jrchapma

I’m hoping you seasoned travelers can give me some direction. I’ve spent hours online looking for accommodations for our trip to the Loire Valley. All I’ve found are expensive hotels with poor reviews and breakfast that would cost $30-40.

My husband and I are looking for a rental/B&B/hotel in a larger town (one that has a few places of interest, some shopping, and several good, casual restaurants). We’d like to be within walking distance to restaurants, and it must have air conditioning. (We’ll be there in August and I just cannot sleep when it’s hot.)

We will have a car and don’t mind driving around the countryside, visiting nice towns along the way, to see the major sites. I’d like to spend less than $200 per night. Does such a place exist?

Please help! I’m getting terribly frustrated.

Viajero2

How many days? If more than 3 days you may want to use a rental; check holiday-rentals.com.

Viajero2

I just checked holiday-rentals.com and found 24 rentals in the Loire Valley with A/C and available in August.

jrchapma

Great! We'll be there five nights. I'll take a look and see if any are in a larger town. I had checked VRBO and didn't find much.

FoFoBT

Angers is a lovely riverside town with plenty to do in August, an attractive medieval quarter, a large chateau, beautiful gardens, plenty of moderately priced restaurants (I don't know of any restaurants in Angers that aren't inexpensive or moderately priced). It's an easy drive from there to Saumur, Chinon, Azay le Rideau, Fontevraud, etc. It's not over-run with tour buses like some towns in the Loire Valley (one of the reasons we weren't that thrilled with Amboise)

The Mercure Angers Centre has comfortable, renovated, air conditioned rooms. Many overlook the Jardin des Plantes. There's a parking garage directly underneath the hotel and parking is reasonable. From the hotel it's an easy walk through the medieval quarter to the chateau, you'll pass lots of cafes, creperies, restaurants, shops etc along the way.

However, the hotel is modern in style (check out their photo gallery). If you want quaint, "Olde Europe" lodging, it's not for you.
http://www.mercure.com/gb/hotel-0540...tre/room.shtml
We spent 10 days there and enjoyed it thoroughly - the rooms were large and comfortable, the staff very helpful. .

FoFoBT

FYI, their unrestricted rate with breakfast included is about $150 per night (less if you want to go for a rate without breakfast). If you are willing to commit and pay in advance, they have some cheaper rates - for example, the "Ready to Visit" rate for August is about $115 per night for a double room, including breakfast. Slightly more if you want a Jardin des Plantes view (recommended) Parking is probably about $15 a day, unlimited exit/entry.

If you like the look of this hotel, sign up for the Accor loyalty card and with that, you would probably be upgraded to a garden-view room for free.

PalenQ

Chinon to me is the finest town in the heart of the Loire Valley and has many accommodations from B&Bs to fancier hotels. Check www.accorhotels.com for reasonable but modern AC-equipped hotels.

Chinon is perfectly situated for not only the sites mentioned above from Angers but also the most famous of the castles - Chenonceau and Chambord - much better located than Angers IMO - though I like Angers a lot.

iris1745

For us, we found Loches to be a very good location to go either way on the Loire. The town has a long early to late medieval history. Housed many of the King's in the castle. Our B&B was very nice. Richard www.logisloches.com

jrchapma

Thank you all for your responses! Many wonderful ideas.

I found one rental on holiday-rentals.com; however, it’s just outside Chaumussay (about an hour south of Tours). Not sure if that’s too remote?

Is Angers also too remote if we want to visit some of the main chateau (such as Chenonceau)?

I only found one hotel at accorhotels.com in Chinon (the All Seasons Chinon). I don’t see that it has A/C, but it is modern so it looks like it should.

I’ve emailed the Le Logis du Bief to see about availability.

If anyone else has suggestions, please keep posting.

PalenQ

I would not assume any hotel has AC even though Accor hotels I would think would - but I have lived off and on in Orleans on the Loire and no residence of relatives and friends has any AC - simply because it rarely gets hot enough to bother. Indeed make sure there is central heating perhaps. But it depends what you call hot - temps would rarely get above 80 degrees in the day - I have never in years found it too hot to sleep in my years of being there for a month or so in summer at a time.

