Parking in Amboise

We’ve stayed in Amboise twice, in 2001 and 2005, and had trouble then finding parking at all hours. I can only imagine it’s gotten worse. Amboise is such a charming, little town, i much prefer to stay there and be able to walk to everything: the chateau, the shops, the restaurants, Clos Lucé - da Vinci’s house, even the residential area, than be outside of town. Just my 2 cents.

Amboise is tricky. Locals tend to avoid it unless necessary, especially during the season. That's simply because the weight of traffic is too much, and the traffic arrangements are not intuitive. It is better in the evening, but remember that by June it won't be dark until about 10pm, so "evening" can be later than many people's "night".

It may be slightly different this year because the bridge into town is closed, but that will make access into the parking at the hotels on the river more difficult because all the buses will be passing by the front (and no doubt doing u-turns wherever they can). At least one of the places outside towm (I assume you're talking about Arpentis) doesn't have a restaurant, so you will need to drive for meals (the closest restaurant for dinner is McDonalds, about 15 minutes walk away, otehrwise it's an hour walking to the middle of town).

Amboise is a difficult town - because of its popularity with travel writers it tends to be too touristy to get good food. It might be amazing to some visitors to have 3 decent restaurants in a town of 12,000 people, but finding them involves avoiding the string of not very good restaurants that take advantage of the tourist boom (including I think 6 now set up by one family). Compare that to the fact that I live in a village of 1000 people that has 3 decent restaurants....

It's nice to have the car for driving to the chateaux during the day. For dinner, however, I'd much prefer to be in town where you can walk around, find a place and enjoy the town.

I’ve stayed in 3 other towns in the Loire Valley, Amboise was my favorite for it’s charm, ambiance and easy driving to other chateaux.

We stayed in an apartment last July in the centre of town for 5 nights. No parking was provided but we did not have any issues with finding parking within half a block of our apartment whenever we needed it. However, I tend to be exceptionally lucky with parking. If your hotel provides parking, I would say go for it. We (2 adults, 2 kids) really enjoyed being in the centre of the town and walking distance to Chateau d'Amboise (though we did not enter it), our daily croissants and fun stores to browse. The walk to Clos Luce was just a bit too far for the little ones so we drove there, but if it was just me and the hubs, we would have walked.

Thanks all for the feedback. I've decided to stay in Amboise, but not in one of the places on the road along the river.