I'm looking for information on traveling to Loire Valley from Paris for either a day trip or an overnight stay. I'd appreciate information from anyone who has done this. I've done searches on Fodor's but as yet have had no luck in finding specific answers to my questions.<BR><BR>Is it reasonable to take this as a day trip? What town did you visit? Did you drive or take a train? If you stayed overnight, where did you stay? What was your experience in general? Any information will be gratefully received.

Hi Belinda. I'm afraid my experience w/this is a bit old, but we stayed three nights in Blois, found it to be a graceful town, and took bus half-day visits to several other chateaux from there (arranged by the local tourist office in Blois). J.

You can find day tours from Paris. Check online by doing a search on Google. It's a one day tour, a little rushed, but you get to see several of the famous chateaus.

You might try looking at these two threads for some ideas.<BR><BR>www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&amp;tid=34382313<BR><BR>www .fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&amp;tid=34390065<BR><BR>The search here is so quirky. I finally found them by keying (without quotes) &quot;enchanted and museum&quot; in the search box.

There are several companies that offer one-day, two-day and even longer tours of the area. <BR>Since there are far more castles than you can possibly see in one or two days, I suggest two google searches:<BR>1. The companies that offer the tours.<BR>2. Look up the individual castles to determine which ones you'd prefer to visit and then find the tours that most closely match your preferred ones.

I used Paris Vision for two tours (one to Versailles and one within Paris) and would highly recommend them. They have a one day Loire Valley trip - here's the web site.<BR><BR>http://www.parisvision.com/fr/index....ik=selproduits

We did a 1-day trip to the Loire w/ ParisVision (I think) last March. It took about 12 hours. Saw the 3 &quot;C&quot; chateaux. Also had a surprisingly good group lunch at a country club. The visits at the chateaux were a bit rushed. Overall, we thought it was worth it.

Thank you everybody for your kind response and information. I hadn't thought about an organized tour, but will check into it.