Experience the best of Saumur

Saumur's château, built from pale tuffeau stone, rises above the Loire and is shown, glowing, in a fifteenth-century illuminated book of hours. The town's elite riding school, the Cadre Noir, trains riders in classical dressage and gives public displays. The Tank Museum displays hundreds of armoured vehicles, a reminder that Saumur has long been a cavalry and tank-training centre.

Tuffeau was quarried from the hillside, leaving caves now used as wine cellars, mushroom farms and homes dug into the rock. Fontevraud Abbey is a short way south-east, and the castle at Montsoreau stands right at the water's edge. The valley is part of the UNESCO-listed Loire landscape.

Sparkling Saumur and red Saumur-Champigny, made from Cabernet Franc, are the local wines. Mushrooms grown in the caves appear stuffed and baked, as galipettes. Riverside cafés look out over the Loire, which is wide, sandy and shallow in summer.