Hacker News Reader

Comment by sametmax | Hacker News Reader

Castels are nowhere close to the most interesting things to see in France.

"Le puy du fou" (https://www.puydufou.com/fr), "le palais idéal du factor cheval" (http://www.facteurcheval.com/histoire/palais.html), "le gouffre de padirac" (https://www.vallee-dordogne.com/grottes-et-gouffres/le-gouff...), la via ferrata de peille (http://peille.free.fr/index.php) or "la cité des sciences" (http://www.cite-sciences.fr/fr/accueil/) are exemples of much more exotic, fun, interesting and unique things to do in France.

Stop doing the things they tell you to do on TV.

Cheese and wine will only take you so far.

View on HN

> Castels are nowhere close to the most interesting things to see in France.

Not everyone comes from a land with "boring" castles everywhere.

The great thing is that, since you have them everywhere, you can go on visiting one great castel and one great church. Then do something else.

See the giant mechanical elephant in Nantes, hire a guide for "la vallée des merveilles" in the Mercantour park, play petanque and try pastis with old persons in Marseilles, kayak in "les gorges du verdon", bath naked in Saint Selon or break a leg in a the snow of Auron.

It's a really cool country once you forget the stereotypes of food, sex and strikes. I mean, I do have food while having sex during strikes, but frankly you can do that anywhere.

> I mean, I do have food while having sex during strikes, but frankly you can do that anywhere.

Bonus points for irony! Of course, where I live the strikes happen almost never, not to mention my partner‘s apparent willingness for sex as „almost never“ too.

Actually I go to France for traditional music events and festivals in Berry/Auvergne (I play diatonic accordion), I just happen to particularly like going to castles and my partner is an archaeologist :)

Thank you for these examples. I visited the links but I am not entirely sure what I’m looking at (sorry, this may also have to do with being a non-French speaker). Would you be so kind as to provide your thoughts on what’s the interesting bit about these places?

That would take a lot more time that I'm willing to invest.

TripAdvisor? (or the more popular French equivalent?)

is there any website where we can get these kind of advices when visiting a country and want to skip on the "common" tourist attractions?

It there were, they would become the common tourist attractions. The best way to get to those things is to have drinks with locals.

Trip Advisor hasn't failed me, nor have the Lonely Planet region guides. You do see tourist traps high up in the list, but you also see high-rated, low-total-votes entries which can be gems. You'll have more luck if you focus the search as much as possible; "castles in france" won't be as good as "Renaissance France exhibits with disabled access in Aude"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com