A Comprehensive How-to Guide to Loire Valley Chateaux Sightseeing
An aerial view from a hot-air balloon ride over Chateau de Chenonceau in France’s Loire Valley. September 9, 2020.
When my niece called and I told her that Uncle Arnaud had just seen the real castle that inspired Sleeping Beauty, she could hardly believe it.
Neither could I.
The châteaux in the Loire Valley in France present an astounding cluster of incredible architecture, landscaping, and decoration. If you can find a way to make it to France to see them, you should. (And if you want to start by learning why the Loire Valley has so many gosh-darned castles in the first place, you can read that research here.)
However, getting your arms around how to see these castles can feel daunting to most travelers. After all, visiting the Loire Valley takes a few more logistics than visiting Paris. If you’d jump at the chance with a little how-to guidance, I’m here to serve.
Seeing the châteaux in the Loire Valley doesn’t take as much work or bring as much stress as you might think. Here’s the scoop.
How to Get to and around the Loire Valley Châteaux
You’ll find several travel operators offering group tours to the Loire Valley châteaux, but I don’t recommend this route: Group tours to the Loire Valley (as with most group tours) will rush you through the sights, genericize the experience, and overcharge you.
Serious cyclists can travel among the castles by bike; however, most casual riders will find the distances extensive and, even though the hills roll gently, too arduous to feel fun.
I recommend visiting the Loire Valley châteaux by car. To do so, take a train from your starting point (whether the airport or another major city) to Tours, France, and rent a car there. You can rent a car at the airport in any major city of arrival, too.
Your smartphone will map directions between châteaux for you just as easily as it does in your home area (just ensure through a quick call to your carrier that your calling plan will cover data in France). Also, if you don’t want to rely on your smartphone and connectivity, you can buy a road atlas of the region at any gas station on the autoroute. (For more guidance, read my article covering what you should know about driving in France as a tourist.)
Pick Your Base of Stay
Seeing the Loire Valley château will require at least an overnight stop, unless you just want to see one castle on your way through the region to somewhere else. Otherwise, you’ll want to pick your base of stay—in other words, the place where you’ll leave your bags and sleep for the night—ahead of time.
We stayed in Tours, the heart of the Loire Valley château region and a large city with every possible amenity. Tours has a smidgen of charm and historic interest, but it mainly leans on its central location to the castles in the region and doesn’t try to punch up its own offerings much. Nevertheless, if you’ve come to the Loire Valley to see châteaux, you don’t need your base-of-stay location to distract you from the main event.
In Tours, you’ll have everything you need and perfect proximity to all but a few of the major castles in the area. (Only the castles of Angers, Serrant, and Brissac require a drive of longer than an hour to reach from Tours.)
If you stay in Tours, as we did, find a place in the absolute heart of the city (and remember to ensure it has a parking space or a lot nearby for your car). With a central location in Tours, you can walk to most of what you need to get done before or after your castle day trips, reserving the car for sightseeing. You’ll find the Tours city center very walkable, with plentiful cafes, restaurants, pharmacies, bakeries, and everything else you could want or need.
If you’d like a base of stay in a smaller, more village-like location, consider hotels and AirBNB options in Blois, France.
Planning Your Castle Sightseeing Days
If you plan carefully, you can see two castles in a day. Buy a guidebook for day planning purposes; we liked the Michelin guide to the Loire Valley châteaux and the Lonely Planet dedicated to the region.
Visiting two castles in a day requires finding castles in a cluster or along the same route to and from your base of stay. Assume you’ll need about two hours per castle visit and that traveling to a castle and between castles will require forty-five minutes by car.
Note: Some castles, such as Chambord and Chenonceau, require several hours to see; for these visits, plan to see only that one château that day. Your guidebooks will help you determine how much time you’ll want to spend in the castles you’d like to see.
Typically, the castles open at 9 or 10 a.m., stay open over the lunch break (unlike some other major sites in Europe), and get busier with people after about 2 p.m. Most castles close at 5 or 6 p.m.
