France in August, away from Paris

Pleasant in August

Average high closest to 18–26 °C and fewest rain days (1991–2020 normals).

2h33 Coast · Nouvelle-Aquitaine La Rochelle An Atlantic port guarded by medieval towers, with arcaded streets, a stubborn Protestant past and a long tradition of doing things by bike. High 25 °C · Low 16 °C · 6 rain days 1h30 Town · Centre–Val de Loire Amboise A royal château over the Loire, the manor where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last three years, and a chapel that holds what may be his bones. High 26 °C · Low 14 °C · 7 rain days 6h56 Mountains · Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Briançon France’s highest town, a star-shaped Vauban fortress of bright façades and rushing gutters, ringed by forts on mountain spurs. High 26 °C · Low 9 °C · 7 rain days 1h21 City · Pays de la Loire Angers The old capital of Anjou: a striped fortress of seventeen towers guarding the greatest medieval tapestry in the world. High 26 °C · Low 14 °C · 7 rain days 3h02 Town · Pays de la Loire Guérande A walled Breton town of grey granite overlooking a chequerboard of salt marshes, where paludiers still rake salt by hand. High 25 °C · Low 14 °C · 7 rain days 1h21 Town · Île-de-France (beyond Paris) Provins The great medieval fair town of Champagne, still walled, with a twelfth-century keep, merchants’ cellars and tunnels under the streets. High 26 °C · Low 14 °C · 8 rain days 3h02 Town · Brittany Dinan Half-timbered houses, 2.6 km of ramparts and a cobbled street plunging seventy-five metres down to a little port on the Rance. High 25 °C · Low 11 °C · 8 rain days 2h12 Town · Normandy Bayeux Home of the Tapestry, freed the day after D-Day: a Norman cathedral, water mills on the river Aure and the landing beaches close by. High 23 °C · Low 13 °C · 8 rain days

Signature festivals

• Festival interceltique de Lorient — Lorient, Brittany. For ten days in the first half of August, Lorient becomes the capital of the Celtic world: pipe bands, dancers and musicians from Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Galicia and beyond. It grew from a bagpipe-band contest first held in 1971.
• Rock en Seine — Saint-Cloud, Île-de-France (beyond Paris). A large rock and pop festival held at the end of August in the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, the former royal park laid out by Le Nôtre just west of Paris. The first edition, in 2003, lasted one day.

Check dates on the official site.

All forty places in August

Hot in August: Corte, Albi, Arles (average high ≥ 29 °C).

Wettest in August: Annecy (144 mm), Chamonix-Mont-Blanc (126 mm), Arbois (96 mm), Pérouges (83 mm).