Tag: Travel

France’s massive appeal – those top-class cities, beaches and landscapes – beckons all year round, but there are certain times when it’s better to visit.

Choose the best time for your visit to France with this month-by-month guide to the weather, events and festivals.

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High season – July and August – is the best time for hot weather

High season in France is hot and getting there can be hectic. Roads are usually a nightmare on the weekends, with traffic warnings going from orange to black. Hotel prices are at their peak, and you might need to book restaurants in advance. Many restaurateurs in larger cities will close for their own summer break. But it’s also the time when summer events and markets are in full flow, and you can enjoy glacier skiing in Tignes and Les Deux Alpes.

Enjoy a more relaxed pace during the shoulder season of April, September and October

As France warms up from April onwards, particularly in the south, that’s the time for a more leisurely exploration among the spring flowers. Warm weather lingers well into September and even into October, when the seas have kept their summertime heat. Autumn is also the time for the grape harvest and wine festivals.

Many places are quiet in low season, which runs November to March

Apart a brief burst of activity during Christmas and New Year’s, France’s rural regions go into hibernation mode. Opening hours get even more restricted than usual, with many restaurants open three to four days a week. But cities are still lively.

Plan carefully for ski season

Early skiing in December can be tricky with the occasional lack of snow, but January is usually your best bet. Avoid February if you can, as half-term holidays are spread across the whole month. Prices rocket during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

January is for shopping and skiing

When you’re not on the ski slopes, head to the shops for the big January sales – les soldes d’hiver. Quieter streets will make city breaks a pleasure, especially in the south where the weather can already feel mild.
Key events: Historic Rally of Monte Carlo, La Folle Journée classical musical festival in Nantes, start of the three-month-long Limoux Carnival. 

February is for festivals

Not surprisingly, Valentine’s Day is taken seriously in France, so book ahead if you’re planning a romantic weekend. February marks the start of carnival season, some in anticipation of Lent, others just for the sheer fun of it.
Key events: Nice Carnival, Menton Lemon Festival, Mimosa Festival in Mandelieu, Côte d’Azur.

March is for music

Spring comes with its own soundtrack in March, which is the time of two major festivals. Enjoy some late-season skiing without February’s crowds.
Key events: Grenoble Jazz Festival, Festival Banlieues Bleues north of Paris, Le Touquet Car Rally.

April is for getting outdoors

Even if Easter doesn’t fall in April, there’s a sense of France opening up and shrugging off its winter hours. Cafe terraces become full again as people spend more time outdoors enjoying the warmer weather.
Key events: International Garden Festival in Chateau de Chaumont, Bourges Spring Festival, Paris-Roubaix cycle race, International Kite Festival in Berck-sur-Mer.

May is for museums

With two to four public holidays in May (depending on when Easter falls), be prepared for plenty of places being closed. But May is also the month of the Nuits des Musées, when hundreds of museums around the country open their doors for free from dusk till 1am.
Key events: Nuits des Musées, Cannes Film Festival, Fête des Marins in Honfleur, Fêtes des Saintes-Maries-de-la Mer Gypsy festival, Camargue.

June is for more music

France celebrates the arrival of summer with the nationwide Fête de la Musique on June 21. Under hot summer skies, Nîmes and Arles get into a féria mood with Spanish-style parties and shows in their Roman amphitheaters.
Key events: Fête de la Musique, Le Mans 24-Hour Grand Prix, Paris Jazz Festival.

July is for full-on summertime fun

Everything happens in July: the fabulous Tour de France, Bastille Day celebrations all around the country on July 14, major festivals in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence and Provence’s lavender fields in full bloom. Brace yourself for busy crowds and high prices.
Key events: Bastille Day, Tour de France, lavender festivals, jazz festivals in Nice, Marciac and Juan-les-Pins, Champagne Route Festival.

August is for lazy days

The Feast of the Assumption is on August 15 – another holiday when everything closes. Contrary to public opinion, Paris gently buzzes in August, especially on the Seine’s Paris-Plage and Parc de la Villette’s open-air cinema.
Key events: Feast of the Assumption, Rock en Seine in Paris, Colmar Wine Fair, Festival Interceltique de Lorient in Brittany.

September is for chilling out

La Rentrée – when France goes back to work and school – signals the end of summer, but that’s also when villages hold their own festivals. The weather is as hot as August, but prices start to drop.
Key events: Braderie de Lille, Festival of American Cinema in Deauville.

October is for wine and food lovers

An autumnal mellowness arrives, but you can still swim in the Med (and, occasionally, the Atlantic). It’s also harvest time, with wine fairs and food and drink festivals around the country. Join the party on Nuit Blanche when cultural sites are open all night.
Key events: Nuit Blanche, Fêtes des Vendanges in Montmartre and Salon du Chocolat in Paris, Fête des Vendanges in Banyuls-sur-Mer.