These hours, combined with the time needed to see each castle and the travel time to and between castles, can make lunch tricky—especially as you’ll find many castles outside towns or adjacent to very small and nearly dormant villages. Though most castles had cafes or restaurants nearby, all had overpriced and underwhelming offerings. You could take extra time to drive elsewhere for a tastier lunch, but you might be hard pressed to find one open, as restaurants in France tend to stay open only during the lunch hour, closing at 1:30 or 2 p.m. By the time you drove to a destination restaurant, it may have closed. If you find it open, you’ll need to rush to eat and then will have lost too much time to see a second castle that day.
Fortunately, every castle has a picnic area on the premises or nearby for visitors. And every base of stay location will have bakeries offering ready-made sandwiches and quiches and markets offering fruits, cheeses, and charcuterie, to take with you on your day trips.
Loire Valley Castle Tickets
Another big debate: Do you buy tickets to the castles in advance? Do you buy tickets in bundles? Do you buy tickets at the châteaux or via a tour operator?
The ticket bundles for sale at some castles and area tourist offices don’t offer many advantages: You’ll find the discounts negligible to laughable (in one case, the reduced rate saved a mere fifty cents on one castle’s entry fee) and, in many cases, the bundle comes in at a higher price because you get tickets to castles that don’t interest you and that you don’t end up seeing.
Our recommendation: Buy tickets for each castle directly from the château itself and buy them on-line in advance of your visit.
When you have your castle plan mapped for the day or the next few days, go to the castle’s website and make your purchase. Though buying tickets on-line in advance won’t save you any money, it will save you from waiting in ticket lines when you arrive.
Options to Choose at the Châteaux
Most châteaux have options and packages for each visit, in addition to several types of guides for your visit.
Each château will offer you a pamphlet or guidebook for free with your ticket—absolutely take it. If you can get an audio tour or a tablet tour as well, even for an additional fee, go for it. Without these tools, you’ll have a harder time understanding and appreciating what you see. (We saw fewer live, guided tours at the châteaux than I’d expected; the ones we did see didn’t take place at times convenient for the day’s schedule.)
With only a free pamphlet and no audio or tablet tour, you’ll go through the castle more quickly: Assume at least ninety minutes for castles that provide only a handout or brochure as a guide. Seeing castles that provide an audio or tablet tour will take two to two-and-a-half hours to visit.
Biking through the Loire Valley Châteaux
Though some people we saw along the route and in the castles clearly had planned their vacations as cycling excursions, traveling through the region entirely on their bikes with packs in tow, I’d recommend a multiday, château-sightseeing cycling excursion only to the most dedicated, super-fit cyclists. The castle-strewn region spans significant distances, especially without recourse to a highway.
However, I could see the fun in taking a day or two of the château-sightseeing trip via bike, and many enterprising organizations have made it easy to do so.
You can rent bikes for bike touring for the day or for the week at several locations throughout the Loire Valley, including several shops in Tours, our recommended base of stay. In fact, you can even rent a bike right across the street from the Tours Office of Tourism.
What Châteaux Should You See?
With so many castles in the Loire Valley to see—you’ll find dozens, all in the same region—how do you pick and choose?
I find that the Loire Valley châteaux fall into two main categories: castles for history and castles for beauty. For the details on your options in each category, read my write-up for the best Loire Valley châteaux to visit to breathe in beauty and my article on the best Loire Valley castles to see to better understand French history.
For recommendations on how to prioritize your castle sightseeing in the Loire Valley, read my article on how to prioritize the Loire Valley châteaux—which includes my ranking of the top-three must-see Loire Valley castles.
If you’d like to have more variety on your trip than “just seeing castles,” check out my list of other things to do in the Loire Valley.
Loire Valley Châteaux: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity
The castles in the Loire Valley will impress you just as much as you will have expected for them to impress you. You’ll suffer no disappointment or “I thought it would be more magnificent” letdowns here.
Though I thought I might get castled out after seeing so many châteaux in so many days, I didn’t. Even though we had other activities planned, just to shake up the routine a bit, and though we took advantage of the other opportunities the Loire Valley offers, we didn’t do them out of any need for a break from châteaux sightseeing.
Most of us won’t have many—if any—opportunities in our lives to see the châteaux in the Loire Valley. If you get the chance, take it.
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