Loire Valley
From Wikitravel Shared
Contents
The Loire Valley (French: Vallée de la Loire) (Valley of the Loire River) is a major tourist destination within France.
| Error creating thumbnail: /var/www/html/wikitravel.org/mw-review-1.11.2/bin/ulimit4.sh: line 4: /opt/csw/bin/convert: No such file or directory |
[edit] Regions
The Loire Valley embraces extensive parts of two central and western French regions:
[edit] Départements
[edit] Cities
[edit] Other destinations
Renown for its world-famous chateaux (castles), such as the Châteaux Amboise, Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord and Chenonceau.
[edit] Understand
The Loire Valley is often referred to as "the Garden of France" and the Cradle of the French Language. (The city of Tours is reputed to speak the purest French.) Listed (at least in part) amongst the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in late 2000, the Loire Valley is also noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in historic towns such as Amboise, Blois, Chinon, Orléans, Saumur and Tours, but in particular for its world-famous chateaux (castles), such as the Châteaux Amboise, Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord and Chenonceau.
The rolling riverine landscape of the Loire Valley - and more particularly its many cultural monuments - is redolent of the ideals of the Renaissance and the Age of the Enlightenment on Western European thought and design. The valley is also known for its wineries, many of which offer tours.
On 2 December 2000, UNESCO named the central part of the Loire River valley, between Maine and Sully-sur-Loire, to its prestigious list of World Heritage Sites. In choosing this area that includes the France Départements of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher, Indre-et-Loire and Maine-et-Loire, the committee said that the Loire Valley is: "an exceptional cultural landscape, of great beauty, comprised of historic cities and villages, great architectural monuments - the Châteaux - and lands that have been cultivated and shaped by centuries of interaction between local populations and their physical environment, in particular the Loire itself."
[edit] Talk
- Parlez-vous Français?
[edit] Get in
You can fly to France on a plane.
[edit] Get around
[edit] By bicycle
One of the best ways to tour the Loire valley is by bicycle. Shops in many of the towns rent bicycles by the day, and can offer maps and suggest destinations. Some trains allow bicycles, others don't; be sure you check first if you expect to return by train. 22:04, 19 May 2007 (EDT)82.137.53.238* 82.137.53.238 22:04, 19 May 2007 (EDT)*
[edit] See
[edit] Do
[edit] Eat
[edit] Drink
[edit] Stay safe
[edit] Get out
Travellers wishing to see more of the Loire Valley can continue further south into the adjoining Centre-Val de Loire region, studded with additional historical cities and chateaux at sites such as Bourges and Saint-Benoît-du-Sault.
| This article is an outline and needs more content. It has a template, but there is not enough information present. Please plunge forward and help it grow! |
