The Centre-Val de Loire region is the quintessential home of the Loire Valley châteaux; this part of the Loire Valley is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its exceptional cultural landscape, shaped by two millennia of interaction between man and nature. From Gallo-Roman times to the 19th century, the Loire and its tributaries formed the backbone of a region where the kings of France chose to establish their most sumptuous residences.
From the 15th to the 16th century, the Loire Valley was the true cradle of the French Renaissance. Charles VII at Chinon, Louis XI at Plessis-lès-Tours, Charles VIII and Louis XII at Amboise, and François I at Chambord and Blois attracted the greatest Italian artists — Leonardo da Vinci died in Amboise in 1519 — and transformed the valley into a permanent showcase of architectural genius. Chambord, Chenonceau, Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, Cheverny, Valençay, Brissac, Saumur… The list of gems is endless.
The Centre-Val de Loire is also an agricultural and forested region of great beauty: the Sologne with its ponds and hunting forests, the Beauce with its endless wheat fields, the Berry with its rolling hills and unassuming châteaux, and Touraine with its vineyards of Vouvray and Chinon form a mosaic of landscapes where nature and history interplay with a harmony that the novelist Balzac, a native of Tours, celebrated throughout his work.