Planning our Loire Valley Trip
Planning the Loire Valley trip was unique! Rather than spend our time in one large city, we would be exploring the smaller French cities in the valley. Because our friends, Austin and Amanda, wanted to visit us and France, we modified our trip ever so slightly by basing ourself in Amboise to give them time to adjust. Other than that, we were going to spend most of our days in French cafes, chateaus, and vineyards!
Logistics
Getting to the Loire Valley can be quite tricky as it lies outside Paris but there are limited transportation options to arrive directly without going through Paris. However, as the master planning guru, I managed to find the perfect plan - for both Mary Frances and I and Austin and Amanda!
Flying to the Loire Valley
Searching Google Flights for the perfect flight, I found a Thursday afternoon flight from London Stansted to Tours, France on Ryanair. We could have had a return flight, but we had to end our trip in Paris! From Tours, it would be an easy car or train ride to our city of Amboise.
Rental Car
As we quickly discovered in our research, a car is must needed to explore the Loire Valley especially if you want to see Chateaus. Because there are no rental car agencies in Amboise, I found one that was really close to the Tours train station from Sixt. It was a fantastic deal through skyscanner.net and allowed us to have easy transportation through our stay!
Via Train
If coming through Paris, it is quite easy compared to other French train journeys that we have taken in the past few trips. From Gare Montparasse to Tours is actually a one hour high speed service!
Travel Tip: French rail tickets are variable priced so prices are the cheapest when they go on sale 3 months before the travel date.
Lodging
When we decided to visit French Chateaus, we wanted to stay in a French Chateau! During my research, I stumbled upon a fantastic little chateau, Chateau des Arpentis, just outside Amboise. While it is within walking distance, it offers enough privacy to be really secluded! Because this was Austin and Amanda’s big European adventure, they opted to stay here. Prices were not terrible, but probably too expensive if one spent every weekend in May in a different country….
Then, reality struck Mary Frances and I and we had to modify our lodging to a cheaper AirBnB in the city. In reality, we definitely enjoyed our two bedroom house. It was right down the street from our favorite wine bar and had free parking nearby! The beds were comfortable and there was plenty of room to hangout and relax after a long day.
Our experience in Amboise is quite a read!
Total Fixed Costs:
- 3 night AirBnB: 160
- Ryanair flight to Tours: 108
- Wine Tastings: Delicious
- Picking out our future Chateau: Extremely difficult...
Loire Valley Activities
Because our main draw to the Loire Valley was the beautiful, royal chateaus and lush white wine, our activities primarily focus around those two activities.
- Wine Tastings - We visited only three wineries in the Vouvray region although you could easily extend your wine tasting throughout the entire Loire Valley. In addition to Vouvray, Sancerre probably the most famous region.
Read about our Loire Valley Wine experience here!
- Chateaus - One could spend an entire week hopping between the chateau! If one searches for the best Chateau’s to visit, you will face a litany of choices and recommendations. I will say, the saying goes, once you see one, you kind of see them all. We visited these Chateaus
Read about our new second home in the valley of Chateaus here!
Food and Drink
When we visited the palaces of the rich and powerful, we had to dine similarly as them as well! We definitely enjoyed the fine French cuisine which included excellent bakeries to our favorite wine bar, Chez Bruno!
- Chez Bruno - It is so good we visited twice!
- Lovely French Patisseries, including Gauvreau
- So many cafes in Amboise!
- From our wine tasting, Miram recommended the following restaurants (all in the google map pins):
- Le Patio
- Le Lion d'Or
- Les Arpents
- L'ecluse
- L'Epicerie
For everything we visited, here is the link for our Google Maps.
Onto Tours
Hurray! Because our flight was at 2pm on a Thursday, we had a great Stansted experience! For once, the airport was a little slow and we enjoyed not having the hustle and bustle of the Stansted. Before the flight, we purchased a great Pret and Joe’s Juice for a plane lunch.
For our actual journey, for once, we were really lucky with our Ryanair seats. I had an exit row seat and MF had front row priority. I think I won during the flight with all my leg room but MF won as soon as we landed as there was only 1 door for customs and she was the first person in line… I had to wait an hour!
From the Tours Airport, we took an Uber to our AirBnB in Amboise. Otherwise, I am not sure how one would get into Tours or anywhere else as the airport was extremely tiny.
Thankfully our AirBnB was really easy to check-in and also insanely close to the city! For our 3 night stay, we had a nice little two story apartment to ourselves. The narrow staircase felt very appropriate and Cinderella-y.
And thus, our chateau-hopping, tasty food, and wine tasting Loire Valley adventure began!