loire valley bed and breakfast?

Hi Laidback, I only now saw your post. For some reason, I don't get notifications. We had a delightfuk time I snapped the goats and cats there if you are interested.
I'm at hotmail

One of my closest friends lives just outside of the town. I love visiting. There are some super restaurants and Tours is a real town with movies and more.

Another huge plus is that Tours is only a 58-minute TGV ride from the Gare Montparnesse.
The area is so convenient to Paris and yet so far away!

Mimi,

We took 3 of our granddaughters there for lunch at the recommendation of Gloria Belknap who owns and manages the delightful Vieux Manoir, http://www.le-vieux-manoir.com, in the heart of Amboise. I forgot that urban children had no personal knowledge of goats and especially roosters. They were blown away by the "coco rico" of the roosters and the milking of the goats. The restaurant specialises in farm grown/produced provender.

You may know the Belknaps from their years in Boston as owners of the Terrace Townhouse

Sounds wonderful, Mimi. Are you going to learn how to milk the goats, or will you just settle for eating lots of chèvre?

This is where we'll be staying for a few days in September. It's a goat farm.

http://www.lalionniere.fr/

John, glad you enjoyed the town. Gosh, I hadn't thought about being centrally located for bikes, but it does make sense. Some of the straight stretches outside of town through the forests must have made a delightful ride. I usually have a rental car, so we generally only stay at one hotel 2-3 nights before we wander on to something else. I agree that, like most small towns, the hotel is nice, but when you want something more remarkable, you tend to pay more for it. We tend to gravitate to those smaller hotels because dinnertime, or sometimes breakfast, provide excellent opportunities to meet other guests and share experiences.

This town was one of the places we stayed at on our honeymoon in '73. What was most remarkable was that it was our first smell of chocolate in the air, drifting down the valley from a (now closed) Poulain chocolate factory. We followed Azay-le-Rideau with several days in Amboise, with an even stronger smell of chocolate. We finally followed the smell to the factory in Blois, only several blocks from the Blois Chateau. Instead of moving on to our next destination, my chocoholic wife insisted on a detour to the Poulain factory and spent the afternoon.

On advice below we stayed at the de Biencourt hotel in Azay-le-Rideau this weekend and had a great time. The hotel is fine, nothing special but very well-located and owners are friendly and helpful. The great thing about the town, apart from the chateau, is that it makes a super base for exploring the region. We rented bikes (22 euros for two and a half days) and toured vineyards, the chateaux at Villandry, Sache (Balzac stayed there) and many others. Countryside was beautiful, there was almost nobody around. The town is easy to get to from Paris: 1 hr by TGV to Tours and then half hour or so by local bus or train, so you don't even need a car to do this kind of bike touring. most of the terrain is flat so the cycling is not difficult.

thank you for the recommendation to the hotel and town,we really enjoyed it.

cizinec,
Check the thread I started several items below this thread for a link to hotels. I will be in France in mid-November, too, and if we swing into the Loire, we will likely stay at the De Beincourt in Azay-le-Rideau. Its a nice hotel but the town is not big, and a 10 min walk from the chateau of the same name. It is near other chateaux, such as Chinon and Langeais. For a bigger town, try Amboise, which has several nice places advertised in the hotels section of BP. They have a really neat Son-et-Lumiere, but I doubt they have it at this time of the year. Chenonceaux is really close. If you are adventurous, you can try the Gites, which are real B&B, but many are outside the towns and require a car. The link is below, but requires some map-reading to be near to where you want to be.
http://www.gites-de-france.fr/eng/

Not exactly a B&B, but Le Chateau d'Artigny, in Montbazon, is fabulous for a long weekend. http://www.grandes-etapes-francaises.fr/fr/hotel_artigny.php

Hi

we are planning a long weekend in early November in the Loire valley and would like to find a nice b&b from which we could explore the region and see the chateaux.

Thank you for any suggestions.

c.