France

French food culture is its own kind of art, and Paris is where you feel it most. Benoit is the classic version: a proper Michelin-starred bistro with the period furniture and dark red awnings you picture when you think “French restaurant.” We also took a class at Le Cordon Bleu, one of the schools that turned out some of the world’s best-known chefs. We came away understanding why so many French kitchen terms — jus, à la carte, restaurant itself — ended up in English.

Lyon is France’s actual food capital, if you go by the numbers: 22 Michelin stars inside the city limits, more concentrated than Paris. We stopped there after driving the length of the Riviera, through Cap-Ferrat and Nice and Monaco, and stayed at Villa Florentine specifically to slow down after weeks of moving. On the coast itself, the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat has held the same stretch of coastline since 1908, set inside seventeen acres of gardens between Nice and Monaco. Coco Chanel and Liz Taylor are among its past guests.