Converted into a museum of conceptual art in 2016 – the focus is on the Art & Language movement – the Renaissance-style Château de Montsoreau, beautifully situated overlooking the Loire, was built in 1455 by one of Charles VII’s advisers; it later became famous thanks to an Alexandre Dumas novel, La Dame de Monsoreau. There are spectacular river views from the rooftop.
Château de Montsoreau-Musée d’Art Contemporain
Anjou
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
22.97 MILES
Villandry's six glorious landscaped gardens à la française are some of France's finest, with more than 6 hectares of kitchen gardens, cascading flowers,…
19.25 MILES
Romantic, moat-ringed Azay-le-Rideau is celebrated for its elegant turrets, perfectly proportioned windows, delicate stonework and steep slate roofs…
17.86 MILES
The most medieval of the Loire châteaux, Langeais – built in the 1460s – looks much as it did at the tail end of the Middle Ages, with crenellated…
8.93 MILES
Surrounded by massive walls, this hilltop castle – offering fabulous views across town, river and countryside – is split into three sections separated by…
2.41 MILES
The highlight of this 12th-century abbey complex is the vast but movingly simple church, notable for its soaring pillars, Romanesque domes and polychrome…
9.74 MILES
One of the world's premier equestrian academies, the prestigious French National Riding School is home to the Cadre Noir, an elite group of riding…
25.84 MILES
Owned by the Brissac family for 18 generations (since 1502), this seven-storey castle, the tallest in France, has 204 rooms, many of them sumptuously…
22.79 MILES
You don't have to be a French-literature major to enjoy the lovely Musée Balzac, in a Renaissance manor house where Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a…
Nearby Anjou attractions
0.63 MILES
This soaring, crenellated village church, built in the Gothic style from 1175 to 1240, venerates the spot where St Martin died in 397 and was buried for a…
1.18 MILES
Domaine Filliatreau offers wine tasting inside the cliff face. Bottles of organic Saumur Chamipgny wines, some grown atop the nearby cliff, cost €8.60 to …
1.99 MILES
This is one of the last places in France producing the traditionally made dried apples known as pommes tapées. You can see displays on how it’s done,…
4. Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud
2.41 MILES
The highlight of this 12th-century abbey complex is the vast but movingly simple church, notable for its soaring pillars, Romanesque domes and polychrome…
6.31 MILES
Brézé sits on top of a network of subterranean rooms and passages, 1.5km of them open to the public, that include a boulangerie, wine cellars, defensive…
6.59 MILES
Housed in a one-time cigarette factory, this non-profit museum displays more than 200 blindés (tanks) and other military vehicles – some in working order …
6.92 MILES
Soaring above the town’s rooftops, Saumur’s fairy-tale castle was largely built in the 13th century by Louis XI, and has served variously as a fortress…
7.08 MILES
Restored, cleaned and stabilised in 2016, this mostly 12th- and 13th-century church brings together Aquitaine-style Romanesque and Plantagenet (Anjou…