examined the beach experience across the Continent