3 days in the Loire

Azey le Rideau is a lovely little place, with a charming chateau, but is on the far west edge of the usual tourist chateau route. For example it would be almost an hour and a half drive to Chambord to the east. Amboise, (or Tours if you want somewhere larger) is more central, splitting the distance between the eastern and western chateaux. And it has 2 chateaux of its own. No idea how to spend 8 hours in Tours without a car. Perhaps arrange for a private afternoon tour of a couple of wineries?

What are your bags doing for those 8 hours? Why can’t you drop off the car later?

Yeah, for lunch I’d just head into Tours, it’s right next to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps and way more fun. Check out Place Plumereau, it’s packed with cafes and bistros; Le Bistrot du Palais and La Deuvalière are both solid picks. After lunch, just wander around the old town, grab a coffee, or walk along the river. It’s a super easy way to kill a few hours without stressing about transport.

Veuzain-sur-Loire ( formerly Onzain ) is a nice centrally located town where I have stayed twice. Convenient to Chaumont ( just across the Loire, visible from my hotel room ), Chenonceaux, Blois, Amboise, Cheverny, Chaumont, all of which I have visited by bicycle frm there.

Hello... You're mistaken about the distances; the touristy part of the Loire Valley is as large as Brittany. Sancerre is very far from Angers, for example.

We used Azay. Le Rideau as a base for our Loire touring several years ago. We visited the local chateau, Villandry and its gardens, a winery and Chinon. It is a lovely village to stroll and enjoy and we found several restaurants that we could walk to for dinner. We stayed at Le Grand Monarque - lovely room, secure parking and a wash, dry, fold laundry special
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I twice stayed at Le Grand Monarque in Azay as did the previous poster. I remember it as very nice, but I stayed there 40+ years ago!

Changing my car drop off time was the first thing I checked but for some reason it negates being able to have the size car i want?!? Plus I'd have to pay for an extra day.
Is there a place to check luggage at the station, does anyone know?
Thanks for the lunch suggestions. Meandering around town is the best option so far.

If Vannes is the last place you stay in Bretagne and drive from there to the Loire Valley it’s worth looking for a visit to Nantes and Angers. The first is known for Les Machines de l’Île, a gallery of huge mechanical animals like Le Grand Elephant. At set times it goes out for a walk you can join as a passenger. Jules Verne is born in Nantes, there is a museum about him.

https://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/en/

In Angers is the huge castle worth a visit and has like Bayeux a medival tapestry.

In case you drive from Rennes is worth a stop Vitré and the historic center of Le Mans. (edited) The museum about the 24hours of Le Mans is closed for renovation, but you can visit a temporarily exhibition near the South Gate of the race track..

We just spent a week in Brittany in Port Louis (near L'Orient) and drove from there to the Loire Valley for 5 days. It's not a bad drive and like most drives in France, full of beautiful countryside views. We spent 2 days in Chinon and 3 days in Amboise. We enjoyed both towns - we liked Amboise a little more. Chateau du Clos Luce with its DaVinci Museum and gardens is right in town and Chenonceux is about 20 minutes outside of town. It's not too far beyond Tours, where you are dropping off your car. If you want a fabulous meal, the Chateau de Pray is just down the river from downtown Amboise.

Great suggestions from the last two posts. Nantes had been on my radar. How can you resist a huge mechanical elephant!
It is also good to hear from someone who has been in both Amboise and Bois. I feel good now about using Amboise as a base.
I finally have all my lodging booked and next will move on to dining options so thanks for suggesting Chateau de Pray.

Yo M.E.
We just returned after a month in the Loire. First rental was a week in Loches, then 3 weeks in *Tours. Your small-town preference would be well-served with a visit to Loches, which had the best 'vibe' of all the chateaus that we visited. Doing a flaneur up in its old Cite was so enjoyable that we went three times. Azay as a chateau is unmissable but I would not get my hopes up for its actual village. We were there for its annual Fall fest and were underwhelmed, given the level of kitsch and tackiness. The creperie Odettes there is great, however. One traveler's opinion.

Montresor was another small-town that we loved, so much that we returned on back-to-back days. *The foodic news there is that the cafe 'Ecole Gourmand' is open. Sort of. The cookbook-author and one-man show who runs it has *very unusual hours: one MUST phone ahead to be sure. But his food was among the best meals of our month.

