This soaring, crenellated village church, built in the Gothic style from 1175 to 1240, venerates the spot where St Martin died in 397 and was buried for a while (his body was later spirited off to Tours). Enter via the exceptional side porch, decorated with two rows of statues.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
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Villandry's six glorious landscaped gardens à la française are some of France's finest, with more than 6 hectares of kitchen gardens, cascading flowers,…
18.75 MILES
Romantic, moat-ringed Azay-le-Rideau is celebrated for its elegant turrets, perfectly proportioned windows, delicate stonework and steep slate roofs…
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The most medieval of the Loire châteaux, Langeais – built in the 1460s – looks much as it did at the tail end of the Middle Ages, with crenellated…
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One of the world's premier equestrian academies, the prestigious French National Riding School is home to the Cadre Noir, an elite group of riding…
26.47 MILES
Owned by the Brissac family for 18 generations (since 1502), this seven-storey castle, the tallest in France, has 204 rooms, many of them sumptuously…
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22.26 MILES
You don't have to be a French-literature major to enjoy the lovely Musée Balzac, in a Renaissance manor house where Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a…
Nearby attractions
1. Château de Montsoreau-Musée d’Art Contemporain
0.63 MILES
Converted into a museum of conceptual art in 2016 – the focus is on the Art & Language movement – the Renaissance-style Château de Montsoreau, beautifully…
1.81 MILES
Domaine Filliatreau offers wine tasting inside the cliff face. Bottles of organic Saumur Chamipgny wines, some grown atop the nearby cliff, cost €8.60 to …
3. Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud
2.31 MILES
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2.61 MILES
This is one of the last places in France producing the traditionally made dried apples known as pommes tapées. You can see displays on how it’s done,…
6.69 MILES
Brézé sits on top of a network of subterranean rooms and passages, 1.5km of them open to the public, that include a boulangerie, wine cellars, defensive…
6.96 MILES
La Devinière, the prosperous farm where François Rabelais (1483 or 1494–1553) – doctor, Franciscan friar, theoretician, author and all-around Renaissance…
7.21 MILES
Housed in a one-time cigarette factory, this non-profit museum displays more than 200 blindés (tanks) and other military vehicles – some in working order …
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Yannick Amirault's reds are velvety, well rounded and almost creamy. His Bourgueil and St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil vineyards are midway between Langeais and…