Châteaux & Vineyards of the Loire Valley

We love InnTravel and their meticulous attention to detail. These are excellent trips (our fifth) and a much better way to see a country than other forms of tourism.

This is a bucolic walk through very rural forests, fields and vineyards, with a nice variety of chateau at each stop

•  First week of October (2024) was getting crispy (mostly upper to mid-teens C in the daytime): good for walking but less so in the off hours. 
• The inns and hotels are excellently chosen and very well hosted.
• Because the walking days are long, we recommend an extra day at each town.
• We would highly recommend using a GPS app with the InnTravel coordinates.

Great holiday with good weather. The Chateaux, Fortresse de Chinon and Abbey were all worth a visit, the highlights for us being Azay-le-Rideau and Chinon. Chinon itself was interesting with historic buildings and a lovely riverside walk.  We really enjoyed a meal booked by our hotel (Hotel de France) at At'able. Remember to look back to Chinon when leaving along the route to get super views of the fortress. Lots of butterflies and various birds and other wildlife to see. 

This is the least challenging Inntravel holiday we have done but we wanted some time for chateaux, sight seeing and to try Loire wines - it ticked all those boxes. The walking is mainly flat on good paths, a little boring at times away from the river and with a few forest adventures thrown in. Walking notes are good. The region feels more geared up now to cycling than walking - we came across no other walkers but many electric powered cyclists. Highlights included our single night at Usse - madame gave us the warmest of welcomes and fed us very well. Dinner here was simple but most excellent, served with love. Inntravel's notes suggest the rooms here might be small - ours was not and it had a fantastic shower. Best breakfast with great coffee - Azay-le-Rideau where the welcome was also very warm. The last two hotels had those dreaded DIY coffee machines - not at all French tasting! We had excellent steak/frites at La Ripaiile in Azay. The caves at Les Goupillieres we thought well worth the visit. We opted not to tour the Musee Maurice Dufresne so that we could visit the chateau at Usse in the afternoon instead - this worked well. Our favourite walk was the longer option at Fontevraud - this had fileds, vineyards, chateaux, rivers, views, churches and interesting old towns - everything one could want in a day. Chinon is a great town and we had an extra night here - note several of the Inntravel recommended restaurants have closed. We particularly enjoyed L'Enrepotes - great food and a fantastic winelist and also a newish restaurant which has opened up next to the Hotel de France - Nemrod. Another wonderful but more expensive meal here. We walked back up up to the Chapel de Ste. Radegonde as it was closed on our way to Chinon - well worth a visit and now free to enter. We had an interesting, helpful chat with the guide there. Restaurant reservations were essential everywhere where dinner was not included, even in September.

This is a lovely walking holiday, with beautiful routes through farmland and the Forest of Chinon (the 'bois dormant' of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale). We were lucky with the weather, and it wasn't too hot (unseasonably cool, in fact, which is lovely for walking). Miles of unspoilt arable land, lovely chateaux and vineyards, friendly people, and excellent food. We especially recommend the Aigle d'Or in Azay-le-Rideau!

Our party of four was very impressed with the planning and information that Inntravel provided for our 7 day excursion in the Loire valley.  The accommodations were all very comfortable and, while the breakfasts were very good at all the hotels, the meals were truely exceptional at both L'Clos d'Usse in Rigny Usse and Hotel La Croix Blanche in Fontevraud.  The staff at all the hotels were very friendly and catered to our requests.  

The Chateau at Azay le Rideau was brilliant, the one at Usse wonderful outside, not so interesting inside.  The Fortress at Chinon was really impressive, as was the Abbey at Fontevraud.  We also walked to the Troglodytte village outside Azay le Rideau which was an interesting place.

If you want to visit the Chateau at Rigny Usse, there is not time to visit the Musee Maurice Dufresne (which we were informed you need about three hours for) on the same day.

This was our first 'walking' holiday. Walking through the gorgeous villages, alongside beautiful rivers, and through incredibly peaceful woodland and countryside, as well as the wonderful local food and wine we had, has left us looking forward to the next time. 