November is for cheaper city breaks

Temperatures plunge and two public holidays – November 1 and 11 – bring more closures as well as winter hours. But it’s a good time for a city break as prices go down.
Key events: Annecy Wine and Food Festival, Beaujolais Nouveau weekend, Burgundy Wine Auction, Fête du Ventre in Rouen.

December gets festive

France loves to put on a big show for Christmas. Even if you don’t ski, the magic of the mountains goes into overdrive when festive decorations come out.
Key events: Christmas, Festival of Lights in Lyon, Braderie de l’Art in Roubaix.

Though Belfast is Northern Ireland’s most urbanized locale, it’s awash in green spaces and dense woodlands that evoke more classical images of the Emerald Isle.

Public parks are often former aristocratic estates donated to the city in the 20th century, while wildlife corridors and grassy glens on the outskirts have maintained their rural feel. So whether you’re searching for a secluded picnic spot, a walk on the wild side, or a space to let the kids run free, at least one of Belfast’s top parks will cater to your needs.

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Ormeau Park

First opened in 1871, Ormeau Park (pronounced “or-mo”) is the oldest municipal park in Belfast. It’s also one of the most prepossessing, flanked by the meandering River Lagan on its western fringe and dotted with the architectural remnants of the Victorian-era estate which once stood on the property. The flower beds and thickets of deciduous trees populating the lawns ensured Ormeau Park bagged a Green Flag Award, which recognizes the UK’s best green spaces, each year from 2011 to 2021.

At 100 acres, Ormeau is also one of the city’s largest and most varied parklands. Dog walkers and cadres of joggers roam the footpaths daily, while those of a sporty disposition make use of the basketball nets, tennis courts, football pitches, BMX track, and the adjacent Ormeau Golf Club. if you’ve no Sunday afternoon plans, grab food to go from one of the Ormeau Road’s quirky cafes and watch locals play ragtag matches of football.

Belsonic, an eclectic music festival attracting marquee headline acts, graces the park every summer. As does the Belfast Ukulele Jam band on Sunday afternoons throughout the year.

Botanic Gardens

Sitting next door to the crenelated, Gothic-inspired Lanyon Building of Queen’s University, Botanic Gardens is a park for horticulture enthusiasts. Though it has a collection of pristine lawns on which you’ll find picnickers and musicians lounging in the summer, the diverse flora on display generates a significant proportion of the footfall.

The Tropical Ravine, erupting from a small dell plunged within a Victorian storehouse, is alive with exotic-looking palms and ferns, belying their much more altitudinous Northern Irish surroundings. Visitors should also check out the cast iron and glass-walled Palm House, designed by Belfast-native Charles Lanyon in the mid-19th century. It’s one of the oldest structures of its kind, famed for the steep curvilinear roof rising above its entrance.

Inside the greenhouse, you’ll find plants that would struggle to survive in Belfast’s frigid winters, alongside sculptures and artworks.

The gardens also host the free-to-enter Ulster Museum, whose exhibits focus on local art, history, and natural sciences. You can’t miss its brooding facade, combining a brutalist extension from the 1960s with the original neoclassical foundations.

Cave Hill Country Park

Named after the five hillside caves believed to have been primitive iron mines, Cave Hill Country Park is one of Belfast’s most popular walking spots. The trails tunnel through woodland and weave over heather to the eponymous hill’s 368m (1207ft) zenith, which overlooks the city center, Belfast Lough, Harland and Wolff shipyard (the birthplace of the Titanic), and on clear days, the western tip of Scotland.

The 4.5-mile Cave Hill trail is the most scenic route, attracting plenty of New Year’s and Boxing Day walkers purging themselves of their Christmas gluttony. If you’re not up to the mildly strenuous challenge, there’s an 0.8-mile trail in the park’s lower reaches, circumnavigating the manicured grounds of Belfast Castle. You’ll still get excellent views of the city from here, while you’ve got easy access to the stone and timber castle and its cozy tavern – ideal for a few post-stroll libations.

Connswater Community Greenway

There is pride aplenty in East Belfast, and the Connswater Community Greenway is a 5.5-mile linear park connecting sites that celebrate the district’s heritage.

Constructed with a view to reviving a neglected and polluted ecosystem, the greenway’s northern end hosts CS Lewis Square – bearing the name of the homegrown author and sculptures depicting characters from his mythical realm Narnia – and Victoria Park, a haven for birdwatchers, with gulls, herons, swans, geese, mallards, and wagtail roosting there throughout the year.

In the south, the greenway bifurcates towards Orangefield Park, which comes alive with wildflowers in spring, and the wooded Cregagh Glen, winding alongside small waterfalls and a wildlife corridor towards the Castlereagh Hills.

