Loire Valley and Coast

We are spending four or five nights in the Loire Valley as part of a two week trip in middle of June.

Does anyone have any suggestions of some nice towns on the Atlantic coast? We don%26#39;t really want to go too far south has we have been before, although quite a few years again.

Any help appreciated,

Thanks

|||

You do not say where in the Loire Valley you are staying.

If you are staying around the Tours area, then the newly completed A85 motorway will take you to the coast around Nantes within a couple of hours. Places than you might consider are La Baule or St Jean de Monts.

Alternatively you could head down the A10 motorway, and then take the N11 to La Rochelle and the Ile de Ré, which again is two hours from Tours. Mid june should be OK for traffic, but as much as I love the Ile de Ré, avoid it in July and August, as it seems as if most of France goes there then.

|||

Hi Valley Girl,

We too will be in this region over the summer, staying near Auray for 11 nights, then near Blois for a further 5.

Again because you do not state where you will be staying, it is difficult to be specific.

However, the Carnac area (in the south of Brittany, but within driving distance of Loire Atlantique) with its menhirs and dolmen%26#39;s and standing stones is fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones

Presumably you have considered looking at the wine regions (hubby is currently conducting a survey of the region, drinking a wine from a different part of the Loire each time we open a new bottle ;o)

And also the Chateaux - www.chenonceau.com/media/gb/index_gb.p

www.chambord.org/educ/libre-GB.htm

|||

Thanks for your replies, we will be in Saumur then Amboise for a few days.

Did think of driving down to Bordeaux and visiting some of the vineyards - seems from what I have investigated that the only town worth staying in, in this area would be St. Emillion - very busy it seems and quite over priced! Would appreciate any comments. Looks beautiful though.

After being in relative countryside we thought the coast would be nice.

We will be returning to Wales on July 1st, so hopefully we would miss the busy period.

Will certainly do some research on the towns you mentioned, Sunlover.

Meanwhile hope the research on the wine is proving successful Beanalainn, - sounds like a great project!

Thanks again both for your input.

|||

-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-

This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

Removed on: 5:20 pm, September 27, 2009