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These exciting new openings are some of the many reasons to visit France this year
As if you needed more reasons to visit France this year, the world’s most popular tourist destination had a series of fantastic new openings and attractions you might have missed over the past few years and now a bevy of others are on their way in the coming months to beckon those who are ready to travel again.
Recently, Paris welcomed the long-awaited and spectacular Bourse de Commerce | Collection Pinault and the capital’s trendy Bercy finally saw the arrival of theย Cinรฉmathรจque Franรงaise’s Musรฉe Mรฉliรจs. These newcomers were followed by the opening of the stunning Hรดtel de la Marine and the rebirth of Laย Samaritaine Department Store.
In western France, the chic Normandy resort of Deauville welcomed Les Franciscaines, an innovative cultural center featuring a modern & contemporary art museum and the Atlantic Loire Valley region inaugurated a new modern art museum housed in the former stables of the remarkable 12thย centuryย Royal Abbey of Fontevraud. It showcases the private collection of Martine and Lรฉon Cligman. For the past 60 years, this dynamic duoโshe an artist and he a textile manufacturerโhave collected 900 pieces of 19thย & 20 paintings and sculptures, as well as non-European objects and antiques.
In trendy Bordeaux, theย Bassins de Lumiรจres, a grand digital and immersive exhibition space housed in 4 huge basins of the former Second World War submarine base re-opened this June. One of its inaugural exhibitsโ Monet, Chagall, Renoirโ is still running through early January 2022โto be followed in February by โVenice and its Masters,โ and another show dedicated to Spanish painter Sorolla.
Let’s not forget the opening of the Frank Gehry tower, the crown jewel of theย LUMA Foundationย in Arles.ย Speaking of famous architects, in Narbonne, theย Musรฉe Narbo Viaย designed by Norman Foster opened in May.ย Featuring a wall of 760 antique stones, the museum brings together over 1,000 antiquities designed to bring the ancient Roman city of Narbo Martius (Narbonne in Latin) back to life.
Finally, the French Caribbean island of Martinique has just been inducted into UNESCO’s โMan and the Biosphere Programโ along with 20 other new sites. The announcement was made September 15, 2021 by UNESCO’s International Coordinating Council. This is the second major UNESCO recognition after the inclusion in December 2020 of Martinique’s traditional Yole Sailboat to its Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Martinique is also up for the Natural sites list with the candidacy of the volcanoes and forests of Mount Pelรฉe and the Pitons of Northern Martinique.
New Openings and Developments for 2022
The Louvreย Lensโthe first regional annex of the Louvre Museum in Paris, will mark its 10th anniversary with two major exhibits:ย Romeย from April 6 to July 25, 2022 andย Hieroglyphicsย from September 28, 2022 to January 16, 2023. Lens, which is located in Northern France, is easily accessible from Paris in a little over 1 hour by high-speed train.
Abandoned for decades, the only Renaissance castle in the Picardy Region of Northern France,ย Chรขteau Villers-Cotterets, will reopen to the public in March of 2022 fully restored. It was built by Francois 1er and completed in the mid-16thย century because France’s Renaissance King enjoyed hunting in the area. A project initiated by French President Emmanuel Macron, it will also welcome in the first semester of 2023, the Citรฉ de la Francophonie or the City of the French language, a center that will feature an exhibition hall and spaces for start-ups and French language workshops, plus artist residences. This apt symbolic choice was made because in 1539, Franรงois Ier signed the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterรชts, which made the use French in the acts of the administration and justice mandatory, instead of Latin. This link with the French language has endured over the centuries: Franรงois Rabelais stayed at the castle, Moliรจre presented Tartuffe there, and Alexandre Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterรชts.
Burgundy’sย Capital, Dijon, will welcome the Cite Internationale de la gastronomie et du vin on April 22, 2022. The International City of Gastronomy & Wine is at the starting point of the region’s famed Wine route which runs from Dijon to Macon via Beaune.ย Among the highlights of this eco-friendly residential neighborhood will be the gastronomy & wine cultural and training centerโfeaturing a Ferandi Cooking school, new shops & restaurants, a four-star hotel and a 13-screen cinema complex.ย Over half of the structures of this new 8.5 acre area will be comprised of repurposed and restored historical buildings.ย
The Champagne region will aptly pop a cork for the town of Troyes, jewel of the Aube Department known for centuries as the stained glass capital of Europe. Troyes, the birthplace of 11thย century Rabbi and Talmud commentator Rashi, is also famed for its medieval quarter and its Gothic churches with striking windows. And next spring this lovely town will welcome theย Citรฉ du Vitrail. Housed in the magnificently restored 18thย Century Hรดtel-Dieu-le-Comte, the citรฉ will dedicate over 32000 square feet to showcase stained glass works dating from the 12th to 21st centuries. It will also showcase the buoyant creativity of contemporary stained glass artists from across the region. The Aube department has recently unveiled a practical app featuring itineraries that lead visitors to the most impressive churches with their remarkable stained-glass windows.
In June La Villa MรฉditerranรฉeโMarseille’s ultra-contemporary edifice on the old harbor, will welcome a replica of the remarkable underwater prehistoric cave known as theย Grotte Cosquer. Visited by our ancestors as early as 33 thousand years ago, the actual cave is located in the mini-fjords between Cassis and Marseille known as Calanques, specifically in Triperie Calanque, near Cape Morgiou. The Grotte Cosquer replica will provide immersive and interactive experiences to discover the original cave’s 500 cave paintings depicting marine animals like penguins (talk about climate change!), plus seals and what seems to be jellyfish, and mammals that roamed about in that era.
Source: Atout France