As usual with Inntravel all the hotels were full of character (in a very positive way) with very helpful staff.  The included meals were without exception excellent.  I would also endorse the comments about the Hotel France.  While it is apparently a Best Western it is nothing like any Best Western I've stayed in before.  It is a delightful hotel in the centre of Chinon.

Wonderful holiday. Good routes. Lovely food and wine. Interesting chateaus and Abbey. Train travel can be stressful. However Inntravel booked train times with adequate extra times for delays and advice for connectioning trains and passport control meant we did not miss any connections. We just planned a light meal at each connection making that part of the holiday. So no criticism of Inntravel for SNCF and Eurostar's inadequacies 

This was our first Inntravel holiday but will almost certainly not be our last. We found the balance between walking days and 'rest' days just about right and we look forward to experiencing other destinations with Inntravel.

We particularly enjoyed staying in Azay Le Rideau - the accommodation was great, there were plenty of good restaurants to choose from and the chateau was a "must visit". The walks were varied and the routes easy to follow. You definitely need to carry mosquito repellent with you, especially on the walk from Chinon to Fontevraud. We like to walk from hotel to hotel on alternate days, and so were pleased that you had arranged an extra night in Rigny Usse for us.  We were glad that you did this for us as we would have found the two 17.5 km walks too onerous on consecutive days. (For reference we are in our mid-70's) Also, the chateau at Usse is worth allocating a good length of time to see round (don't miss the Sleeping Beauty exhibition) and so we were able to spend a whole morning there on the day between the walks. In Chinon we enjoyed two excellent meals at restaurants neither of which you mention in your notes. We ate at La Bekka, a Lebanese restaurant on the other side of the river, but only about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. If you fancy a change from French cuisine we would definitely recommend it. The staff were very friendly and the prices very reasonable. We also had Lebanese wine, and even a Lebanese Kir to accompany the meal. The other restaurant which we would recommend without a doubt is L'Entrepotes. It is very popular (number 2 on Trip Advisor) so you do need to book in advance. They don't have an online booking system but you can book a table through Facebook. The food, service, and extensive wine list of local wines were all excellent.

As always Inntravel have chosen a very good range of both walks and accommodation and would certainly recommend this walk, particularly to anyone who doesn't want a lot of ascents and descents!!  

We liked the mixture of walking, and places of major interest to visit between walking days. We were a little disappointed that there was insufficient time between two long walks, to visit the Chateau of Usse.

The walk is very rural so very pretty scenery although we missed the acres of sunflowers in September as they'd gone over, which would have been lovely to see.  Easy walking but some days are long. The cafes etc. open (a number were closed) in some of the villages have very limited opening times. 

We loved the Chateaux & Vineyards Walking Holiday. Walks were beautiful and not too long because they were easy and flat; the notes were among the best we've experienced with Inntravel. Walking in mid-September allowed us to see fully ripened clusters of grapes in the vineyards, and to sample wild blackberries and figs along the trails. We particularly loved the full tasting-menu dinner in the quiet garden at L'Aigle d'Or in Azay-le-Rideau. Dinner in Chinon was difficult to find - a reservation somewhere, at least by the day before - is an absolute must. The hotel in Chinon was well-located, but although we upgraded, our room was absolutely tiny and without charm, very much like a typical Best Western, clean and corporate. We were able to negotiate a further upgrade with the hotel itself, to a lovely suite. The hotel in Fontevraud was very charming, with several places to lounge, and the nearby abbey not to be missed; we'd highly recommend an extra day here, one day for the abbey and one day for the longer circular walk to Cannes-St. Martin.

It is a sunny route which could be very hot, but we were fortunate to have a cloud coverage each day. It was fun to walk through the farmlands.

I would tell future customers to only fly to Tours if arriving mid afternoon. Any earlier they will only be able to drop off their bags and will have to walk the streets for 5 hours. Also, don't expect interesting walks or scenery. Keep bags light as no lifts and you'll have to carry your own bags up and down steep stairs.

