We will be staying at the Chateau de Pray outside Amboise for 4 nights and need suggestions on what restaurants any of you might recommend. I understand the Chateau de Pray has a nice restaurant for dinner.

We just returned from 2 weeks in France with 3 days in the Loire Valley. It was a wonderful trip! We also based ourselves in Amboise which is a perfect location. We ate at 3 places in Amboise with one being the best -- L'Epicerie. It was recomended by the the B&B we stayed. The restaurant is right across from the Amboise Chateau - it is not super fancy but the food was very good. Let me know if you need any other info

Bob, <BR> <BR>Dinner at Le Choisel is excellent. The restaurant overlooks the Loire. Haute cuisine and an English speaking staff made this our best choice in Amboise. They often have entertainment with the meals. You can check their website. Bonne chance!

We stayed at Chateau de Pray in 1996, and very much enjoyed it. Yes, the restaurant there is very good. We also ate at L'Epicerie, recommended to us by Chateau de Pray, as a good local bistro sort of place; I would definitely recommend it as well. And, we also ate at le Choiseul. Very nice one-star Michelin restaurant. That was a nice experience, but I think I enjoyed l'Epicerie more; it felt more typically French. <BR> <BR>On a previous trip, I ate at another one-star restaurant, the Cheval Blanc, in Blere. Also very good. <BR> <BR>For a fun change of pace, during our visits to the chateaux in the area, we had lunch at a restaurant in a cave. Very much a local place, country-style food. It's outside of Montrichard, and called "Les 2 Caves."

Bob, <BR> <BR>I give a thumbs up to L'Epicerie as well -- very good food and great value. Also ate at the Chateau du Pray, which we enjoyed -- dinner averaged $45/person including wine. We also had a kir sitting out on the deck in front of the chateau, which we really enjoyed. Finally, we also ate at another one-star Michelin restaurant, Le Manoir St. Thomas (also in Amboise - Fax: 011-33-2-4730-4471), which we really enjoyed as well. I think we all had a fixed price menu (one in our party had the most expensive fixed price menu), and yet dinner still only ran an average of $40/person including wine. <BR> <BR>More info on all these restaurants is available at: <BR>http://www.amboise-valdeloire.com/fr...em/hot_res.htm <BR> <BR>John Hansen

It was several years ago, but we ate 5 nights at a nice inexpensive restaurant - Chez Collette - in Chambord. If it is still there, you might like it as an alternative to 3 hr meals. There is also a nice restaurant at the bridge over the Loire in Chambrd, but it is much more and takes foreverd. Chambord is only a short drive from Amboise

Just returned from Amboise. Great town! For a cool ice cream or sorbet break, plus lunch, try the charming Bigot, right in town below the chateau. For dinner, we had a fine one (4 course) at our hotel, Hotel Le Blason. Have fun.

We spent two nights in Amboise November 2000, stayed at Manior les Minimes, which is a very nice home that has been converted to a hotel. It is right at the foot of the castle walls and sits on the river. We also enjoyed dinner at the hotle Le Blason, which was excellent and very reasonably priced. Another place we found is a really nice cocktail lounge located on the island in the center of the river. It is called Le Shaker and has great drinks and a nice short menu of simple meals. The view from Le Shaker is great, the staff is friendly (although both times we were there none spoke a single word of English, but no problem there - our limited French got us through just fine). I highly recommend both Le Blason and Le Shaker as places to eat.