While many tourists go to Paris and its famous neighbors like Versailles, Fontainebleau or Chartres, Provins seems to be unknown by all tourists. Provins a small town near Paris and has a good transportation link with Paris by trains from Paris East Station is overshadowed by other famous attractions of Ile de France. Traveling to Provins from Paris gives a different perspective of this region with endless farmlands and beautiful forest valleys, something you hardly believe that you are near Paris. The old town of Provins can be divided into two parts, upper Provins and lower Provins, both of these parts are world heritage site.

In lower part, the town seems to be a typical French town with beautiful square, stately city hall and a lively market street. The star of lower Provins is its old churches; these churches are beautiful with architectural mixing and in very good states. And one area of lower Provins near the train station has many pretty small canals and called “little Venice”. The upper part is on the hill and dominated by the dome of Provins’s main church which has historical link with Joan of Arc and many French kings. The upper part of the town is protected by the huge wall that some parts are still in a very good condition. The most famous part of this fortification is Caesar Tower that was restored and opens for tourist.

Medieval trade fair is a reason that put Provins on the list of world heritage. The upper town’s urban layout was specially designed for the events. You can easily notice that in such a small town, Provins has quite large squares and very wide streets and you can feel that from this vast space make upper Provins looks a little bit empty. But the timber houses of upper Provins are very cute; I even think this town looks similar to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast cartoon scene.

Provins is also famous for its rose; the rose of Provins can be seen in many places in town. I highly recommend you to try local delicacies make from rose, for example, rose candy, rose jam and rose chocolate and you may want to come back to Provins for just these sweets.