Home › Getaways › The Loire Valley

The Loire ValleyBy carNo machine-readable author provided. Calips assumed (based on copyright claims). — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The Loire Valley

Centre-Val de Loire, France · France

Two hundred and eighty kilometres along France's longest river, where more than three hundred châteaux were raised between the 15th and 17th centuries. They are not fortresses: they are pleasure residences built when the French court stopped living defensively and started living on display. Here Francis I raised Chambord to hunt in, brought Leonardo da Vinci to die at Amboise, and two women fought over Chenonceau on a king's death.

4 days3 nights179 km9 stopsBest season: May to October, with the gardens at their best and light until late. May, June and September are the finest: the same green and far fewer people than in August. In winter they open on reduced hours and the gardens are bare, though Chambord and Chenonceau put up Christmas decorations in December.
Day 1Four styles and a staircase by LeonardoDay 2Tintin, gardens and the LoireDay 3Leonardo and the ladies' châteauDay 4Gardens and an island

Day 1 · Four styles and a staircase by Leonardo

Blois and Chambord · 34 km

BloisDiliff — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Blois

history

The royal château sits in the middle of the city and has something no other does: four architectural styles share a single courtyard, from Gothic to classicism, because every king or prince who lived here added his own wing. Here Henry III ordered the murder of the Duke of Guise in 1588, in his own chamber.

Tip

Francis I's external spiral staircase, carved on the outside, is the image of the château. And from the courtyard you can read the history of France by looking at the walls in order.

25 min to the next stop · 17 km

ChambordNo machine-readable author provided. Calips assumed (based on copyright claims). — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Chambord

history

The largest in the valley and the most excessive: more than four hundred rooms, two hundred and eighty-two fireplaces and over seventy staircases. The central one is a double helix, two intertwined spirals that rise without ever meeting, and it is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Francis I had it built as a hunting lodge and slept here very few nights.

Tip

Book the ticket online and expect to pay for parking separately. Go up to the terraces: that is where the forest of chimneys is, and where the building stops looking like a castle.

Day 2 · Tintin, gardens and the Loire

Cheverny, Chaumont and Amboise · 62 km

ChevernyThe original uploader was Manfred Heyde at German Wikipedia. (Original text: de:Manfred Heyde) — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Cheverny

culture

A classical 17th-century château still lived in by the same family after six centuries, and it shows inside: this is not a museum, these are furnished rooms. Hergé copied it almost literally for Tintin's Marlinspike Hall, removing the two side wings.

Tip

In the grounds there is a pack of nearly a hundred hunting hounds and you can watch them being fed at a set time. It sounds odd and it is one of the things children remember most.

30 min to the next stop · 24 km

Chaumont-sur-LoireParrad.adrien — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Chaumont-sur-Loire

culture

A fortress above the river with fairy-tale towers, which Catherine de' Medici forced Diane de Poitiers to accept in exchange for Chenonceau after Henry II's death. Today it hosts an international garden festival every year: more than twenty gardens designed by landscape architects from around the world and remade entirely each season.

Tip

The garden festival runs from April to November and is what really justifies the stop. If you come in winter, the château on its own does not compare with the others on this route.

20 min to the next stop · 20 km

AmboiseWolkenkratzer — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Amboise

history

The royal château dominates the town from a spur above the Loire, and Leonardo da Vinci is buried in its chapel of Saint Hubert. It was the residence of several kings, and Charles VIII grew up here, dying at twenty-seven after striking his head on a door lintel in the château itself.

Tip

The town deserves two hours of walking its cobbled streets, not just the château. And the Minimes tower has a spiral ramp up which horses hauled carriages.

Day 3 · Leonardo and the ladies' château

Le Clos Lucé and Chenonceau · 26 km

Le Clos LucéNadègevillain — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Le Clos Lucé

culture

The house where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last three years and died in 1519. He arrived in 1516 at Francis I's invitation, crossing the Alps with several paintings in his baggage, and one of them was the Mona Lisa: that is how it ended up in the French royal collection and, in time, in the Louvre.

Tip

In the basement and the garden there are models built from his drawings: the aerial screw, the swing bridge, the armoured car. It is a ten-minute walk from the château of Amboise.

25 min to the next stop · 19 km

ChenonceauIt is a derivative work of Ra-smit's photo. — GFDL (Wikimedia Commons)

Chenonceau

history

A sixty-metre gallery set on five arches that cross the river Cher from bank to bank. They call it the ladies' château because women built it, extended it and saved it, from Diane de Poitiers to Catherine de' Medici. And in the Second World War that gallery had one bank in occupied France and the other in the free zone: a great many people crossed through it.

Tip

Along with Chambord, it is the most visited château on the Loire. Book online and go first thing or last: by mid-morning the gallery is a single file.

Day 4 · Gardens and an island

Villandry and Azay-le-Rideau · 57 km

VillandryCarsten Steger — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Villandry

nature

The last great Renaissance château raised on the banks of the Loire, visited today above all for its gardens: over six hectares laid out in terraces, with the ornamental kitchen garden below, the decorative gardens in the middle and the water garden above. The kitchen garden is replanted twice a year to geometric designs, the vegetables chosen for their colour.

Tip

Climb the keep: the gardens only make sense from above, and from ground level you lose the pattern completely. And come between April and October, because in winter the kitchen garden is bare.

15 min to the next stop · 11 km

Azay-le-RideauGerd Eichmann — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Azay-le-Rideau

heritage

Built on an island in the river Indre, with water surrounding it entirely and giving back the façade in reflection. It is considerably smaller than the others and that is why it works: you see all of it, you grasp it whole and it does not exhaust you. Balzac called it a cut diamond set in the Indre.

Tip

Leave it for last precisely for that reason: after Chambord and Chenonceau, this is the one you enjoy without fatigue. The walk through the surrounding park is as good as the interior.

This getaway is in the app, day by day, with every stop on the map, the drives between them and where to sleep, and the option to save it for when there is no signal.

Open in JourGuide

Getaways