During summer vacation trips, I always make a pilgrimage to the local art museum—this is the Caen Museum of Fine Arts in Normandy, France.
On holiday trips, I also make sure to visit botanical gardens everywhere—this is the greenhouse at the Caen Botanical Garden.
How beautiful are the days spent lying on the beach, daydreaming during a seaside vacation?

Vacations by the sea are always an appointment with the sunset to pour out my heart. For French people, vacation is sacred and inviolable. In July and August, when the bright sun shines high, it is the long holiday for the French. After music festivals and major exams, almost all schools are on break, and then the Parisians' sacred holiday begins. This year, amid soaring prices and oil costs, weakened purchasing power, and significantly reduced budgets, society presents a sluggish atmosphere. This impact is visible; around me, people do not talk as usual about their brilliant holiday plans. Because whenever holidays are mentioned, French people smile broadly and are extremely happy, as this is the most important topic at this time of year.

In this sluggish society, the number of people who cannot or do not go on vacation increases every year, and this will be particularly significant this year. Of course, vacations are sometimes necessary, at least to leave one's work station and allow body and mind to receive appropriate soothing and rest. With daily prices and oil costs rising continuously this year, vacations will be shortened, and long-distance (foreign) travel will not happen. Domestic tourism and vacations will be quite satisfactory. Expenses during the holiday will no longer be as generous as in the past; everything will focus on tight, limited budgets. Frugality and environmental sustainability will become the foundation of future vacations. Clearly, French people's vacation habits have changed significantly in recent years. Because there are two RTT days (due to the 35-hour work week) per month, plus weekends or beautiful days like Bastille Day, they get a long weekend (at least four days), which they use for leisure. They leave the city for mountains or sea, or rest in countryside vacation houses to breathe fresh air. Recent vacation habits are no longer like the past, where people took a whole month off at once, but rather segmented leave (one week or ten days). Thus, in France, you often find them on vacation or on leave. Leisure seems more sacred than work; leisure has become an indispensable art of life for contemporary French people. Everyone hopes to make good use of this beautiful holiday to enrich themselves (by traveling) or recharge (by enjoying leisurely time and sunshine in a country villa or by the sea), so as to improve work efficiency, or free up time for oneself to live freely or connect with family to adjust body and mind. Therefore, the annual summer long holiday has become a sacred and inviolable day for the French.