Stay in Angers or Saumur?
 

We have rented a car one time. We enjoyed it for the most part, but we did get lost heading through Tours to reach St Pierre des Corps. It was stressful trying to navigate a busier freeway, not having time to figure out which turn to take based on the 'next town' concept. I had mappy printed out, still got turned around.

Anyway, thinking about the next foray in 2005. We'd like to see Angers, Saumur and maybe even bring the golf clubs (in which case we might stay at Golf d'Anjou). We could stay in either Angers or Saumur, as both have SNCF stations with an Avis (liked this plan in St Pierre des Corps).

Angers is a large town - will it be easier to rent car and drive directly in and out of Angers, and go visit Saumur... or will it be easier to rent car and drive in/out of Saumur, and go visit Angers (park the car and walk the city-center)?

I hope you can understand my question - having trouble articulating. I guess I'm trying to say I want to do the least possible driving in the larger town of Angers (if it's anything like Tours). Maybe it's a toss-up.

B your criteria definitely Saumur, a much much smaller city, with one of the classic chateaux. I've never been impressed by Angers though it's pleasant enough. At Saumur don't miss he troglydite houses built into the limestone cliffs along the Loire just before town. Some of these caves grow mushrooms - 'champignons' signs out front mean you can stop and visit the caves and of course buy fresh champignons. Saumu and many other Loire valley towns have houses built uniformly, at least older ones, out of the off-whitish limestones, some of which was hallowed out to dig the caves.

I've driven in and out of both Saumur and Angers and didn't find either one very problematic (compared to Tours, for example), though Angers IS quite a bit bigger. Both are wonderful towns to visit, but I'd give Angers a fairly big edge over Saumur, if only because there is more to see and do. It really would be hard to just drive into Angers "and walk the city center." It's a big place with attractions in different parts of the city. Personally, I'd stay in Angers and visit Saumur. In Saumur, in addition to admiring the troglodyte dwellings, you an EAT in one - at Les Caves de Marson.

Saumur is an easy in/out, not sure about Angers. We rented our car in Blois which was also a breeze. Generally, we found the Loire Valley to be one of the best car-friendly travel areas in Europe. Enjoy.

I'm leaning toward staying in Angers although I haven't done much research into 'sights', other than to know there is always a 'vieux ville' area, and of course, the chateau.

Is there any kind of tourist transportation around Angers, ie. cheesy tram? Are most sights of interest in a concentrated area, and maybe just gardens or the like on outskirts? Will I need to drive within Angers to sightsee?

We were able to drive straight in/out of both Amboise and Chinon with little interior navigation, and see their sights on foot, but those are very small towns.

I was in the Loire Valley for 10 days a couple of years ago. It was my first trip renting a car, and I got lost almost immediately leaving St. Pierre des Corps for Amboise! At one point I ended up in a residential part of some little village along the way. Finally, a NICE woman had me follow her to a point where it was the obvious road to Amboise. I can see how you had trouble getting out of Tours!

Anyway, as to your question - I stayed in Saumur for several days and had absolutely no trouble navigating in and out of it. I stayed at the Anne d'Anjou, which was lovely and a perfect location down near the river. I was planning to spend my last night in Angers to return car and train back to Paris, but had to go back sooner due to a train strike going on at that time. I nervously found my way to Angers and Avis at the train station, JUST before a huge demonstation of strikers appeared to parade and take over the town. (especially near the train station)!
I've always considered that one of my luckier days. Anyway, I had a couple of hours to walk around a little and see the chateau (which was most interesting),and I would like to go back to Angers someday to see more. I think there would be more to do in Angers than Saumur - definitely - but to take daytrips to other places, Saumur would be better. I have since taken several more trips to France and rented cars, and definitely prefer the smaller towns with a car.

I was in Angers last summer, and you do not need a car to get around to the main tourist sites in the city. There is a cheesy little tourist train thing, which I took because I was tired and liked the idea of just sitting there. I had already visited several of the main sites by foot, though (the chateau, a church and some museums).

