Impressionist paintings that will inspire your next holiday in France

After moving to Port-Marly in 1874, Alfred Sisley worked on a series of paintings that depicted the 1876 flooding of the commune. Situated just west of Paris, Port-Marly is captured by Sisley in light tones of white and blue in this painting of a boat in the flood. Now, Port-Marly makes for a quick day trip to go chateau-hopping, with a notable one being French writer Alexander Dumas' house. 

Étretat in Normandy has attracted artists and writers for centuries, with Claude Monet as one of its cultured residents. Painting its winter landscape by translating the effects of light and shadow in white and blue tones, Monet worked on this five years before the Impressionist movement officially began. While the object of this painting — the magpie — is discreet, its star power lies in how Monet has captured the snow's sensitivity to light. 

One of Édouard Manet's Spanish-influenced paintings that consumed the colour black, this saw residents waiting for fishermen to return at the Port of Boulogne. It's said that the sea is the soul of this city, which lies in the North of France. Manet spent the summer of 1868 there, capturing the moonlight's effects on the sea and vessels that promised bountiful varieties of fish and seafood — today, more fish land at Boulogne than any other fishing port in France. Head to the daily fish market Quai Gambetta to see fisherman unloading their vessels for a glimpse into what Manet had painted two centuries ago.

L'Estaque, an arrondisement in Marseille, served as Paul Cézanne's sanctuary during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Colouring the Mediterranean coast in vivid hues of green and blue, Cézanne first discovered the village in 1864, impressed with how the sunlight shone on the landscape, silhouetting objects. He painted over 60 canvases of this humble fishing port and working-class town. Walking through L'Estaque now, you'll see enameled plaques that mark where Cézanne had frequented.

Paul Signac left his native Paris and moved to the then sleepy fishing village in Saint Tropez, where he painted scenes by the sea and port. The avid sailor moved into Neo-Impressionism by taking the best of the previous movement — nature and its effects on light and colour — onto the canvas in dots and dabs. The reflections of the houses and boats fill the water in complementary hues of orange and peach. It's a harmony of colour that's still reflected in the Saint Tropez of today.