Lady Dixon Park

Lady Edith Dixon was renowned for both her largesse and philanthropy, donating more than £100,000 to charitable causes in the early 20th century, with particular emphasis on the servicemen involved in WWI. This cemented her as a prominent figure in Northern Ireland, which was later honored with the founding of her namesake park – officially called Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park – donated to the city in 1959 in memory of the Lady’s late husband.

The resplendent, 128-acre greenspace is reflective of Lady Dixon’s love of botany, aesthetics, and the natural world, featuring rolling meadows bound by hedgerows, squirrel-filled woodlands, mandala-like flower gardens, and stonework water features. The Japanese-style garden, which displays landscaping techniques and design themes reminiscent of ancient waka poetry, is perhaps the most arresting section of the park.

Rose Week attracts thousands of flower-viewers each July, while the barbecue areas and picnic tables are hot commodities on those rare Northern Irish days when the sun doth shine.

Stormont Park

Stormont park, also known as “Stormont Estate”, is a public park in east Belfast with tree-shaded walking trails, flower gardens, and a children’s play park. Start the day with an early morning walk or jog along the 2.5-mile woodland trail (free adventure guidebooks are available at the main entrance), or head to the Bullfield, an enclosed area where dogs roam freely off the leash while their owners kick back at the picnic tables.

Also housed within the estate are the Stormont Parliament Buildings, the home of Northern Ireland’s devolved government since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which established peace in the country after 30 years of sociopolitical conflict. The main building, bearing a colonnaded neoclassical facade and an imposing concave driveway, is open to the public for guided tours Monday through Friday.

Lagan Meadows

Taking its name from the River Lagan, which hugs the eastern rim of the park, Lagan Meadows is a rolling expanse of verdure lying south of Belfast city center. With few amenities, the park is perfect for walkers who want to get a flavor of wild Ireland without straying too far from the city. The Lagan Towpath trails southward from the meadows connecting Belfast to Lisburn City, around 7.5 miles away, bisecting the Lagan Valley Regional Park en route.

The scenic walks meander through copses of birch, pine, and hawthorn. They tread over moss-smothered steps connecting forest glades and alongside the duck-filled Lagan’s lower reaches. There are plenty of secluded picnic spots when the weather is behaving, and improved water quality projects and recuperation of the river ecosystem mean fishing opportunities are available on some sections of the river – see seasonal calendar and permit info for details.

Belvoir Park Forest

Belvoir Park Forest (pronounced “Beaver”) is a richly wooded area connected to the trimmed fairways of Belvoir Golf Club and a diverse arboretum first planted in 1839. Set within the Lagan Valley, the open-to-the-public forest is characterized by cloistered walking trails, pervaded by birds conversing in their twittering tongues and the crunch of twigs and leaves underfoot.

This perceived isolation makes Belvoir Park Forest feel as old as time, but it hosts more recent historical sites too. These include a WWII air-raid shelter, now usurped by vegetation, and a 12th-century Norman motte, where once stood a timber-and-earth bailey used to survey the surrounding land and mount defenses against invaders.

Accessible routes on public services ensure anyone can get around in Taipei. If you get stuck, you’ll have no issue finding help from enthusiastic locals. Short of having someone to show you around, Taipei’s easy-to-navigate and uber-efficient public transport system is the next best thing, dual lingual and air conditioned throughout.

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How to explore Taipei

East to west, from Xiangshan to Ximen, Taipei city center can be traversed in around 40 minutes by bike, bus or MRT (subway). New Taipei City is broader still, with Tamsui to Xindian navigable in around 1 hour 30 minutes by MRT. A car or scooter will get you to your destination quicker but only when avoiding rush hours (early morning and early evening).

Is public transport in Taipei good?

A resounding yes from me. Not only is Taipei public transport affordable, clean and convenient, but it is also very punctual. You could set your watch to the train and bus schedule and all information can be found on Google Maps, regularly updated with accurate timetables and transfer information for trip planning.

Passes for public transit in Taipei

You’ll see a lot of advertising for the unlimited Fun Pass, but unless you are planning to do all of the big attractions (including the National Palace Museum and Taipei 101), then an EasyCard will suffice, cutting regular ticket prices for bus and metro services by 10 to 30%, plus discounts for multiple use in one day.

An EasyCard can be bought for 100NTD plus top-up amount in any metro station or at any 7-Eleven convenience store around town. You can also use EasyCard in place of a rail ticket on TRA (Taiwan Railway Administration) services.

Three choices for airport transfer: cheap, cheaper and moderate

The cheapest way to get from Taoyuan International Airport into Taipei City center is to take the 1819 Kuo Kuang bus service to Taipei Main Station, paying at the booth inside the bus terminal (135NTD; $4.60USD). The sleek new Airport MRT line is doubly quick but only slightly more expensive (at 160NTD; $5.50) taking just 35 minutes (compared to one hour by bus).