We've done four driving trips to Angers and the Loire Valley in the past 18 months. Angers is our favorite place in the Loire Valley and we hope to buy an apartment there someday.
Driving in and out of town is not difficult at all. Everything is well marked with signs. To get to Saumur, etc., we highly recommend you follow the Route Touristique rather than the toll autoroutes (not much faster, less scenic and fairly expensive). The downside is that you have to follow that route over and over to go to Saumur, Fontevraud, Chinon, etc. You get to know it almost by heart (bear right after McDonald's on the roundabout outside Saumur, etc.).
We always stayed in Angers at the Hotel Mercure Centre. It is a modern hotel, not for someone who wants a place with lots of character, but the staff are friendly and helpful, it has a great location next to the lovely Jardin des Plantes, and has its own underground car park. From there, it's an easy walk to the heart of the old city. We walked everywhere in town, to the chateau, the shops, the restaurants, and to our favorite dog-walking park on the other side of the river.
Angers has several very nice restaurants--La Ferme and Castel Boeuf are two of our favorites (Castel Boeuf has excellent lunch specials).
We never did the litte tourist train, although I wanted to. They seem to be all the rage in France these days. Every town we hit on our summer '04 trips to the LV and Berry had them. For the elderly or less abled, they seemed to be a godsend, esp. in the summer heat.

Thank you all, these comments are just what I was looking for... not going anywhere until September, but I'm an early planner.

A little anecdote: we were strolling around Amboise the evening <i>before</i> we had picked up our rental car. A car pulled up along side and a Frenchman asked me (!) if I could tell him how to get to Tours. OMG, I thought - if a FRENCHMAN can get lost we have NO CHANCE whatsoever!!! In spite of that terrible omen, we did just fine, even if we had to backtrack a time or two.

Travelnut, we've also driven in and out of Saumur and Angers easily compared to Tours - which became one of the driving jokes in our household for a time.

I don't think you'd go wrong staying in either location. We've stayed in Saumur - also at the H&ocirc;tel Anne d'Anjou - and found it a good base for the area. However, I'd stay in Angers in a heartbeat because there is so much to do, and we'll probably do that the next time we visit the Pays-de-la-Loire.

As far as walking in Angers to all of the sites, I think you'll need some sort of transportation to do justice to what is available. Much is walkable, but not everything - at least not easily. For example, I can't imagine not wanting to compare the 20th century &quot;Le Chant du Monde&quot; tapestries in the Musee Jean Lurcat to the Apocalypse Taspestry in the Chateau d'Angers. The Musee Jean Lurcat is across the river from the Chateau in the La Doutre section of Angers. Walkability of course varies by individual and can also depend on the location of your accommodations.

You might consider checking out the urban transportation options in Angers. They may give you more flexibility than the tourist train alone. Am not familiar with them, but the practical information section of the Angers tourism website ( http://www.angers-tourisme.com ) lists two types of urban transport with phone numbers - COTRA and Anjou Bus. It also lists some of the public parking lots.

It does depend on what you view as walkable -- if it's only a quarter mile or so, you may be in trouble. However, when I said I walked around Angers seeing the main sites, that included the area across the river and the Musee Jean Lurcat. It isn't that far.

The Apocalypse Tapestry at the Angers chateau is worth seeing. The chateau itself is rather impressive and is more of a fortress than the other Loire chateaux. Also, the Cointreau distillery is just outside of Angers and has two tours per day.

If you do go to the Angers chateau, from the walls, look across the river and to the left a bit, you'll see a very modern apartment complex next to a large park--that's where we plan to move in a few years. Wave to our future home for us...we're saving for one of the top floor apartments with the large balconies directly overlooking the castle.

A worthy goal, BTilke!

We love to walk, so covering a couple of miles over a few hours is certainly not a problem - we do it all the time in Paris! I've requested brochures from Angers tourist office online, and I'm sure we will avail ourselves of public transportation should it be necessary.

Looking forward to organizing a list of things to see. Have read your suggestions and those on previous threads, quickly browsed a few websites and can see it will be an interesting visit. Thank you again!