cecilia

I'll be in Tours for a week at the end of this month and I would like to try to take 2 trips outside the city. I've read a lot of the old posts and trip reports here as well as guidebooks. The chateaux all look gorgeous but maybe they are more pleasant to visit in warm weather when the gardens are in bloom and I should save them for future trips. Also I probably won't rent a car so it should be someplace accessible by train.

I've already been to Poitiers, Chambord, Blois, Amboise (just the Clos-Lucé though), and Angers.

I'm thinking of doing Saumur and Bourges but if anyone has other ideas or suggestions for either city that I won't find in guidebooks please let me know.

PalQ

Chinon is to me the nicest smaller city in the Loire - it does have a castle bt with few gardens - the half-ruined castle is a Joan of Arc museum. But the town itself, lovingly set on the languid Vienne River, is sweet - and a short train ride from Tours.
Loches, another nice regional town, though a bit less nice than Chinon, is also near Tours and accessible by train or bus. Its castle is far different from other Loire castles as, like Chinon, it was built as a fortress and not a undefensible pleasure dome. No real gardens there either to miss but inside the castle are grim reminders of the not so nice Middle Ages - the torture chambers and louis XV??'s infamous Hanging Cages, where enemies of the king were put in hanging cages so small they could not stand up and fed but little else - some literally hung out in the darkness for years.
These two towns are much closer than Bourges, which is not in the Loire, but still a fine day trip - especially the cathedral, one of France's finest.
Bourges and its cathedral are fine and Saumur is as well.

PalQ

And some other intoxicating day trips go to nearby Vouvray - just a few miles east of Tours on the Loire - visit the caves here were the lauder Vouvray white wines are produced - several in the neat old village itself.
Bourgeueil is also close to Tours and it too offers several prestigious wineries to tour (and taste) in the town itself. No trains here but buses.

PalQ

Orleans, the largest city in the Loire after Tours, usually gets passed over in favor of castles and other cities - but Orleans is most pleasant - it has one of France's largest cathedrals, a Jean d'Arc Museum and a very pleasant pedestrian shopping zone and a romantic looking Loire running thru it.

cecilia

Thanks so much! My boyfriend/travel companion is a medieval musicologist so he probably has particular things that he's be interested in seeing but I am going to pass these posts along.