Review of French Tourism for 2011

2011 has been a successful year for French Tourism, with increases in numbers of tourists visiting various historic and cultural sites.(http://www.francesoir.fr/actualite/societe/patrimoine-le-chateau-de-chambord-veut-defier-le-mont-saint-michel-171817.html)
Mont Saint-Michel again reported the greatest number of visitors with about 3,000,000 visiting the fabulous site in the famous Bay of Mont Saint-Michel.  However a competitor site which hopes to catch up by 2019 is the famous château de Chambord  in the Loire, which had an increase of 50,000 visitors for 2011 year to hit a record of 780,000.

The Ministry of Culture also announced good results regarding attendance of museums, which grew 5% in 2011 with a total of 27 million !
the Museum of the Louvre, had 8.8 million, an increase for the fourth consecutive year. It is ahead of the Palace of Versailles (more than 6 million), the Pompidou Centre (3.6 million, an increase of 15%!) and the musée d'Orsay (3.1 million).

Where did you visit this year ? And can you recommend anywhere either on this list or some hidden gems that are not usually mentioned ? We certainly love the theme park Puy du Fou which is listed as having over a million visitors a year.

The most popular theme park is still the two Disneyland, Paris parcs which receive 14.5 million visitors a year and the Parc based around the French character Astérix, Parc Astérix near Paris which has 1.6 million visitors a year ! The Futuroscope theme park at Poitiers has 1.6 million visitors a year.

And of course we cant forget The Eiffel Tower in Paris which has 6.8 million paying visitors a year although I am sure a lot more who just go along to take a photograph !
Another popular sites to give a try is the La Villette science museum in Paris which has around 3 million visitors.
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