Loire itinerary - your thoughts please
 

First of all, thank you to those of you who convinced me in another post that renting a car and staying for a few days was the best thing for our family trip.
Quickly - we are a family of four (daughters 19 and 16) interested in seeing a few chateaux in the Loire Valley. We will have two full days in the area. Here is my plan for now......

Day 1, Arrive from Bruges by train, rent a car in Tours, and drive to our accommodation (still to be determined) in Amboise. I assume we'll arrive later in the afternoon and plan to get settled and explore the town that day. Day 2, tour Chenonceau for the first half of the day and Chateau du Clos Luce in the afternoon. Day 3, drive to and tour Chateau de Chambord in the morning and another in that area in the afternoon (Blois perhaps?). Day 4, tour Chateau d'Amboise before driving to Tours to return car and take the train to Paris.

Thanks in advance for the help,
~Robert

Chateau du Clos Luce and Amboise are both in the city of Amboise. A somewhat short walk between the two. But we drove. See them together on the same day. Be aware of the closing times at Chateau du Clos Luce because as we departed, many walkers were arriving just as the chateau closed for lunch.

We enjoyed Chaumont sur Loire and the gardens there more than Blois. Villandry has unbelievable gardens (chateau not anything special)

Stu Dudley

Here's another vote for Villandry which we all enjoyed on the two occasions we visited it. [one of the few gardens that didn't make my kids groan "not another garden mum"]

Chenonceau is my other must.

Stu - thanks for the heads up on hours of Chateau de Clos Luce and the suggestion of other chateau. We plan to stay in Amboise - that's the reason we may choose to visit the two sites separately.

annhig - thanks for the rec of Villandry. We'll check it out.

Villandry is far west of all those. Of course the distances aren't all that far, if you went over there you could consider chateau Azay-le-Rideau.

Near Chambord, I suggest you visit Cheverny, it's only about a 15 min drive. You could easily visit 3 in one day IMO, so Chambord, Cheverny and Blois. They are all fairly closer together. Or maybe Cheverny, Chambord then ending Blois would make sense as an itinerary. Depends if you want Blois first or last probably. Really, it doesn 't matter, you could do Blois in the middle to get some lunch perhaps as it's in a town, that's actually a good idea I think.

Check if any of the chateau have son et lumiere shows. It was decades ago that we did the Loire. I remember Blois having one, in French.

<<annhig - thanks for the rec of Villandry. We'll check it out.>>

My pleasure, rmoore. If you are going to venture west from Amboise to Vilandry, [about 45 minutes drive, according to Google maps] and if you have an interest in history you might consider going a little further west to the Abbaye of Fontavraud which is the last resting place of some of the Plantagenets, including Henry II, his wife Eleanor, his son Richard I [the Lionheart] and King John's wife Isabella. It's a beautiful setting and has a lovely garden as well. i do recognise that it's rather an outlier though and you might quite reasonably decide to concentrate on more easterly chateaux. But Amboise, Villandry, Chenonceau, Amboise would make a very nice round trip for one of your days.

Nice itinerary but would also recommend throwing in some more "original" activities or at least visit some smaller towns in the area. For sure Blois and Amboise and even Tours are nice to explore but Loches and smaller towns are complete gems. Considering you have a car, I would also recommend doing more than castle visiting. Go biking, visit a vineyard and sample their wine, watch a medieval show, etc.

I know we are all just animals of our culture and seldom make logical decisions but I'm lost as to why having a car lets you bicycle, drink wine or go to a festival. But if it makes sense to you...

Just about every fun holiday I've had in France has been without the nasty things :-)

French booze law "France has very strict rules concerning drink-driving; the legal blood alcohol limit is 0,5g/l of blood. If during a police check, your level of alcohol is found at between 0,5 and 0,8 g, you may be fined up to 135 €"

As you're driving along the Loire in the area around Vouvray, between Tours and Amboise, look for the maisons troglodytes (cave houses) that were created in the quarries where the stone was taken for building the châteaux. Many are private homes, there's at least one hotel, and even a rental available on Airbnb. A long time ago, we stopped for a wine tasting in one of the caves.