What to see in Pays de la Loire

Château de Brissac

Taller than all the royal castles, Brissac, with seven storeys and 204 rooms, deserves its nickname of giant of the Loire Valley.

Château de Saumur

Home of the Dukes of Anjou in the fourteenth century, then residence of the town's governors, a prison, and an arms and munitions depot, the Château de Saumur was bought by the town in 1906 to house the municipal museum.

Château des ducs de Bretagne

From Charles VIII to Louis XIV, many kings of France stayed at the castle. In the chapel, Louis XII married Anne of Brittany in 1499.

Nantes

Former capital of the Dukes of Brittany on the Loire, reinvented around its industrial island and its neoclassical Passage Pommeraye.

Abbaye Royale Fontevraud

Founded in 1101 by Robert d'Arbrissel, heir to a prestigious past, the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud became in 1975, through the combined impetus of the Pays de la Loire Region and the Ministry of Culture, a Cultural Meeting Centre entrusted with heritage management.

Angers

Former capital of Anjou dominated by its fortified castle with seventeen towers, whose old town preserves superb half-timbered houses.

Cirque de Courossé

The "Cirque de Courossé", the main natural curiosity, is only a recess between two hillsides where the Èvre, a timid tributary of the Loire, gives itself the look of a gorge; the cirque lies between La Chapelle-Saint-Florent and Saint-Pierre-Montlimart (listed site of the Mauges).

Grottes de Saulges

A group of natural cavities carved into a limestone canyon, of which two developed caves can be visited: the Margot cave and the Rochefort cave.

La Baule

A chic seaside resort with one of the most beautiful bays in Europe, whose eight kilometres of fine sand border a pine-lined promenade.

La Vallée de la misère

Saint-Léonard-des-Bois is a more modern town built in a cirque of rocky escarpment.

Le Mans

Prefecture of the Sarthe, known worldwide for its motor race, whose Cité Plantagenêt preserves one of the largest Gallo-Roman enclosures in France.

Le château d'Angers

This colossus of tuffeau and slate piles up superlatives: 17 towers, a kilometre of walls, 1,000 years of history, plenty of activities and the largest medieval tapestry in the world.

Legendia Parc

Legendia Parc, based in Frossay, in Loire-Atlantique, is a park with a theme unique in France: tales and legends.

Saumur

Town of the French cavalry and sparkling wines, whose white-turreted castle elegantly overlooks the banks of the Loire.

Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes

These high walls reveal to the attentive walker that the little priory, founded in the eleventh century, threatened with annihilation at the Revolution, then revived by the Benedictine Order established by Dom Guéranger in the nineteenth century, has become a great abbey, mother of many monasteries in France and beyond its borders.

Aquabaule

Aquarium de Vendée

The Vendée aquarium is a human-sized aquarium at Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, offering a fantastic visit into the heart of marine life. 500 species await through 3 worlds representing the 4 corners of the marine world.

Atlantic Toboggan

Bioparc de Doué la Fontaine

In the heart of the Loire Valley, the Regional Nature Park, near Saumur, Angers, Cholet, the wildlife park welcomes you in its troglodyte site unique in Europe.

Carnuta, Maison de l'Homme et de la forêt

Chemin de fer de la Vendée

The Vendée tourist railway is a tourist and heritage railway that has, since 1992, contributed to safeguarding the railway heritage of the Vendée.

Château de Ballon

Château de Baugé

Château de Blain (De la Groulaie)

Château de Bois-Briand

Château de Bourgon

Château de Brézé

Château de Careil

Château de Challain-la-Potherie

Château de Chassay

Château de Châteaubriant

Château de Clermont

Château de Clisson

Surrounded by a double moat and fortified walls overlooking the Sèvre, the medieval château de Clisson was raised in the fourteenth century for its eastern part.

Château de Courtanvaux

Château de Foulletorte

Château de Gallerande

Château de Goulaine

Château de Lassay

Château de Lucinière

Château de Martigne Briand

Château de Mayenne

Château de Montecler

Château de Montgeoffroy

In the heart of Anjou, the château de Montgeoffroy, inhabited by the de Contades family since 1670, perpetuates the French art of living in the rediscovered freshness of its eighteenth-century decor.

Château de Montmirail

Château de Montreuil-Bellay

The château de Montreuil-Bellay is a vast medieval construction, several times remodelled and standing in the heart of the walled town of Montreuil-Bellay in Anjou, in the Maine-et-Loire département.

Château de Noirmoutier

Château de Pornic

Château de Pouzauges

Overlooking the town, the château de Pouzauges is dominated by its majestic twelfth-century keep. Listed as a historic monument, it is notably marked by the presence of the wife of the famous Gilles de Rais: Catherine de Thouars.