Methodology & sources

Train times from Paris

Source: SNCF Voyageurs, “Horaires SNCF” GTFS feed (TER, Intercités, TGV INOUI, OUIGO, TER coaches), version 2026-10-29, valid 20261029–20270331; and “Horaires des lignes Transilien” for Fontainebleau and Provins. Licence: Open Database License (ODbL). Derived files published here (/static/data/stations.json) are under the ODbL.

Method: a connection-scan (earliest arrival) run from every departure minute at a Paris terminus (Paris Est, Paris Gare du Nord, Paris Saint-Lazare, Paris Montparnasse Hall 1 - 2, Paris Montparnasse Vaugirard, Paris Austerlitz, Paris Gare de Lyon Hall 1 - 2, Paris Bercy Bourg. Pays d'Auv.) on three ordinary Tuesdays (2026-11-17, 2027-01-19, 2027-03-09). For each station we keep the shortest journey (arrival minus departure from Paris) on the best of the three days, and its number of changes. A change within a station needs 10 minutes; stations within 700 m are joined on foot (5 min + 1.25 × straight-line distance at 75 m/min). Pick-up and set-down restrictions are respected. The journey shown on each place page is the one the computation found on that day: an example, not a timetable.

A place’s station: the fastest within 2.6 km (the nearest unless another is 10 minutes faster). With no station, the two nearest within 25 km; for Honfleur, Étretat and Guérande we chose by hand the stations a traveller would use (the nearest to Honfleur as the crow flies, Harfleur, is across the estuary). Corsica has no train from Paris; the island’s own railway (Chemins de fer de la Corse) is not in this feed.

Result: 9 published times matched within minutes (the largest gap: Paris → Toulouse Matabiau, +21 min; a published figure describes the best train of the year it was written). Hard cases checked by hand: Briançon (a direct night train exists, but the fastest uses a daytime change), Chamonix (the fastest ends on an SNCF coach, flagged), Corsica (no train, flagged).

Climate

Source: Météo-France, “Fiches climatologiques” (1991–2020 statistics and records per station), Licence Ouverte 2.0. For each place we take the nearest station within 45 km and within 200 m of altitude (the place’s altitude from IGN’s Géoplateforme elevation service, Licence Ouverte 2.0) that publishes temperature and rainfall over one common period of at least 15 years; a station covering all of 1991–2020 within 20 km is preferred. The station, its distance, altitude and period are shown on each page. Check: the values read match the published 1991–2020 tables for Paris-Montsouris and Brest-Guipavas exactly (above); this checks our reading, since the source is the same.

AOP and IGP products

Source: INAO, “Référentiel des produits sous SIQO” (as of 2025-12-31) and “Délimitation des aires géographiques des SIQO” (2026-10-26_delim-aire-geographique-shp.shp), Licence Ouverte. Each product is placed at a point inside its area, assigned to the region holding most of the area, and a place “belongs” if its point is inside the area. INAO notes that only the commune lists in the specifications are authoritative. 27 products have no area in the file and are not mapped: Ternera de los Pirineos Catalanes ou Vedella dels Pirineus Catalans ou Vedell des Pyrénées, Rhum de la Martinique, Rhum de sucrerie de la Baie du Galion ou Rhum de la Baie du Galion ou Rhum Baie du Galion, Rhum de la Guadeloupe, Rhum de la Guyane ou Rhum de Guyane ou Rhum Guyane, Rhum de La Réunion ou Rhum de Réunion ou Rhum Réunion ou Rhum de l'Ile de La Réunion, Rhum des Antilles françaises, Rhum des départements français d'outre-mer ou Rhum de l'outre-mer français, Calvados Domfontais, Calvados, Beurre des Deux Sèvres, Huile d'olive de Corse ou Huile d'olive de Corse - Oliu di, Blagny, Melon du Haut-Poitou, Lussac Saint-Emilion, Puisseguin Saint-Emilion, Périgord, Eau-de-vie de vin originaire du Languedoc ou Fine du Languedoc ou Eau-de-vie de vin du Lan, Vanille de l'île de La Réunion, Melon de Guadeloupe, Calvados, Fiefs Vendéens, Euskal Sagardoa ou Sidra Del País Vasco ou Cidre Du Pays Basque ou Cidre Du Pays Basque-Eu, Agneau des Pyrénées, Marc des Côtes du Rhône ou Eau-de-vie de marc des Côtes du Rhône, Rasteau, Huile essentielle de lavande de Haute-Provence ou Essence de lavande de Haute-Provence.

Festivals

Source: Ministère de la Culture, “Liste des festivals en France” (national map, Licence Ouverte 2.0). It gives a season, not dates. Each month’s signature festivals were chosen and checked by hand on their official sites; we give the usual month, never dates.

Plus Beaux Villages de France

Member list: “Les plus beaux villages de France : 183 communes labellisées, géolocalisées” (data.gouv.fr, ODbL), built from the association’s directory. “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France” is a registered trademark of the association of the same name (INPI no. 1 659 572, according to its charter). This site is independent and not affiliated with the association; the list of members is shown as a fact.

Maps, photos, texts

Original map drawn from the 2026 “Contours administratifs” (data.gouv.fr, ODbL, from IGN Admin Express) in Lambert-93; commune points are the town halls from the same dataset. Photos: Wikimedia Commons, chosen by eye, under public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, credited on each page and re-encoded on this server. Texts: original, with facts checked against several sources listed at the foot of each page; crowd levels are an editorial judgement.