Although I’ve been to Paris many times, I have only taken a few day trips from Paris. That’s why my interest was piqued when I was scrolling through things to do in Paris and realized that you can actually take a day trip to the Loire Valley chateaux. These beautiful castles in picturesque countryside landscapes seemed like the perfect escape from the summer tourist crowds in the city, so I jumped on the chance to sign up for a tour!
In this guide I will show you the exact Loire Valley day trip I chose, everywhere we visited during our thirteen-hour tour, and a few tips to help you make the most of your time if you sign up for the same Loire Valley excursion.
Note: I paid in full for my Loire Valley day trip from Paris and didn’t disclose that I was a blogger. This is an unbiased review.
My Loire Valley Tour from Paris
I spent a lot of time comparing different Loire Valley day trips from Paris before choosing the specific tour that I took. My priorities were a tour that had great reviews from other travelers (of course), that had a convenient meeting point in Paris, and that included unstructured time so that I could explore the stops in the Loire Valley at my own pace.
A lot of the tours to the Loire Valley have similar names, so I will just link to the exact tour that I took:
Loire Valley Castles Day Trip With Wine Tasting (Get Your Guide)
Loire Valley Castles Day Trip from Paris with Complementary Wine (Viator)
While most other Loire Valley tours were only nine hours, I liked the thirteen-hour length of this tour because I knew it would make the stop each chateau feel less rushed. Of course, a complimentary wine tasting never hurts either!
Loire Valley Tour Meeting Point
A huge bonus of this specific Loire Valley day trip for me was that the departure point in front of the Catacombs of Paris was a short metro or bus ride from my hotel in the Latin Quarter, Hotel Korner Sorbonne.
The catacombs are located right outside Exit #1 of the Denfert-Rochereau metro station, which is on Line 4 (with stop near Montmartre and Le Marais) and Line 6 (with stops near the Eiffel Tower). There is also an RER B train station at the same place, with the same name.
The square where the tour meets is called Place Denfert-Rochereau. It is currently under construction, so depending on how you arrive it might be hard to see the entrance to the Catacombs. Just walk around the square in a circle until you see the entrance to the catacombs, which are opposite Hotel du Lion and its big white sign.
Breakfast Before the Tour
As someone who is always hungry, I was a worried that I wouldn’t be able to find breakfast before the tour, which started at 7:15 am. So, the night before I went to a Parisian supermarket and picked up some shelf-stable snacks including a bottled café latté, one liter of water, a protein bar, a banana and some mixed nuts.
This turned out to be unnecessary, as there is a Paul bakery across from the catacombs that opens at 6:30 am every morning. I arrived at 6:45 am to check it out and found the bakery was ready to serve customers with pastries, bread and even sandwiches, plus hot and cold drinks. I grabbed an almond croissant and a cappuccino and had a light breakfast on the terrace while I waited for the tour to begin.
(Although I didn’t end up needing to eat my pre-purchased snacks for breakfast, they came in handy on the evening bus ride back to Paris when I was getting peckish around dinner time.)
The Bus to the Loire Valley
I think the most important thing to understand about visiting the Loire Valley on a day trip from Paris is that you are going to travel about 200 kilometers to get there, and 200 kilometers to get back.
Lots of other travelers were sleeping on the bus, but I chose to just pop in my headphones, listen to music and look out the window. Our guide scheduled most of the information to be shared in the 15-20 minutes before each stop, so you could doze off and wake up just in time to hear the information you needed about each destination.
Our bus was equipped with USB charging ports to keep our phones charged, but I would recommend also bringing a portable charger just in case. The bus is locked at each stop so you can leave things like a travel pillow, large water bottle, book or jacket on board if you don’t want to bring them into each castle.
One thing I did to alleviate a bit of anxiety was to drop a pin on my Google Maps each time I got off the bus, so I would know exactly where I needed to return to before the departure. At each stop I also set an alarm on my phone for twenty minutes before the time I had to return to the bus, to be sure I didn’t lose track of time in those massive castles and miss the bus back to Paris!
