Saumur for a week: Ideas to explore the Loire valley
 

We will be in Saumur for a week in June. Any ideas for interesting day trips in the Loire valley with children? Thanks very much.

Be sure to visit Angers, a gem of a city with loads to do and see. The chateau has a great collection of tapestries, and then you must go to the other side of the city to see Jean Lurçat's modern take on them. Just wandering the pedestrian streets is a treat.

Then there are all the troglodyte villages and such to visit nearby - do you have a guidebook? The Eyewitness Guide to the Loire has a great series of drives around the area.

I'l assume you mean day trips other than all the chateaux. When we visited the Loire Valley last fall with our 10-year-old son, he especially liked Clos Luce in Amboise, which is a smaller chateau in which Leonardo da Vinci lived the last few years of his life. The chateau is ok, but the highlight for my son was the outdoor "park" that had life-size models of some of da Vinci's ideas and designs. My son could have spent all day there!

He also very much enjoyed our lunch in a trogdolyte restaurant, a restaurant built into a cave in the hillside. It's called Les 2 Caves, and it's 3 km east of Montrichard, in Bourre. Very casual place, with homemade terrines and various meats en brochette.

You might enjoy visiting the picture-perfect village of Candes St Martin (one of the so-called "plus beaux villages de France").

It's a medieval village 12km east of Saumur, nestled on the banks of the Loire.
While it's not big enough to occupy a full day, it's definitely worth stopping there for a stroll around the village, the old 13th C church, and down to the river (in medieval times it was an active river port).

How old are your children? Toddlers, teenagers, somewhere in between?
For young kids, in Angers there is a small collection of animals in the Jardin des Plantes (parrots in one section behind glass and a nice penned area with goats, rabbits and chickens in another), a carousel in the Jardin du Mail.

If any of your kids are horse lovers, head up to Le Lion d'Angers for the national stud farm; lovely setting, lots of beautiful horses there, guided tours of the stables, there are also special events held there. http://www.lelion-hn.com/index.php

The Lac de Maine at the edge of Angers offers sailing and windboarding lessons, something older kids or teenagers might enjoy. http://www.lacdemaine.fr/uk/index2.h...arcloisirs.htm

Just outside Amboise is the mini-chateau parc, with scale models of dozens of Loire Valley castles, laid out more or less in a geographically correct fashion with fake Loire and Cher rivers running through. Also a model train. Again, more of interest to young kids than to teenagers.

Agree with posters above, the troglodyte dwellings should interest school age and older kids.

Hae you checked out this site?
http://www.ot-saumur.fr/uk/jvsejour.htm

The kids are 8, 10 and 12.

Thanks for your responses.