Likewise, a great unique meal awaits at Loches' 'Arbor y Sens', plus Savonierre's 'La Maison Tourangelle'. Lesser-known Chateau Gaillard in Amboise had a wonderful cave-cafe that served excellent salads plus fresh cirtus juices, in addition to their peerless orange cake. Satisfaction guaranteed there, with calming candles, classy classical music played subtly in the background plus far fewer crowds.

Unfortunately, we missed our planned meal in Saches, due to the restaurant there being ferme pour Toussaint holidays--the sole business which we encountered to do so. Worse things happen.
Both the permanent Les Halles and also the twice-weekly farmers marche in Tours offer outstanding food purchase possibilities, as do a number of surrounding foodic businesses. One is spoiled for choice.

*I see that you have already booked lodgings but we have a killer splurge house rental in Tours to recco (Vannes too for next time). One of our traditional Trip Report photo essays covering the Loire will be posted at the end of the year. As always, we'll provide the link here. If interested, our southern Brittany TR is titled 'L'Appel de Mer' and can be seen by googling 'zebec (my handle ) Fodors l'Appel de Mer.'

Have a great trip!

I am done. The end.

If you are asking about luggage storage at Saint Pierre de Corps station, there is a hotel across from the station (the only one there, I believe) that contracts with Nannybags to store luggage for a fee. I went directly to the hotel but they said I had to arrange it online through the website (or rather the app), which was easy enough to do. The hotel has a locked room big enough for a lot of luggage.

As Gregg has recommended, Loches is a lively town a little off the beaten track. It historic center is well cared for. It has lots of good restaurants, including Le p’tit restau in town, and in a troglo a little way out of town La trattoria Mauvieres serves excellent pizza from a woodburning oven. Two market days a week. Plenty of good bakeries. On the other side of the Indre is the municipal garden with a view of the impressive chateau, church, and keep at the top of the hill.

Nearby Chedigny is one of France’s most flower-filled villages. It’s tiny but probably has more roses per square foot than any other village in France. It’s the only village in France that also has the Jardin Remarquable label. We have sometimes gone to the Loches area with no other purpose than to see the town in its May glory. There is also a jardin de cure behind the church (entrance fee).

I’m going to stop here but I have lots more to say about this lovely region if the OP is interested. Chateaux are not the only draw here!

And if you haven’t seen Gregg’s trip reports, be on the lookout for this one. You’re in for a treat.

Oh my! Have been away for a few days and catching up on home stuff and thought I would see if any new posts came in and voila! Really great info. Merci beaucoup. I found so much of interest I don't know where to start. Loches is now on my must visit list as are Chedigny and Montresor. This OP is definitely interested in the region other than chateaux so send on what you can. Took a quick look at all the pictures posted by zebec on Fodors of southern Brittany. Stunning! I am amazed how much soul you captured with your camera. I'll go back and read the captions after Thanksgiving.
If you can, send along thehouse rental in Vannes as I am not committed at this point.
Also thanks Crumbs for the info on luggage storage at the SPdC station. a Very useful.

FYI I found a French detective TV series on PBS set in Vannes that is very entertaining - Agathe Koltes.

Agathe Koltes is truly very good. I binge watched it on Acorn TV before PBS had it and wish there was another season coming. I hope there is! Also, the Commisaire Dupin mystery books by Jean-Luc Bannalec are terrific reads. There are 11 of them and I wish there was a television series of them all. (Maybe there are, just not available in thee US). The author does a good job of hitting some of the personality traits my husband's Breton relatives have!

That VRBO Vannes rental is called 'Villa M' and the couple who own it have just updated their website for it.
*We have another splurge to recco as well, if anyone might want. It is the Taschen-like one that we just stayed at in Tours. Architectural Digest-magazine stuff.
I am done. the French rentals

Villa M is lovely but we do not need 6 bedrooms for just the two of us. Merci!
I have the Inspector Dupin books listed in order and have finished the first 2 and working on the 3rd. Very fun reads and also educational (I'm reading the one about salt production).

I must have booked my stays too far ahead of time. Now I am dithering about my selections and avoiding pre-Christmas responsibilities. My current wondering is if Amboise is too big and noisy. I looked at Loches but could not find lodging that fit our needs, mainly a king bed or two twins. I did find a place in Saint Georges sur Mer and wondered if anyone had anything to say about that town. Also you can say I am foolish for thinking that Amboise would be too big and noisy. I can take it.

Thanks for your help.