First Stop: Château de Chambord
After about two and a half hour of driving, our tour bus arrived at the first stop in the Loire Valley: the Chateau de Chambord. Constructed during the Renaissance by King François I, the castle took its design inspiration from Italian Renaissance palaces (but didn’t necessarily account for the difference in climate between Italy and France, rending the castle uninhabitable for much of the year). It’s said that the Chateau de Chambord served as the inspiration for the castle in Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
We had about two hours of unstructured time at the Chateau de Chambord to explore the castle and gardens on our own. Everyone has the option of renting a “histopad” from the chateau staff, which is a tablet that provides both audio and visual commentary as you move through the palace, but I don’t enjoy staring at screens when I’m in beautiful historic locations so I opted out (as did everyone else on my tour).
Instead, I just wandered throughout the palaces’ 600+ rooms, navigating up and down the various floors using the famous double-helix staircase and some of the more hidden outdoor stairwells. A major highlight is the rooftop, with stunning views of the chateau gardens and the surrounding countryside. There’s also a room on the rooftop terrace dedicated to a more-recent historical era, so without giving too much away I will just recommend you go inside to learn something very interesting about the castle!
The Chateau de Chambord is located inside the largest walled park in Europe, meaning there is also lots of exterior space to explore. There are sixteen acres of formal French gardens bordered by a canal, beyond which the wild forest is home to deer, wild boars and even wild sheep.
Chateau de Chambord Wine Tasting
On my way back to the bus at Chateau de Chambord I noticed a building called the Maison des Vins, and since I had twenty minutes before departure I decided to pop inside. This actually ended up being a really cool little spot that I recommend everyone stop at as they leave Chambord.
The way this works is you pay €4 and you get a card that is pre-loaded with credit for three wine tastings. You then go up the stairs to the glass mezzanine, which is lined with automated wine dispensers. You can scroll through the digital screens to learn about the wines on offer, and then tap your card if there’s a wine you want to try. You then put your glass under the dispenser and it will pour a tasting-sized serving of that wine.
After you try three wines you return your card at the desk and you get to take your glass home as a souvenir. Mine is now in my kitchen cupboard beside my souvenir cup from the Eiffel Tower. 😉
Note that this is not the guided wine tasting that the tour includes, which will happen later in the day. It’s an optional add-on you can do if you have time at Chambord, but I thought it was really fun and unique.
Second Stop: Blois
After visiting the Chateau de Chambord we got back on the bus and drove for about twenty minutes to the medieval town of Blois. This is where the French kings lived during the Renaissance, until they returned to Paris and the Palace of Versailles.
In Blois, we were given about two hours of unstructured time to explore the city and have lunch at the restaurant of our choice. Our guide did provide some recommendations, but I had my own lunch plans (see below). After spending about an hour eating lunch, I spent the next hour exploring the city center of Blois.
There are two main attractions in the historic center. First, the Royal Château of Blois (top photo above) is another one of the Loire Valley’s famous castles. Behind its red-brick facade the palace once hosted Joan of Arc and, supposedly, Catherine de Medici’s cabinet of poisons.
The other main attraction in Blois is the Robert-Houdin House of Magic. Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin was a famous French illusionist who was so inspirational that another famous illusionist decided to use Houdin’s name as the inspiration for his own stage name (I’ll let you figure out who that was). The museum exhibits include a mix of displays about Robert-Hudin’s life and magic in general, with a focus on exhibits that appeal to children.
You can purchase a combined ticket to both the Royal Chateau and the House of Magic for €22 if you want, but you will really have to power through them if you also want to squeeze in a lunch stop. Personally, I was fine with just checking out both from the exterior.
Other places I quickly stopped in Blois included the St. Vincent de Paul Church and the Gardens of Aromas and Royal Flowers (lower photo above), both of which were within five minutes of where we had to get back on the bus.
Lunch in Blois
Our guide provided some lunch recommendations, but because I’m a vegetarian I had already scoped out the veggie-friendly restaurants in Blois and I already knew where I wanted to have lunch – a family-run restaurant called Le Castelet. If I’d had longer I would have had a three-course lunch, but with only two hours for sightseeing and lunch I opted just for a main course, which was a summer vegetable tarte tatin served with burrata cheese.
I also had a few back-up options in case I couldn’t get a table in Blois, including a crêperie called Le Comptoir de Mamie Bigoude (which I believe is part of a chain, as there was a restaurant by the same name outside my hotel in Perpignan) and a creative coffee and sandwich shop called Les Freres Toastés.
