The Town
Saumur's Chateau (daily: June-Sept 9.30am-6pm; Oct-May 9.30am-noon & 2-5.30pm; closed Tues Oct-March; 37F/?5.64), a great, square building high above the town, is recognizable as the gleaming white, turreted subject of one of the scenes of Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry , the most celebrated of all the medieval Books of Hours. Its symmetry and witch-hat towers give it an air of fantasy, particularly on a misty morning or under night-time illumination (July & Aug Wed & Sat 8.30-10.30pm). It was built in the fourteenth century and turned into a much more decorative and comfortable residence by Duke Rene of Anjou in the fifteenth. The star-shaped fortifications around it were added in 1590 during the Wars of Religion, when Saumur was a Protestant stronghold. The dungeons and the watchtower can be visited on your own; for the two larger museums within the chateau, relaxed guides take over. The Musee des Arts Decoratifs in the former royal apartments has a huge and impressive collection of European china, plus several fifteenth-century tapestries, one of which portrays wonderfully snooty-looking medieval ladies out hunting. But it's the Musee du Cheval , in the attic of the chateau, that's the real treat. Progressing from a horse skeleton, through the evolution of bridles and stirrups over the centuries, you finally reach an amazing and diverse international saddlery collection. One of the best pieces is a Russian sleigh on which a fishy female figure looks up at a cherub wearing what seems to be a Roman helmet. The Musee de la Figurine-Jouet , located in an ancient powder magazine on the ramparts (mid-June to mid-Sept daily except Tues 2-6pm; rest of year reservations only, tel 02.41.83.13.32; 12F/?1.83, separate ticket from chateau entrance), offers a display of ancient toys: farm and zoo animals, circus and theatre figures, cowboys and Indians, and model soldiers. Back down in the town, a real soldier will escort you around the Musee de la Cavalerie (Tues, Thurs & Sun 9am-noon & 2-5pm, Sat 2-5pm; 20F/?3.05), if you knock at the guarded gate on avenue Marechal-Foch, west of rue d'Orleans. Among the uniforms, weapons and battle scenes (including some very recent engagements), there's a particularly moving room, dedicated to the cavalry cadets who held the Loire bridges between Gennes and Montsoreau against the Germans for three days in 1940, after the French government had surrendered. The history of tank warfare is covered in the separate Musee des Blindes , at 1043 rue Fricotelle, to the southeast of the centre (daily: mid-April to Oct 9.30am-6.30pm; Nov to mid-April 10am-5pm; 25F/?3.81). The early medieval pointy-spired church of St Pierre is most notable for its interesting selection of dragons; there are at least seven monsters carved in stone and wood or woven into the sixteenth-century tapestries that tell the legend of St Florent, an early scourge of the beautiful beasts that symbolize sin. Saumur's oldest church, Notre-Dame de Nantilly , by the public gardens south of the chateau, is notable for its sixteenth-century tapestries, with immensely crowded and detailed scenes; it was closed for restoration at the time of writing, but is due to reopen sometime in 2002.
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