Verrieres Chateau, Saumur

Windsurfing, Stand-Up paddleboarding, Catamaran sailing and Kayak tours ranging from half day to several days can be taken with this canoe and kayak company based on the Ile Millocheau in Saumur.

This train dating from 1950s travels from Thoré to Trôo taking in troglodyte dwellings, Saint-Rimay tunnel, the town of Montoire and Varennes and more.

This relatively new course, set in beautiful Saumur, is a pleasant 9-hole round if you're searching for a change from historical monuments and châteaux.

Take in the magnificent scenery of the Loire by air in a hot air balloon. Offering a number of different tours and launch sites along the Loire river, what better way to take in the châteaux from up above where their size and splendour can really be seen.

Bateaux Nantais offers cruises along the river Erdre or the river Loire on their modern and sleek boats. Particularly popular are their lunch or dinner cruises and their themed evenings.

Balloon Revolution offer flights over the Touraine region of the Loire Valley allowing you to discover its beautiful châteaux from the sky. Usually launching from the grounds of one of the châteaux, it's an unforgettable experience.

This excellent restaurant in Tours was named after the original chef and serves gastronomic delights from a contemporary ambitious menu. The talented Hervé Lussault now heads up the kitchen and was awarded a Michelin star in 1998. Lussault is also famed for his excellent bread. The restaurant is light and spacious, feeling luxurious and warm, and has a lovely garden for when the weather permits.

This fondue house and chocolatier has been running since 1913 serving pastries, macaroons and wonderful hand-made chocolates in its tea house. You can attend a chocolate-making demonstration and workshop.

Sample their gourmet burgers, inventive salads, sweet & savoury pancakes and delicious sundaes.

This modern restaurant is located at the top of an art gallery and its floor-to-ceiling glass windows and terrace offer great views of the quays. Simple white chic tables and chairs with dark walls and a splash of colour give this place a fun trendy feel. The cuisine is modern European, with lots of excellent fish dishes.

This restaurant located at the south gate in the grounds of the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire offers a refined and inventive cuisine which is created around the theme of the annual garden festival. Only open from April.

This cute traditional French restaurant in Blois serves good quality food on, as the name suggests, red benches! The dishes are innovative and work well, and the is atmosphere charming.

Owned by the Filliatreau family, this grand manor is part troglodyte cave. Once the dwelling of lords, it has a fine chapel and extensive vineyards producing some of the best Saumur-Champigny wines in the area.

Originally built in the 10th century, this pretty château with its blue slate roofs overlooks the enchanting town of Saumur. The existing building dates back to the 12th century when it was rebuilt by Henry II, King of England. Having been an army barracks at one time and a prison at another, today the château is also a museum of horses, given the importance of the equestrian school to the town.

This town is almost as crazy about horses as it is about wine. This museum describes the history of the French cavalry - though you might notice that not all French achievements, or otherwise, are alluded to in the museum!

With one of the largest collections of tanks in Europe, this museum charts the history of the development of this armoured fighting vehicle. It's a must for military history enthusiasts as it contains good international examples and demonstrates technological advances through the years. Although you may only view around a couple of hundred tanks, the museum actually holds over 800!

Between Saumur and Chinon, on the hillside along the Loire River, you will find Le Saut aux Loups. It was favoured in prehistoric times by men and wolves who found a home here. Since the Middle Ages, there have been limestone quarries in the hillside for the stone required to build the châteaux the region is so famous for. The quarrymen also built the troglodyte houses as lodgings and these have been preserved in their original state here at Le Saut aux Loups. The caves are now home to extensive mushroom production lines and here you can visit their 800 metres of underground galleries before trying the speciality of the house, galipettes, delicious stuffed mushrooms, in their restaurant.

This vast royal abbey was founded in 1101 by Robert of Arbrissel, a preacher from Brittany. Its monastery buildings are Romanesque in design and were built to house 300 nuns. The abbey church, with its pristine white interior, was not completed until 1160. Having housed royal abbesses, its fortune changed and, from the early 19th century, it was turned into a prison before being donated to the French Ministry of Culture in 1960.