Third Stop: Château de Chenonceau
Chateau de Chenonceau is known as “The Ladies Palace” due to the many important women who occupied the castle from its founding during the Renaissance until its use as a hospital during World War 2. The castle is built atop the Cher River, using the piers of a former mill as its foundation. Our guide said that the castle’s tower was the inspiration for Rapunzel’s tower in Disney’s Tangled.
Despite the careful framing of my photos, Chateau de Chenonceau was very busy when we arrived in the late afternoon in August. The castle staff were asking all groups to enter the chateau interior together, but as I’d ducked out to use the washroom I was a few minutes behind the group and just had to show my ticket and explain I’d been in the toilets. They allowed me to enter by myself, and I explored the building solo for about an hour before going outside and exploring the gardens.
Due to the crowds it was a bit hard to navigate the chateau, but there are some helpful pamphlets available at the entrance with a recommended route, numbered by room. You’ll start by entering the castle through the guard’s room, then visit the royal living quarters and some of the servants’ working areas. Throughout the process you’ll zig-zag up and down stairs, along halls and through narrow passageways, so you need to have fairly good mobility.
Chateau de Chenonceau Gardens
For me, the gardens at the Chateau de Chenonceau were definitely the highlight of our time at the palace. By my count there are at least six separate garden areas, including the vegetable and flower gardens shown above. There is also a hedge maze, an orangery and several more traditionally-manicured gardens designed in the favorite style of the palace’s former occupants, including Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici.
Wine Tasting at Château de Chenonceau
The wine tasting at Chateau de Chenonceau was included in our Loire Valley tour, so of course I had to partake! We headed into the castle’s sixteenth-century wine cellars to sample three wines from the nearby AOC Touraine Chenonceaux region, including a rosé, a white and a red. The Loire Valley is best-known for its Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec and Cabernet Franc varietals, all of which we got to sample under the guidance of one of the cellar’s experts.
In total, the tasting took about half an hour. Some people on the tour opted to purchase a few bottles of wine to bring home, but I skipped it as I knew my luggage was already over the weight limit.
Is a Loire Valley day trip from Paris worth it?
In my opinion, a Loire Valley day trip from Paris is definitely worth it! If you’ve already seen the highlights of Paris or have enough unscheduled time in your itinerary that you’re looking for an interesting way to spend a full day, then this is a great option. If your schedule is tighter but you are passionate about castles or the Renaissance, I also believe you’ll think this full-day tour was time well spent.
However, if it’s your first visit to Paris and you have four days or less, I would prioritize a nearby chateau like Fontainebleau (which I recommend over Versailles as it’s so much less crowded) that can be visited in half a day.
🏰 Book Your Loire Valley Castles Day Trip With Wine Tasting (Get Your Guide)
🏰 Book Your Loire Valley Castles Day Trip from Paris with Complementary Wine (Viator)
Other Loire Valley Day Trips from Paris
The specific day trip from Paris to the Loire Valley that I took is linked above. In case it’s not available, or there’s something that doesn’t suit your group, here are a few others that you might want to check out:
- Paris Loire Valley 3 Castles Tour – This full-day Loire Valley tour from Paris scales back the time at Chambord and Chenonceau, and skips the stop in Blois, to add a one-hour visit to Château de Cheverny, which inspired the castle from the Tintin comic book series.
- Loire Valley Castles Full-Day Tour with Lunch – This twelve-hour day trip from Paris includes Chambord, Chenonceau and Amboise castles, along with an included bakery lunch.
- Loire Valley Wine Day from Paris – Wine lovers will want to sign up for this small-group, wine-focused Loire Valley tour, including a visit to one or two local wineries, tastings, lunch and a tour of Chateau de Chambord.
- Loire Valley Castles VIP Private Tour – If you aren’t interested in a group tour, this private tour from Paris visits Chenonceau, Chamboard and Amboise chateaux with an expert local guide. Hotel pick-up and drop-off is included.
You might also want to read these France travel guides before you go:
🌹 How to Blend a Custom Perfume at a Historic Paris Perfume House
🍷 The Best Things to Do in Beaune, France
⭐ How to Spend One Day in Dijon, France
❤️ How to Take a Day Trip from Paris to Fontainebleau Castle
🎨 The Best Things to See and Do in Montmartre, Paris
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