Visit the Loire Valley in the Shoulder Season

 Of course most people visit the Loire Valley in the summer when the weather is glorious and gardens are looking their best. But if you don't like the crowds and don't mind having grey skies, late September can be rewarding. The days are still long enough, the temperature is cool but not cold, and the light has that autumnal quality that can make your photographs quite special. The photo shows the Chateau de Chenonceau in late September. The little row boats that visitors can hire to go out on the river have finished for the season and have accumulated a little rain in the bottom. They'll very soon be packed up and stored for the winter. But for now they are lined up at the 16th century quay where Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici would have stepped off.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel. 

Come and Smell the Roses in the Loire Valley

If you are a rose fancier then the best time for you to visit the Loire Valley is May and June. The roses here are world class and we would be delighted to design a day tour for you that visits some of the more spectacular chateaux gardens and villages crammed full of roses. Remember -- the most famous rose breeder in the world is French! And roses love the soil and climate along the Loire. Plus they just look fabulous against a backdrop of old limestone buildings. Your photographs and memories are going to be magnificent!!

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel. 

Learn About Honey in the Loire Valley

One of us is a big fan of honey, and the Loire Valley is an important honey producing area in France. Sadly, recent investigations have shown that most blended honey, the sort that is available in supermarkets, is adulterated with anything from cheap simple and widely available corn syrup to designer syrups made to order in laboratories to mimic subtle components of real honey, and which cannot be detected with current tests. But here in the Loire Valley we don't have to worry about that too much. We have numerous small scale artisan apiarists (beekeepers) and we can buy their authentic honey direct from the source. Some of them are very happy to be visited, and we can include all sorts of levels of 'honey experiences' in your tour. It could be just talking to a local apiarist and tasting their seasonal range of honey in a farmers market; it could be visiting a working apiarist and having him explain how he operates; or it could be visiting the beekeeping interepretation and education centre* for a guided tour. 

 

*They also train new and hobby beekeepers, but we can't include this in your tour. We would be happy to put you in touch with the centre, but you will need to be able to speak French to participate.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. You may also like to check out our YouTube channel.