TravelParis23

My husband and I stayed at the Le Vieux Manior on 2 visits to the Loire. It is a charming B&B - very elegant. Wonderful breakfast.
The location is in Amboise. Lots of shops and restaurants within walking distance although we did have a rental car. The owners are quite helpful.
And yes, it has A/C

StCirq

I share FoFoBT's enthusiasm for Angers, but it is a bit to the west of what most people are looking to see in the Loire valley, at least on a first visit.

I'm not up to date on prices at these places, but I would check out Le Choiseul and the Lion d'Or in Amboise.

FoFoBT

If the Chinon All Season hotel doesn't list air conditioning on its site, then it doesn't have it. Many Accor properties below the Sofitel level don't have AC. The ones that do tell you they've got it.

You can't see all of Loire Valley from one five-day base. If Chenonceau is must, spend three nights in Angers to see the city and the sights close to there (Chinon, Saumur, Fontevraud, the chateau in Angers itself), then move on to Le Bon Laboureur next to Chenonceau. It's a small town, the hotel has AC. Seeing the chateau and another chateau nearby will eat up most of your time anyway. Le Bon Labourer's better rooms are at the top of your budget range, but you'd be under-spending at the Angers hotel, so it would average out.
http://www.bonlaboureur.com/HotelUK.asp

PalenQ

My son who grew up in the Loire Valley said why would you need air conditioning for the few days during the year when it was really warm - he said it is like needing AC at the North Pole. (This in a response to a Q I posed about why folks living in Loire Valley don't have AC.

PalenQ

For a nice, to me at least base, that is the best IMO situated for the places most folks want to visit (Chenonceau, Chambord, Azay-le-Rideau - the three most popular castles for good reason - and though in August Amboise like the Loire in general does get many tourists the town is rather small and also has some intriguing sights of its own - Leonardo's Clos Luce - where Da Vinci lived after Francois 1 brought him and the Renaissance literally with him to live in Amboise for his final years in this manor house - and also the Chanteloup Pagoda on its edge and a riverfront that IME is the most romantic of any place on the Loire. BTW Leonardo left his heart in Amboise and body to and is interred in the local parish church. Tuckd away behind the Amboise Chateau ferret out the strinhg of troglodyte houses built into the limestone cliff. And in summer the Sound and Light Show at Amboise chateau is one of the tops anywhere in France IMO - a cast of hundreds of locals dressed in Renaissance garb - action packed and also with English versions or translations.

FoFoBT

"And in summer the Sound and Light Show at Amboise chateau is one of the tops anywhere in France IMO"

We saw it. It's not a patch on the show in Bourges, which is beautiful and intimate, not a tourist-focused mob scene.

We crossed the Loire Valley from west to east and Amboise was our least favorite overnight destination. Tour bus after tour bus. The town runs on tourism. Bourges was a wonderful base for the far eastern Loire and Angers was equally wonderful for the western third - both offer plenty for visitors to do but their economies aren't so heavily based on tourism. Perhaps it's because we live in continental Europe, but we found the charms of Amboise the town (not the castles) middling at best.

more_please

I second the recommendation for Le Vieux Manior in Amboise. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay there and found it convenient to all the sites.

PalenQ

Bourges was a wonderful base for the far eastern Loire and Angers was equally wonderful for the western third - both offer plenty for visitors to do but their economies aren't so heavily based on tourism>

both I agree are great towns but are too remote for what the average tourist wants to see in the Loire Valley - Amboise is right at the epicenter. There is a reason it attracts more tourists than the other towns. and since it is smaller, much smaller than the other two it can impact it more.

but except for mid-July thru the end of August the tourist torrent is just a mere trickle so it depends on the time you visit Amboise.

jrchapma

I so appreciate all of your feedback. It's been very helpful and I now have inquiries in to a few places!

The need for A/C is really for sleeping at night. It's 83 degrees here today, 75 inside my house, and the A/C is not on. But I'll be turning it way down (to 69 degrees) to sleep. We were in China and the hotel turned off the A/C at night and neither of us could sleep. Ugh!

Right now I like the idea of basing in either Amboise (though not sure we want to pay for the Le Vieux Manior) or Loches. Or possible staying in Angers for a few days and then Loches. I did find one rental further south, but I'm not sure that it's well situated for viewing the typical first-time-visitor sights. But it might be fun to be a little lazy and sit by the pool, ride bikes, and explore small towns. We could stop by Chenonceau on our way there.

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p75...D_link_LPROP_1

jrchapma

I found this rental on VRBO in Amboise:

http://www.vrbo.com/258188