La Vallée de la LoireThe Garden of France.

The most beautiful château in the Loire Valley — built on a bridge over the River Cher, its five-arched gallery spanning the water between two riverbanks. The specific quality of Chenonceau is not its architecture but its human history: Thomas Bohier began it in 1515; his wife Katherine Briçonnet largely supervised the construction. Henri II gave the château to his mistress Diane de Poitiers, who designed the gardens on the north bank and built the bridge. When Henri died, his widow Catherine de Médicis forced Diane to exchange Chenonceau for Chaumont and added the gallery above the bridge. During WWI the gallery served as a military hospital; during WWII the Cher was the demarcation line between occupied and free France — the château bridge was the crossing point.

The Château de Blois is the most architecturally diverse château in the Loire — four separate wings built in four distinct styles across four centuries, all within a single courtyard: a medieval feudal hall (13th century), a Flamboyant Gothic wing (Louis XII, 1498–1503), a Renaissance wing (François I, 1515–1524) with its famous open-cage staircase of spiral balconies, and a Classical wing (Gaston d'Orléans, 1635–1638, by François Mansart, the unfinished last attempt). The François I staircase is the architectural highlight — an external octagonal staircase tower of carved stone, its open loggia overlooking the courtyard. Catherine de Médicis kept her secret cabinet of 237 poison vials here — the cupboards are still visible.

Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley and one of the most distinctive buildings in France — begun by François I in 1519 (the year Leonardo da Vinci died at Clos Lucé) as a hunting lodge, though a hunting lodge with 426 rooms, 77 staircases, 282 fireplaces and 365 chimneys (one for each day of the year). The château sits in the largest walled forest estate in Europe (5,440 hectares, enclosed by a 32km wall). The defining architectural element is the double-helix staircase in the centre of the keep — two independent spiral staircases intertwining without ever meeting, so that people ascending and descending never share the same step. The design is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, who died before construction began but whose notebooks contain sketches of double-helix stairs.

The gardens of Villandry are the finest example of Renaissance garden design in France — and one of the most labour-intensive maintained gardens in Europe. Three terraced levels: the water garden (reflecting pool and moat), the ornamental garden (geometric patterns of clipped box and coloured gravel, each pattern symbolic), and the kitchen garden (potager) — a 1-hectare vegetable garden designed as an ornamental parterre, with 125,000 vegetable and flower plants arranged in geometric patterns that change seasonally. The garden was recreated in 1906–1924 by Joachim Carvallo from 16th-century plans; the château itself is secondary to the garden. Come in spring (May–June, for flowers and young vegetables) or autumn (September–October, for harvest colours).

Chinon is the finest wine town in the Loire Valley for red wine — its Cabernet Franc vines grow on tuffeau (tufa chalk) and gravel terraces of the Vienne valley, producing wines of an exceptional herbal, pencil-shaving and dark fruit character that ages magnificently. The medieval town below the ruined château is where Joan of Arc arrived on 6 March 1429 and persuaded the Dauphin Charles to give her an army — a meeting that changed the course of the Hundred Years War. The château above the town (actually three connected fortresses from the 10th–15th centuries) preserves the hall where the meeting took place. Buy Chinon wine directly at estates in the Beaumont-en-Véron appellation south of town.

Saumur is the centre of the Loire Valley sparkling wine industry — produced by the same méthode traditionnelle as Champagne (secondary fermentation in bottle, minimum 9 months on lees) but from Chenin Blanc grapes grown on tuffeau chalk and aged in the vast tufa cave systems tunnelled into the cliffs above the Loire. The result: sparkling wines of genuine complexity at a fraction of the Champagne price, with the specific mineral quality of Chenin Blanc on chalk — toast, honey, quince, and a crisp acidity that makes them ideal as aperitifs and with food. Cave tours at Bouvet-Ladubay, Gratien & Meyer, or Langlois-Chateau include the underground cellars (constant 12°C), the riddling galleries, and a tasting of current releases from €12.

The Abbaye de Fontevraud is the largest monastic complex in France and the burial place of the Plantagenet dynasty — the royal house that ruled England from 1154 to 1485. The effigies of Henry II of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard I (the Lionheart — met earlier at Dürnstein castle on the Danube route) and Isabelle of Angoulême lie in the abbey church: painted limestone figures of remarkable quality, their faces still distinct and their robes still coloured after 800 years. Eleanor of Aquitaine — the most powerful woman in medieval Europe, queen first of France then of England, mother of Richard I and King John — is buried here in the abbey she founded and retreated to in old age.