Where to stay in France: the best cities, coasts and regions

Paris has been written about so much that it is a relief to find it is all true. The Seine really does glitter under the bridges; the bakeries really do smell like that. The city is made of twenty districts spiralling out from the Louvre, each with its own character, and it is compact enough to walk across in an afternoon.

For a first visit, stay centrally on the Right Bank, between the Louvre and the Opéra Garnier, where grand historic hotels put most of the sights within strolling distance. The streets off the Champs-Élysées are smarter and close to the Arc de Triomphe. For something different, the leafy 16th arrondissement has an urban resort built around a famous 1930s swimming pool.

Nice is the Riviera at its most liveable, a proper city that happens to have a beach. The Promenade des Anglais curves for miles around the Baie des Anges, the Old Town is a warren of ochre and terracotta lanes that smell of socca and basil, and the flower market fills the Cours Saleya every morning.

The famous hotels stand on the Promenade itself, facing the sea, including a pink-domed palace that has become a symbol of the city. A block or two back, around Place Masséna, you are closer to the shops and the Old Town. Trains run along the coast to Monaco, Antibes and Cannes, so you can see the whole Riviera without moving hotel. The beach is pebbles; bring sandals.

Cannes is smaller than Nice and considerably more pleased with itself. Life revolves around La Croisette, the palm-lined seafront boulevard where the palace hotels face their private beaches and the sports cars crawl past for effect. Every May the film festival takes over; the rest of the year it is simply a very polished seaside town.

Unlike Nice, the beaches here are sandy, and the old quarter of Le Suquet, on the hill above the harbour, is a pleasant place to eat. The Art Deco grandes dames on the seafront are the classic choice, and several hotels have their own stretch of sand. For a quieter Riviera, look along the coast towards the red rocks of the Estérel, about half an hour away.

The French Alps hold some of the largest ski areas in the world, and they are organised with a certain Gallic logic: high, purpose-built resorts where you ski from the door, and older villages lower down with more charm and better restaurants. Mont Blanc, the highest peak in western Europe, towers over the northern end.

Megève is the pretty one, a medieval village turned smart resort with horse-drawn sleighs and views of Mont Blanc. Val d'Isère is for serious skiers who also like a lively evening. Les Arcs has a traffic-free village where every apartment is ski-in, ski-out, ideal with children. In summer the lifts reopen for walkers and mountain bikers, and prices drop sharply.

The French call Corsica the island of beauty, and for once the tourist board has not exaggerated. Granite mountains run down its spine, the hillsides are thick with fragrant scrub, and the coast is a succession of white coves and turquoise bays that look borrowed from another ocean. It is French, but with its own language, its own cheeses and a stubborn streak.

Calvi, in the north-west, is one of the best bases: a honey-coloured citadel above a marina and a long crescent of sand, with hotels a short walk from both. Ajaccio, Napoleon's birthplace, has spa resorts strung along its gulf. The south-east, around Porto-Vecchio, has the most celebrated beaches and a few very smart hotels hidden among the pines.

Lyon is the city the French go to for dinner. It sits where the Rhône and the Saône meet, with a Renaissance old town of secret passageways on one bank, grand nineteenth-century squares on the peninsula between the rivers, and the white basilica of Fourvière watching from the hill. The traditional bistros, known as bouchons, serve food that is rich, unfashionable and wonderful.

Stay in Vieux-Lyon for atmosphere, where a five-star occupies four Renaissance houses; on the Fourvière hill for the view; or on the peninsula near Place Bellecour for shops and transport. It is a brilliant two- or three-night break and far less crowded than Paris.

Bordeaux spent years as a slightly soot-stained port and has emerged as one of the most handsome cities in France. Its eighteenth-century centre, all pale stone and wrought-iron balconies, lines a broad curve of the River Garonne, and a sleek tram glides through it. The wine needs no introduction: Saint-Émilion, the Médoc and the rest are all within easy reach.

The grandest hotel faces the opera house in the heart of town. The old wine merchants' quarter of Chartrons, a little downriver, is now the fashionable place to stay, with antique shops and a striking design hotel in a former wine warehouse. Wine lovers might also spend a night out among the vines.

Strasbourg sits on the Rhine, right on the German border, and has changed hands often enough to take the best of both countries. The old centre is an island ringed by the River Ill, dominated by a soaring Gothic cathedral, and the Petite France quarter is a picture of timbered houses leaning over canals. In December it hosts one of the most famous Christmas markets in Europe.

Almost all the best hotels are on or beside the island, so you can walk everywhere. The loveliest rooms look out over the water and the timbered rooftops of Petite France. Expect hearty Alsatian food, good white wine and, in Advent, very full hotels: book months ahead.

The Dordogne is the France that British visitors have been falling for since the 1960s. A green river loops between limestone cliffs topped with castles, walnut orchards cover the hills, and the market towns are built of stone the colour of pale honey. Sarlat is the showpiece, with cobbled alleys and a Saturday market heaving with duck and truffles.

This is a place for small country hotels and converted manor houses, not big resorts. Look for a château in a fortified medieval village, a hotel with a pool among the oaks, or holiday apartments on a hillside above Sarlat for a family stay. You will need a car, and you will not need a plan.

Montpellier is young, sunny and good-looking, a university city with a car-free historic centre built around the wide, café-lined Place de la Comédie. It gets a fraction of the Riviera's attention and is better value for it. The Mediterranean is only a few miles away, with a long sandy shore of beach clubs and seaside resorts.

You can stay in the city, on a wine estate just outside it, or on the coast itself: La Grande-Motte has smart beach hotels a short walk from the sand. To the east, the perfectly preserved medieval walls of Aigues-Mortes rise out of the salt marshes of the Camargue, with boutique spa hotels inside and beside them.