I honestly loved Amboise and found it lovely to walk around. There are some busier streets of course and the bridge can have alot of traffic on it at times, but really, it feels more lively than busy and seeing the Chateaux lit up at night is stunning. I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again. I far preferred it to Saumur, where we also stayed, which was much larger, busier and felt quite different. We did day trips to Loches, Blois, Le Mans, as well as various chateaux and enjoyed them all. Funny story: there is a pretty meadow area with a walking path between Loches and the small village of Beaulieu called Les Prairies du Roy. While trip planning, I read so many recommendations about it that I insisted we (two families) must walk it on our way back to Loches from Beaulieu (we walked along the road on the way there). While we had unseasonably warm and dry weather throughout our March trip, clearly it had been quite wet prior to our holiday because about halfway along the "path", we realized we were hopelessly surrounded by deep, wet mud that could not be avoided. No choice but to continue slogging through the ankle deep mud. Everyone's shoes (including two teens' prized suede Birkenstocks) were filthy and almost ruined and as you can imagine, I was not very popular. I spent part of my evening back in Amboise at our Airbnb in the kitchen scrubbing everyone's shoes clean (it was selfish.......I had been wearing a new pair of white Adidas Sambas and I wanted to save them desperately!) and was relieved that the mud came out very well! It's a funny memory now - I actually thought it was pretty funny at the time......it just took everyone else (especially the teenagers!) a little longer to come around.;)

Enjoy your trip!

Just a quick note about "three days in the Loire," to avoid any confusion and perhaps get more feedback... A French person might interpret this title ("three days in the Loire") as meaning three days in the Loire department, which is actually in the Auvergne region, near Le Puy-en-Velay. It's a mountainous department. In France, the Loire is a department or a river, but the word alone never refers to a region, neither tourist nor administrative. We might talk about the Loire Valley, Anjou, Touraine, etc. The new "Pays de la Loire" region also exists, but the city of Tours, just in the center of Loire Valley, isn't even part of it!

As much as I love the chateau at Azay le Rideau, the town itself is small and I find it actually not very interesting.

I think first you have to decide which chateaux you want to see.

What has worked for us traveling with friends who wanted to cram in a lot of chateaux is a B&B we've stayed at many times, La Bihourderie (in the countryside near Azay sur Indre--nowhere near Azay le Rideau). It was an easy drive from there to Villandry, Chenonceau, Azay le Rideau, Montresor, Loches, L'islette. My my favorite village in the world, Chedigny, is right down the road.

Here's a link to the La bihourderie room with twin beds as well as what might be a queen, or might be a king, in the same suite.

https://www.labihourderie.com/chambres/les-bles-jaunes.html

I linked to the wrong room. The suite is Pêchers en Fleurs.

Thank you for the clarification of terminology, very helpful. Also thanks for everyone's suggestions. I think I will stick with Amboise and save all those charming small towns for places to visit. Quaint B&B's and meeting all our needs as a "mature" couple do not always sync. I think the lodging in Amboise will work best for us.
I am most interested in exploring all these charming villages. So the suggestions from this forum will be very helpful and help me come up with a reasonable itinerary. Honestly, we will probably only tour one chateau and just view the others from a distance. I may change my mind once we get there.

Thanks again for all your collective help.

I wouldn’t be concerned because you are on a tourism website. In fact, in French the area along the Loire with all the chateaux is called Val de Loire, an office of tourism label of some sort. The moment the word chateau appears with the word Loire, everyone understands the location.

Yes, with the word "chateau"... I live in the Pays de la Loire region, actually (near Angers), and I find there's a lot of confusion, even for the French. When people talk about the Loire Valley, they often mean Touraine, and some people don't place Angers in the Loire Valley. I don't really know if Nantes is in the Loire Valley, and the same goes for Sologne. I suppose Orléans is too, logically. Since the Pays de la Loire region is relatively new, many people are surprised that the Vendée coast is included, but not Touraine.

OP ME,
Didja check out 'Gite Jeanne d'Arc' in Loches? That was our recent rental. No king bed as you've specified, but its a 3 bdrm: queen, queen, twins. Fantastic location. Kind landlady who will likely invite you to her nearby place for coffee. Her gite has one of the oldest spiral staircases in the Loire.
I am done. the louche in Loches

Jeanne d'Arc is a little too big for us but I kept looking in Loches because it does sound charming and found La maison des Cordeliers which I've just now booked. Seems to be well located and gets good reviews. Comments?