Day 3445 (Saturday) 14th November 2026.

This is the Chevre d'Or in Eze Village

and this is Menton.

It was grey and horrible today so we stayed at home again, I can’t wait for November to be over

Here are the rest of the fun facts…

France monument facts

25. The most listed monuments in Europe

France has over 45,000 officially listed monuments, the most of any European country, and possibly the longest sightseeing bucket list in the world.

26. Charming châteaux

Many are castles or châteaux. No one knows the exact number, but the Centre des Monuments Nationaux lists thousands of them. Many of the finest line the Loire Valley, with more in Aquitaine, Burgundy and along the Canal du Midi.

27. More than an iron lady

The Eiffel Tower, la dame de fer, is among the most-visited monuments on earth and one of the most photographed and tagged structures on social media. It was built for the 1889 World’s Fair and meant to be torn down after 20 years; it survived only because it made such a useful radio antenna. Today it’s the most-visited paid monument in the world, with around 7 million visitors a year.

28. The oldest monument in France

The Luxor Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde is more than 3,300 years old and came from Egypt, given to France in 1829 (some sources say 1830). It was one of a pair: Egypt offered both obelisks standing at the entrance to Luxor Temple, but 19th-century France had the means to move only one, and it was erected in the Place de la Concorde in 1836. 

The second obelisk never left Egypt, and in 1981 President Mitterrand formally renounced France’s claim to it, so it still stands at Luxor today. The obelisk owes its place in Paris to the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion, who had recently deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics: it was he who persuaded Egypt’s ruler to gift these particular obelisks to France.

29. Fifty-four UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Separately from its national monuments, France has 54 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the fourth most in the world after Italy, China and Germany. They range from the Palace of Versailles and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to Mont-Saint-Michel and the Canal du Midi. The country’s most recent addition, in 2025, being the prehistoric Megaliths of Carnac and the shores of the Morbihan in Brittany.

Linguistically speaking: fun facts about French

French language facts

30. The fourth most spoken language in the world

Around 321 million people speak French day to day, rising to as many as 396 million on the widest measure, which now makes French the fourth most spoken language in the world. It’s an official language in 29 countries, and most French speakers now live in Africa.

31. False friends in French

Salut means hello, goodbye and cheers. Terrible can mean awful or terrific. Sensible means sensitive not sensible. As ever, context is everything.

32. It’s all in a sound

Many French words sound alike but mean entirely different things. Try: “As-tu vu le vert ver allant vers le verre en verre vert?” (Have you seen the green worm going towards the green-glass glass?)

33. What, no ‘w’?

There are almost no native French words containing the letter ‘w’; the ones you see (like wagon or week-end) are borrowed.

34. Ask the Academy

The French take their language so seriously they have an institution to defend it. The Académie Française, founded in 1635, rules on vocabulary, grammar and usage. It has just 40 members, known as les immortels.

Canal du Midi fun facts

35. When it’s a sleeve, not a channel

The French call the English Channel La Manche, “the sleeve”. At its narrowest, the crossing to England is around 33km.

36. Two words for river

French has two words for a river: a fleuve flows into the sea, a rivière into another river. The Rhône is the only fleuve to empty into the Mediterranean.

37. So many canals

France has so many canals that you can travel by water between all its river basins. The longest is the Canal du Rhône au Rhin (around 320km); the most famous is the Canal du Midi (240km), a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its own right.

38. The best way to see the country

We’re biased, but we think the finest way to experience France is from its waterways.

Weird and wonderful facts about France

39. Marrying a ghost

You can marry someone who has died in France. Prove the deceased intended to marry you while alive, gain presidential approval, and posthumous marriage is permitted.

40. One kiss or four?

Faire la bise is the standard greeting. Most people kiss twice, but in some regions it’s three or even four. Most start on the left, and many are merely air kisses, so don’t take offence.

41. But not on railway platforms

French law has, on paper, prohibited kissing on railway platforms since 1910, originally to stop amorous farewells delaying the trains.

42. Do thank the French for…

Alongside number plates, the bikini and the Michelin star, we can thank the French for:

hairdryers

cinema

canned food

Braille

the mobile-phone camera

pencil sharpeners

Above all, we can thank them for the metric system: born of the French Revolution and formally adopted in 1795, it swept away a chaotic tangle of over 700 local units (the metre was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator through Paris) and went on to be adopted by almost every country on earth.

43. But maybe don’t thank them for…

The roundabout was devised by the architect and town planner Eugène Hénard, who built one of the first around the Arc de Triomphe in the early 20th century. France took to it wholeheartedly. There isn’t an official count, but estimates range from around 43,000 to over 60,000, more than any other country on earth, and they’re reportedly still going up by about five a day. The most famous remains the chaotic 12-road circle at the Place de l’Étoile, around the Arc de Triomphe itself.

44. Not French at all

“Paris” and “France” aren’t French words. 

Paris comes from the Parisii, a Celtic tribe who lived by the Seine in the Iron Age

France comes from the Franks, a Germanic people who swept across the country in the 5th century

45. Left or right?

Traffic drives on the right in France, as it does across mainland Europe, but French trains run on the left, a leftover from the English engineers who built the railways.