Loire Chateaux west of Tours

Hello Matthew,
My husband and I will be leaving in a few days for an anniversary trip to France, including several days in the Loire Valley. I'll know more after return in early July, but we have planned to see two Chateaux west of Tours, Villandry and Azay-le-Rideau. They are fairly close to one another, about 15 minutes apart. Our home base is between Amboise and Blois and these two will be our itinerary for one of our days. I'll give you an update when we get back. Happy Trip planning!

Tammy

Yes! We stayed in Azay-le-Rideau, about half an hour southwest of Tours, and visited the Fortress of Chinon, another half hour out in the same direction. Enjoyed both very much. You feel you are really in France, and many of the other tourists are from other places in France and around Europe.

Our hotel in Azay-le-Rideau was listed in the RS guide to France in 2014 (may still be in newer editions): Hotel Biencourt, located just a stone's throw from the chateau. It is really charming and comfortable, serves a delicious buffet breakfast, and the innkeepers are the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. Also, they'll do your laundry for a very affordable price per machine load. The town of Azay-le-Rideau is tiny but has several top-tier restaurants as well as more casual places to eat. You can picnic in the hotel's off-street courtyard.

One of our days in the Loire region we drove to the eastern side to visit Chenonceaux, and it was nice too, but we could feel the difference with more tourists and day trippers in Amboise and that area. Would have liked to venture further west to Saumur, but didn't have time. Hope for a future trip when we can do that!

I also stayed in Azay-le-Rideau and loved it there. I don't remember why but the chateau was not open when I was there so I could just see the outside but it is lovely and the town is very nice. I found Villandy to be well worth visiting. Many don't find the chateau itself very worth seeing - it is smaller and less opulently appointed than many of the others - but the gardens were the best of any I'd seen. I even liked them better than the much larger ones at Versailles.

In November 2015, we visited Chambord Chenonceau and Villandry.

We picked Villandry as a wild card as we knew we wanted to see the other 2 but were unsure of what to pick for the 3rd.......We picked RIGHT

Villandry was by far our favorite. Even in November the gardens were gorgeous and we had the place almost all to ourselves. We only say 7 other people during our visit. It was glorious and we really loved exploring the gardens.

Goooooo...... you won't regret it.

Although you are ruling out some of the biggies, we did not regret making the same decision. Here are some of the places we went in 2012. Note that we were making a clockwise circle through Brittany and Normandy as well:

Villandry or Chenonceau, Château de la Bourdaisière, Langeais,Villandry/Fontevraud/Chenonceau, Ambroise/Cadre Noir/rain:Orleans, Troglodytes
Gardens: Chateau de Villandry (1000 candles 6th), … de Sassy, Azay-le-Ferron, Richelieu, La Chatonnière
->Fougeres ruin,Vitré or Dinan, M.S.M evening

We slept in a Chateau-Hotel, Château de Marçay, 37500 Marçay - Chinon, which was maybe a little pricey for what it delivered. But it was very convenient with a rental car, and very quiet, except the day when a bicycle-tour company came through. We liked look of the smaller and cheaper (and less "West") Château de la Bourdaisière, but did not inspect the hotel rooms. This also has specialty tomato and dahlia gardens (in season, of course.) Are you going to look for wine harvest events?

Don't overlook 2-hour lunches at car rental offices!