France's Loire Valley Chateau-to-Chateau Trail

Horseback Riding Vacation in France

The Loire Valley runs along the banks of the Loire River from south of Paris to the Atlantic Ocean. For hundreds of years, the nobility and royalty of France built immense and beautiful chateaux throughout the valley to flaunt their wealth and power. The result is one of the most famous and beautiful areas in all of France. This is an area of rolling hills, vineyards, sunflower fields and forests.

The Loire Valley Trail allows riders to experience the Loire Valley that most tourists miss. You will ride along the vineyards which produce the area's excellent wines. You will ride through forests where the Kings of France amused themselves and their entourages with a wide variety of sport. You will visit chateaux and castles that most tourists miss. This in not the Loire Valley of tour buses and throngs of people. It is a relaxed and special ride through a beautiful countryside.

You will visit the Chateau de Montsoreau and ride to the Abbaye de Fontevraud, the largest and most extraordinary of its kind in France and run for nearly 700 years by aristocratic abbesses, almost half of them royal-born.

ride to the Chateau d’Usse through the Chinon forest.  This chateau is often called the sleeping beauty chateau as it is said to have inspired 17th century French author Charles Perrault to write the fairy tale The Sleeping Beauty.

Ride to Chateau de Villandry, famous for its most wonderful gardens which are made by skillful gardeners who mixed flowers and vegetables in strictly geometric patterns, the result of which is a fascinating insight into a typical Renaissance garden on three levels. 

This special horseback riding vacation features visits and overnight accommodations in chateaux and hotels of the Loire Valley, to give riders a feel for all that the Loire Valley is and has been over its incredible and long history.