In France, friendships are maintained by extending invitations to dine together. Invaluable in setting the mood and table are wine and the presentation of aesthetically pleasing plates. The simple pleasure of enjoying delicately prepared food in the company of friends embodies "joie de vivre."

Easily accesible from Paris, steal away from the city to lunch on fresh seafood, enjoy half-timbered architecture and explore the fairytale setting of the Alabaster Coast. Fecamp's invitingly green pastures crown milky cliffs as they branch into grandiose archways over the sea.

France feeds into Spain on a cobalt stretch of the Mediterranean known as the Costa Brava. The whitewashed fishermen’s villages are sleepy in all seasons but summer when sunbathers hold vigil on their coarse sands. In the fall without the clutter and clatter of people the solitude is priceless.

December is a wander through the chalets of a Marche de Noel and a peek into the department store windows on Boulevard Haussmann. Here are the ways we get in the Christmas spirit.

A mysterious tent crops up on the plaza below the Arch de la Defence on the dawn of spring. Part circus, part saloon, it serves as home to the Chorus Festival, a two-week series of concerts. I arrived with the afternoon draw of suits and stayed around to see B.B. Brunes close the night.

Claude Monet spent the last decades of his life in Giverny nurturing a garden from which he painted Impressionist art. Pair a visit to his home and water lily garden with a tour of the American art museum. Afterward, stop in Vernon for a glimpse of half-timbered architecture and a poppy macaron.

Glimpse into the diverse collection of buttons on exhibit at the Mona Bismarck Foundation. If you’ve amassed jars of buttons and aren’t quite sure what to do with them, get inspiration from Lisa Kokin’s recycled button sculptures and tapestries.

The pallet is sober with must have pieces from spring returning to greet the fall. Nautical tunics, skinny jeans, blazers and slouchy boots are the uniform.

Arts de la Rue is one of my favorite festivals of the year where acrobats, dancers, dreamers, musicians and theatre troupes join forces for the space of a weekend. These free street arts festivals demonstrate existence of the surreal in the hearts of the French. Indulge yourself.

Artcurial is the kind of bookshop you can loose yourself in for hours paging through glossy art and fashion books. Set on the Champs Elysees in the most imperial of buildings, even walking through the lacy wrought iron gates makes you feel important.