Visiting the Loire Valley in July

This year the Tour de France goes right through the heart of the Loire Valley and will stay overnight in Tours. This means that if you want to visit the Loire Valley you need to book early for accommodation around 11 and 12 July, when the Tour will be passing through.

The peleton streams through our village in 2008.

If you are planning a visit at this time be aware that some places may be impractical to get to, because the cycling will dictate which roads are open. Why not email us and rely on our local knowledge to get the best out of your time in the Loire. We may even be able to get you participating in the crowds following the big race. All the locals will be there and it is a lot of fun.

It's not just about history

If you visited a chateau and spotted a little cardboard triangle discreetly placed under a chair, would you be intrigued and want to know more? You might guess it was a pest trap, but there is no information available in the leaflet you are given for a self-guided tour.

With Loire Valley Time Travel, your guide through the chateau is someone with a background in caring for historic collections, so she will be able to tell you just what the staff are doing with the pest traps. It's more complicated and more interesting than you might think.

If you want to know more than just history when you visit a chateau, email us and we will tell you about the science of managing a historic collection too.

Red Hair Rules OK!

Our 2013 season has opened, with the first clients having arrived in mid-March. Quite by coincidence, we seem to have had a series of people with the most glorious red hair to start the year.

We hope they've enjoyed 'meeting' one of our historic characters in particular. Many people know before they visit that the Chateau of Chenonceau is associated with generations of women who have lived there and loved the place. What they may not know is that one of those women was Mary, Queen of Scots -- herself a strikingly beautiful redhead.

She grew up in the French court, and was Queen of France before she was Queen of Scotland. If you are fascinated by the history surrounding this notorious and tragic young woman and want to get a feel for the Renaissance period she lived in email us. We can take you to the very surroundings where she spent her youth and was part of a glittering circle of intrigue and passion.

Prices go up today

We are sorry to have to increase our prices this year, with a change on some tours of between 5 and 10 percent. This is mainly to cover the rapid and quite savage increase in fuel prices.

The good news for you is that the value of the euro has dropped so your dollar will go further!

So, the upshot is that you probably won't pay any more to do a tour with us. If you would like to book a tour, perhaps you had better email us immediately, before the exchange rate moves in an unfavourable direction...

Our website has been completely revamped too, and we hope you will like what you see there.