We had spent lockdown dreaming about our next InnTravel holiday. When we eventually were able to make it we weren't disappointed. We went to pretty small towns/villages, stayed in lovely friendly small hotels and spent our days walking in beautiful countryside surrounded by trees, vineyards and fields of sunflowers. Perfect!!

Follow the information and notes in the packs they are invaluable!

A good holiday in a genuinely French part of the world.

This was the first holiday we've taken with Inntravel and we were really impressed. The walk routes were lovely, through vineyards and woodland and beside rivers. They followed tracks or quiet country lanes, we hardly saw any other people, let alone traffic, apart from when we came to villages. The walking notes were excellent and we didn't need to refer to the maps provided at all. We made occasional use of the GPS routes, to check where we were and to make sure we were still on track if there was any doubt. The hotels we stayed in were all excellent, with a good variety of buffet breakfast items and great picnics. In the hotels where an evening meal was provided, these were also very good. Where the evening meal was not included, we had researched restaurants before we left home and even made some bookings. The villages and towns were we stayed were all beautiful and the hotels were centrally located. We will definitely be booking another walking holiday with Inntravel next year.

Install one of the walking apps on the list and upload the GPS files and familiarise yourself with them while in Azay Le Rideau. Of the maps available, we found Komoot the best - one map, which covered the entire walking route, was free to download. The app worked offline and there is visual and voice guidance. OsmAnd did the same without voice guidance. The hotel in Azay Le Rideau organised a taxi for us to Villandry and we used an Android off-line map app (Maps.me) to walk the 13km back. Great training and a lovely walk. All of the hotels and provided meals were very good and met or surpassed the standard expected - highly recommended. You can do the transfers yourself to and from Paris but it takes a bit of effort to make the train connections yourself.  Uber operate out of Tours (as advised by the local tourist office) to get to the start of the tour at Azay and the last hotel will arrange a taxi to get you to Saumur to catch a train back to Paris.

Please refer to my letter that i sent you a few weeks back for my comments.  our best day was the last one because the walk took in EVERYTHING, chateaux, vineyards, old towns, rivers....SUPERB

A great choice of hotels as they were all very well located.  The holiday (Châteaux & Vineyards walking holiday plus add ons in Berlin and Paris) was incredibly well organised.  We really enjoyed the whole experience and would highly recommend to others.

Lovely area with great birds (my interest). The Chateau d'Islette was our favourite but the gardens st Villandry are a must if you have a car on day one. We would have been happy with more walking. We enjoyed learning a lot about the local wines and drinking way too much of it. Overall a lovely trip if quite pricey! 

This was a great holiday, an excellent mix of walking and sightseeing. It became too hot for us, due to the heatwave, so we could not do the final walk, but Inntravel were helpful as always and we were able to have a ride with our luggage. We recommend booking your evening meals ahead, we had not expected to need to but even in June it was busy. The hotel staff were all very helpful. We strongly recommend this holiday.

We had an excellent walk in beautiful countryside and plenty of time to visit Church, Chateau, Fortress, Abbey and "Troglodyte" homes.  We especialy enjoyed our walk to Montroreau at the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire and would recommend a light lunch at the charming Fleur de Sel.  The fortress at Chinon was great and had some very wizzy tablets which gave a window into the past (really!)

We enjoyed our time in the Loire Valley, the Chateaux were well worth visiting, we were extremely lucky with the weather for the first four days however as we left Chinon for Fontevraud, the rain set in so it seemed a long slog along the river which we only caught a glimpse of. We were spurred on by the thought of a warm drink at the cafe in La Chaussée but sadly this was very closed!

The walk notes and background information were excellent.

We had excellent weather and this period hit the middle of the tulip and rapeseed season. The colours and variety of this plus the numerous wildflowers was quite breathtaking. There was a patch of bluebells just before we left the forest at Fontevraud which was amazing.  The walk on the levee was quite long and hot. The last leg of the walk into Chinon through the vineyards, abbey and old town was very nice but it had been a long day by then. I think we would have enjoyed this part much more if we were not so tired.