Loire Valley- Tours area

For tours, check with the Office de Tourisme which is just opposite the train station, Tours Centre:

https://reservation.tours-tourisme.fr/circuits-en-minibus.html

For hotel recommendations, please state your budget window in euros.

Without transportation, Tours is the place to stay. Tours leave from the Gare de Tours or the Office de Tourisme. My suggestion for hotels would be Le Grand Hotel right next to the gare or the new Hampton Inn/Hilton Garden Inn that's right next to the Loire (accessible via tramway from the gare).

Tour company, I would suggest Quart de Tours but also taking public transportation (Villandry, for example, is quite easy to get to via bus). While on Quart de Tours you don't get a guide, you simply get transportation.

Tours is a marvelous city, very alive and youthfful.

There's no monastery to stay at in Tours, I think the closest is the hotel in the old monastery at Fontevraud, which would be an impossible stay without a car.

It depends on your budget, of course (and what you mean by "unique"). In central Tours we usually recomment Maison Jules https://www.lamaisonjules.com/ (on the road leading to the cathedral) and Hotel l'Univers https://www.oceaniahotels.com/en/hotel/hotel-oceania-lunivers-tours, both within very easy walking distance of the station and Touriost Office. In the Medieval part of town there is l'Adresse https://hotel-ladresse.com/

There are a number of tour companies catering for all budgets, not all of which are listed on the tourist office website (for some reason). For that, Google is your friend (although bing is probably better, because on Google now you mainly see the companies with the largest advertising budgets)

I forgot about l'Univers! The lobby is exquisite. The rooms are stale like much of the Oceania chain