The travelling historian's guide to France - Robin Neillands

This book is about travelling in France - with a theme: history, and in particular, Anglo-French history from the Crusades and Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) to the First and Second World Wars. Detailing twenty different routes or places, the book covers the famous Road to Compostela from Le Puy to the Pyrenees, slips across the Belgian border to visit the battlefield of Ypres, takes in Burgundy, Brittany, the chateaux of the Ile-de-France and the Loire, and the historic provinces of France - places worth visiting for the beauty of their landscapes, their architecture, abbeys, castles and historic characters. Each route (all of which can be made by car, and some by bicycle) includes a visit to a battlefield, museum, castle, memorial, gunsite, or some relic of the recent or ancient past, and comes with a list of recommended books to read before you go.;The great advantage of touring the D-Day beaches with a grasp of the purpose of Operation Overlord, walking across the muddy fields from the first English position at Agincourt to the line from which the archers finally engaged the French host, and following Henry V's route from Harfleur to Agincourt, or the Black Prince's campaign, north from Bordeaux to the Loire and the battlefield of Poitiers, is that they will take the traveller into parts of France that they might otherwise miss, reveal places that the average tourist might never go, and above all, help bring history alive.