In this holiday season, do you want to travel to France?  You may want to walk to "champs-elysees" street, take pictures with Eiffel tower, and eat the French baguettes in Paris during this winter? There's a lot of good information to prepare for your trip to France. If you have no time and no money to go to France, do not worry about it. When you cook the gourmet French food at home, you can feel as if you are in France.

Bon appetit et Bon voyage!

San Jose Public Library Collections:

• French Food and Cook Books

• France Travel Books

• French Language Learning Books

You are always welcome to leave your comments after reading these books through "Reader Ratings and Reviews" or "Community Discussion Review" in our Library Catalog.

In 2010, a documentary called "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" won 9 film awards. I was fortunate enough to see this amazing film twice on large screens in the movie theaters, including once in 3D. The cave that is revealed is Chauvet Cave in France. Closed by a landslide for at least 25,000 years, it was discovered in 1994. Inside the cave are beautiful rock formations, bones, footprints... and the oldest paintings in the world.

Director Werner Hertzog and three others were allowed access to the cave for 4 hours at a time for 6 days. They were not allowed to touch anything other than the narrow, suspended walkway reaching through a portion of the cave. Specially constructed filming equiptment was used to make the movie.

Chauvet cave will never be open to the public, but you can see this remarkable cave on film. San Jose Public Library card holders can check out the "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" on DVD for free, and can even place a request for it.

Your public libraries hold books and films on many wonders. Explore them at your local library!

If you are considering bicycle touring…do it!

If you are considering bicycle touring in France…do it!

Check out some of these titles to whet your appetite.

Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide draws from his more than 30 years experience photographing the Tour and highlights the culinary delights of the various regions the Tour passes through. Whether traveling by bicycle or automobile, Watson’s book conveys the experience of following the Tour and acts as a guidebook to the best foods, wines and lodging. It is a quick read and full of Watson’s gorgeous photography.

Another book to help organize your bicycle tour in France is Lonely Planet’s Cycling France. It contains over 6000 kilometers of suggested routes and information relevant to cyclists. France is full of back roads, back back roads and back back back roads and they are all wonderful to cycle. Lonely Planet highlights breathtaking scenery while including information about campgrounds, food stores, tourist information and more.

British author, Tim Moore’s French Revolutions comically details his three week escapade cycling the 2000 Tour de France route several weeks prior to the beginning of the race. Moore morphs from being a near couch potato to donning a cycling kit and eventually cycling up the most challenging climbs the Tour de France has to offer (i.e. Mt Ventoux). His witty writing style has been compared to authors Calvin Trillin, Tony Hawks and Bill Bryson.