The best traffic-free bike rides around Valaire

Candé-sur-Beuvron is a small, leafy village typical of Sologne. It's a must-see stop on the Loire Valley castle route. If you're looking for peace and quiet, you'll find them along the rivers that flow through Candé, as well as in its forests and vineyards. The village's restaurants offer local cuisine that will delight even the most discerning palates.

Madon Castle is a castle whose construction began in the 15th century and was completed three centuries later. As a private property, it is not accessible. However, you can enjoy its sumptuous architecture through the gates of the entrance.

Small castle away from the crowds in a small sleepy town.

A beautiful place – as you can see in the picture of the bridge, the rains in 2024 also drove driftwood in front of the bridge. Flooding has always been a problem here – the entire bridge has been completely submerged several times!

The flood level is truly impressive! The entire town and the bridge over the Loire River have been flooded. There's not much you can do here by moving to higher ground.

Pleasant bridge for pedestrians and cyclists

Located in the heart of the Loire Valley, the castle of Fougères-sur-Bièvre built at the end of the 15th century is the image of the ideal fortified castle with its keep, its machicolated entrance curtain and its fortified postern. Built by Pierre de Refuge and modified by Jean de Villebresme around 1520, the castle acquired its definitive appearance in three generations and will retain it. A castle designed for entertaining, its defensive Gothic architecture allows Pierre de Refuge to assert his social status and his belonging to the French nobility. Acquired by the Lambot family in 1738, René Lambot had the idea of creating a spinning mill in the castle from 1813 to 1901. This made it possible to largely preserve it from revolutionary damage and to maintain life and activity there. Classified as a historic monument in 1912, put up for sale after the stock market crash of 1929, the castle of Fougères-sur-Bièvre was acquired by the State in 1932. The castle of Fougères-sur-Bièvre has a double face: an entrance facade with a particularly defensive Gothic appearance and a courtyard facade decorated with Renaissance decorations. Particularly well preserved, the castle today remains very close to that of 1525-1530 with its military exterior facade, the civil and domestic architecture of its interior courtyard and its medieval interior plan with rooms in a row without distribution corridors. The castle of Fougères-sur-Bièvre stands out from the great castles of the Loire by its sober and powerful architecture, very little altered over the centuries. It illustrates the art of building in the region with its walls made of limestone rubble from Beauce and its sculpted parts in tuffeau from the banks of the Cher. Young and old alike will easily find all the military attributes and the interior layout of a particularly well-preserved small castle from the end of the 15th century.

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