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This week’s trip: The world’s best cheese and lots of delicious bread to go with it, another Italian town offering sweet perks to its new residents, and a medieval village in France that gets top scores from the French.
France has been the world’s most visited country for years, with a record 100 million international tourists arriving last year to enjoy its culture, food and scenery. In 2022, a Belgian man cycled 870 miles just to taste a special croissant in Nice.
So which destinations in France are popular among French people? Earlier this year, viewers of the TV show “Le Village Préféré des Français 2025” chose Saint-Antoine-l’Abbaye as their favorite village in France for 2025.
So what’s the appeal? This medieval village with its cobbled streets and impressive abbey is tucked away in the green, rolling hills of the south-eastern Isère, between Grenoble and Lyon. The Vercors Regional Natural Park is right next to the village, and during the medieval festival held every year during the first week of August, the entire place is filled with performers, music, shows, and food stalls.
The cliffside houses of Pont-en-Royen are 22 miles away, and the town of Saint-Marcellin, famous for its delicate creamy cheese, is just an 8-mile drive.
The world’s best cheese and Germany’s best bread
World Cheese Awards selects the best cheese of 2025
France is famous for its cheeses, from Comté to Camembert, but it was aged Swiss Gruyère that was named the finest product on the planet at the World Cheese Awards in Switzerland on Thursday.
British judge Perry Wakeman concluded, “Even though there are three types of cheese, you can still taste it,” adding, “It has fruity funk notes and a bit of a charcoal burn.”
More than 5,200 cheeses from 46 countries gathered for judging at Bern’s Festhalle venue, and the queens of the competition grew more and more spicy as the days went by. CNN was there to catch all the sights and smells.
Moving from cheese to bread, France’s iconic baguette has been hailed by President Emmanuel Macron as “250 grams of magic and perfection”, but all is not well in the world of flour and yeast. Despite UNESCO recognizing the baguette as an important cultural symbol, bread consumption in France has plummeted and the lifestyle of daily trips to the boulangerie is disappearing. Here’s how a humble bread baton faces an uncertain future.
However, France is not the only European country where bread is listed as a UNESCO heritage site. Germany’s bread culture was added to the Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2015, and the country has more than 3,200 officially recognized types of bread. An unusual bread called Nussbrot has been named Germany’s bread of the year for 2025.
Debra Stillwell and Eric Stillwell, both in their 60s, moved from Burbank, California, to France’s Dordogne Valley five years ago. The medieval towns, castles and landscapes fascinated them, Eric told CNN.
As retirees, they find the cost of living easier within their budget. “Everyone assumes that all Americans living in France are wealthy, but that’s not true,” Eric says. “Our house cost 70,000 euros…We are not rich.”
In the picturesque village of Radicondoli in neighboring Tuscany, Italy, a relocation scheme is offering up to $23,000 to anyone willing to buy and live in a vacant home, with an additional donation of about $7,000 for utilities, transportation and other costs.
Tony’s 10 euros turns into a Marseille feast
Actor Tony Shalhoub is on a mission to find the world’s best and most amazing foods for under $10. The money allowed him to buy a seafood feast in the French port city of Marseille. Watch the final two episodes of the CNN Original Series “Tony Shalhoub Breaking Bread” on Saturdays at 9pm ET/PT on CNN, with the entire series available to stream the next day for CNN All Access subscribers.
The US government shutdown has ended.
Here’s what travelers need to know about Thanksgiving flights.
Dolphins live in the canals of Venice.
And pressure is mounting to free penguins “trapped” in London.
She arrived in New York expecting a movie moment.
Then she met the man of her dreams.
