Having the World Cup in our backyard has produced moments like this all summer: a scrimmage up the road in Chester, and matches thirty minutes away all summer, including today's Round of 16 game. It's made the whole tournament feel more immediate than any World Cup has before, and today was the most direct version of that yet.
The Atmosphere Was the Real Story
Lincoln Financial Field sounded like nowhere we'd been before. French chants rolled through one section, Paraguayan drums answered from another, and in between sat a stadium full of American families who'd chosen to spend their Fourth of July here instead of at a backyard barbecue. That's been the story of this World Cup as much as any single match: strangers who don't share a language finding a way to celebrate together for ninety minutes.
Some of the people around us had flown in from Paris and Asuncion just for this game. Others were locals who'd adopted a team for the afternoon, because that's what a World Cup does to a city hosting it. Either way, it's a preview of what a France trip actually offers: a country that takes its joy seriously, whether that's in a stadium seat or a cafe in Lyon. We'd watched France once already this tournament, on TV, in a group-stage win over Norway, but nothing about that prepared us for what today's crowd felt like in person.
The French section for most of the afternoon. The flags never stopped moving.
Thirty minutes from home, and still one of the more electric crowds we've ever stood in.
France Has Been in Our World for a While
Jen spent a semester studying in France years ago. Our daughter was there last summer. Two of our kids are working through French in school right now. France has been part of this family for a while, and that's a big part of why today felt like more than a random knockout game.
French unlocks a country in a way that Spanish and Italian don't quite replicate, even though both are worth learning too. When your kids are conjugating French verbs at the kitchen table and then you're sitting in Lincoln Financial Field watching France play, a trip there stops feeling like an abstract someday and starts feeling like something you're already building toward.
Paris: Worth the Hype, Worth Doing Right
Most travelers who go to France go to Paris, and most of them don't slow down enough once they're there. That's the real problem with Paris, not that it's overcrowded or overrated, but that people treat it like a checklist when it works best as a city you settle into. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre-Dame (reopened in December 2024 after five years of restoration following the 2019 fire) all earn their place on a first trip. Go early, before the tour groups arrive. The light is a different experience entirely.
The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe both earn the hype. Go early and let the crowds catch up to you.
The Musee d'Orsay is the Louvre's quieter companion, the Impressionist collection housed in an old train station and sized to actually finish in a single visit. But the neighborhoods do more than any museum to show you the city: Le Marais on a Sunday market morning, Saint-Germain-des-Pres for cafes that have hosted the same arguments since the 1940s, Montmartre at dawn before anyone else is awake. And the food rewards patience: a two-hour lunch, a neighborhood bistro, nothing rushed.
Beyond Paris
The travelers who get the most out of France are the ones who treat Paris as the beginning rather than the destination. Lyon, three hours south on the high-speed train, makes a serious case for food capital of the world, its bouchons serving heavy, seasonal, unapologetically rich regional food without a hint of pretension. The Loire Valley runs west through chateaux strung along a river the French kings once used as their playground, Chambord and Chenonceau among them, with some of the country's best cycling between stops.
Bordeaux and the Loire both reward travelers who linger a day longer than planned.
Bordeaux rebuilt itself around its waterfront and its wine, now two hours from Paris on the high-speed train, with Saint-Emilion's medieval village and the Medoc's serious reds just beyond the city. Normandy is essential for different reasons: the D-Day beaches and the American Cemetery above Omaha are among the most sobering sites in the world for American travelers, and Mont-Saint-Michel, a monastery-village on a tidal island, has functioned continuously since the 8th century.
Provence in lavender season. Markets on Tuesday mornings, villages that haven't changed shape in centuries.
And then there's Provence: markets on Tuesday mornings, lavender in July, hilltop villages in the Luberon, and a coast at Marseille that's louder and more interesting than its reputation suggests.
The Language in the Room
Two of our kids studying French in school is not an accident. It remains one of the most useful languages a traveler can carry, opening not just France but Quebec, Morocco, Senegal, Switzerland, and a long list of other places that don't get mentioned often enough in that context. If your kids are learning French and you haven't yet used that as a reason to plan a trip, it's worth reconsidering. There's no better classroom for a language than the country that produced it.
France has been worth visiting for all of French history and didn't need a World Cup to make its case. But coming home from a match thinking about Lyon and the Loire Valley and Normandy says something too.
France won 1-0. The stadium was still buzzing on the walk back to the car, in French, in Spanish, in Philadelphia accents that had picked up a few French chants along the way. That's the part worth remembering.
Ready to Plan France?
Paris done right, Lyon, the Loire Valley, Bordeaux, Provence, Normandy: France works at almost every level of ambition and budget. If you're ready to start putting something together, our itinerary advisor is a good place to start, or reach out to Jennifer directly.
