ROAD TO THE LOIRE

From a breathtaking esplanade, a castle straight out of a fairytale or the quays of an old bargemen's village, the Loire never tires of being admired. The Loire route comprises two parallel sections between Montsoreau and Saumur on the right and left banks.

The Loire, sometimes nonchalant, sometimes impetuous, offers landscapes of breathtaking beauty, constantly renewed by the life of the river and the play of light. The flooding of the valley is both a source of constraint and a source of richness: the levees bear witness to the history of the defensive relationship between man and the river, while the Loire groynes, the quays, the meadows shaded by pollarded ash and the distinctive construction of the houses in the valley are all strong expressions of a way of life in harmony with the Loire.

The hillsides (of Champtoceaux, St-Florent le Vieil, the Corniche angevine or Saumur) offer an uninterrupted view of this life. From these great vistas, you can discover the islands (around sixty in Anjou), shaped and modified over time. The villages are sometimes perched on promontories, but often they border the river with vast quays, as in Chalonnes-sur-Loire (the longest in Anjou), Montjean-sur-Loire and Saumur, witness today to a flourishing commercial activity until the last century.