Those willing to splurge $30 to $40 after their long-haul flight can take a taxi from Taoyuan International Airport into Taipei City center within an hour.

Most international flights arrive at Taoyuan International Airport. Those looking for Taipei Airport should look into Songshan Airport which is rather closer to the city center but mostly serving domestic and regional airlines.

For accessible routes, choose Taipei’s subway

The Taipei Metro (aka MRT) is a comprehensive subway system linking the whole of Taipei and New Taipei City. There are accessible routes and elevators in all stations and excellent facilities for the disabled across the Taipei Metro map.

When the scorching temperatures outside threaten to overwhelm you, the 131 Taipei Metro stations offer respite, kitted out with toilets, snack stores and even underground malls between a handful of stations.

How to fit in on the Taipei subway

Be aware that drinking, eating and chewing gum are all banned on the Taipei Metro. Traveling during rush hour is best avoided where possible (7-9AM and 5-7PM weekdays) and you should stand on the right-hand side of the escalators when not walking.

To fit in seamlessly, refrain from loud conversations and avoid sitting in the dark blue priority seats (for elderly, pregnant or passengers with disabilities) unless you need them.

Board the bus for city views

There’s a lack of sightseeing bus tours in the city but Taipei’s public buses are the next best thing. Most bus stops feature electronic screens that list the timings of upcoming buses, in English and Mandarin.

Tip for boarding Taipei’s buses

When taking the bus anywhere in Taipei, the usual process is to swipe your EasyCard once upon boarding and again when alighting, or put the correct change (usually 15NTD) in the silver box up front when you board.

Get your walking shoes on

You won’t get so far so fast, but, nevertheless, walking Taipei is a free and unassuming delight, offering lantern-lit alleyways and tiny temples at every turn.

If planning on doing lots of walking, make sure you protect your skin from strong UV rays (even on cloudy days) and drink lots of water to avoid dehydration, particularly in the summer months from June to August.

Respect the moped madness

Combine the scooter streams of Vietnam with the driving regulations of Japan and you may be close to envisioning the chaotic good of Taipei’s traffic system.

At long range, Taipei has the rules of the road perfected; a grid system with a number of one-way roads and pedestrian crossings in full effect, traffic lights timed to make peak traffic flow as smooth as possible.

At close range, however, Taipei traffic is not without its surprises. Red-light-running trucks will fly in the face of your Right of Way and whole families balanced precariously on one scooter could round the curb at any moment, complete with a Shiba Inu puppy, with its tongue out, at the helm.

Be aware of these hazards when walking in Taipei or otherwise be brave and rent a scooter yourself (using WeMo if you read Chinese, SKRT if you don’t).

Why cycling is my favorite way to travel in Taipei

Similar to a scooter but without the carbon footprint, cycling is my favorite way to navigate Taipei. Newcomers to the city are welcomed to hop on a YouBike and explore for free (at least for the first 30 minutes, 10NTD every 30 minutes thereafter) traveling as far south as Yingge Ceramics Village and as far north as Tamsui along the Taipei Riverside Bikeway.

Designated cycle paths run sporadically through the city – both on and off the road – with docking stations almost always available outside MRT stations, and all over the city.

You will see locals cycling on the sidewalk to avoid the traffic fumes, but it’s not recommended to join them. Instead, enjoy a detour along the river, a long stretch made for pedestrians and cyclists, connecting top locations such as Dadaocheng Pier (Pier 5), Ximen, Gongguan, and Xindian.

Tip for renting a YouBike in Taipei

If you want to rent a YouBike, you’ll need to either register your EasyCard with a local phone number for verification and an ID number for insurance purposes at the kiosk beside most docking stations. You can also use a credit card in place of an EasyCard if you don’t hold a local SIM.

There are currently two YouBike systems in operation in Taipei, YouBike 1.0 and YouBike 2.0. You can only dock your YouBike at the corresponding dock.

Take a day trip by rail

Heading out of Taipei for the day is easy and affordable with the Taiwan Railway. Use the TRA to head to Keeling, Yilan or Jiufen (transferring at Ruifang for the shuttle bus) for low prices. See our list of day trips from Taipei for options.

Destinations such as Hualian and Taichung are also made accessible on the TRA system but for west coast destinations further afield (such as Tainan and Kending), you may want to splash out on the High-Speed Rail (HSR) to get there faster.  

For places where the Taiwan Railway service doesn’t venture, the bus can be your next best option. Get the bus to Yangmingshan from Shilin or to Wulai from Xindian, using your EasyCard the whole way. Taxi pooling is another way to travel if you’d prefer not to wait in a queue. Simply wave at the taxi scouts hanging out around key bus terminals such as Xindian.
 

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