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For a slightly less bellicose diversion you can visit the Ecole Nationale d'Equitation , in St-Hilaire-St-Florent, a suburb to the east of the centre; take bus #B from the town centre. The Riding School (Tues-Fri 9.30-10am & 2.30-4pm, Sat 9.30-10am; closed Aug; tel 02.41.53.50.60; 32F/4.88 for morning visits, 20F/3.05 afternoons) provides guided tours in which you can watch training sessions (mornings only) and view the stables. Displays of dressage and anachronistic battle man?uvres by the crackshot Cadre Noir, the former cavalry trainers, are regular events (programme details from the tourist office or the school itself). Performances of a far greater diversity are celebrated in the Musee du Masque , a short walk back down towards Saumur from the Riding School, on rue de l'Abbaye (daily: mid-April to mid-Oct 10am-12.30pm & 2.30-6.30pm; rest of year Sat & Sun 2-6pm; closed mid-Dec to mid-March; 25F/3.81). This is very much geared towards children, with waxwork models of clowns and storybook characters wearing masks dating from the 1870s to the present day. Another museum in St-Hilaire-St-Florent, of a very different nature, is the Musee de Champignon (mid-Feb to mid-Nov daily 10am-7pm; 40F/6.10), which runs informative (if a bit dank and cold) tours through some of the region's 500km of underground caves de champignons , used to grow seventy percent of France's commonest cooking mushrooms, the champignon de Paris . The entrance is 1km downriver, along the D751 from the last bus stop in St-Hilaire-St-Florent.
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