Chanceaux-Près-Loches: Culture, Literature and Landscape

Chanceaux-près-Loches offers several different themes for your stay: religious art, industrial history, landscape conservation, literature and cycling. If you are looking for a hotel, you can first decide what interests you most. A literary visit is tied to an event held annually; the church offers an art-historical theme, while the tileworks and landscape conservation shed light on other aspects of the area. The cycling route provides another reason to include the commune in your travel plans.

Church and historic products

The Romanesque-inspired Église Notre-Dame is open to visitors. The church houses the 17th-century painting La Sainte Famille avec Catherine d’Alexandrie, which is a protected object. The main bell, named Marie, was restored in 2015. The church thus offers two distinct historical points of interest: a protected painting and the story of a restoration. If you would like to visit the church, check the current visiting arrangements in advance.

The tileworks offers a different focus. Brickmakers operated it until the First World War; it ceased operations around 1915. The kiln was used to make roof tiles, bricks, floor tiles and natural lime. Alongside religious art, this subject turns to former craft production and the kiln’s products. A look at local history can therefore distinguish between sacred art and industrial history.

Valley, château and protected landscape

Chanceaux-près-Loches lies in a valley and has a rather modest château. The classified site Château, parc, village et vallon de la Chantereine encompasses the château, park, village and Chantereine valley within the commune. It was classified on 16 June 1994. The name makes the scope of the site clear: it includes the village and landscape as well as the château.

Another form of protection applies not to the whole commune but to part of its territory: this area lies within the Champeigne Tourangelle Natura 2000 site. The designation was based on the protection of nine bird species of community importance found in open landscapes. These include the Little Bustard, Eurasian Stone-curlew, European Golden Plover, Hen Harrier, Montagu’s Harrier, Short-eared Owl, Merlin, Short-toed Snake Eagle and Red-backed Shrike. The classified site and partial inclusion in the Natura 2000 area are two distinct aspects of the landscape around Chanceaux-près-Loches.

Literary event and cycling route

La Forêt des Livres chez Gonzague Saint Bris takes place every year on the last Sunday in August and opens the literary season. The event is free and open to everyone. It brings writers and readers together for literary events, discussions and book signings. If this event is the reason for your trip, plan around its recurring date and check the latest event information before making arrangements: the programme may change from one edition to the next.

For cyclists, the signposted 32-kilometre La Tangente Gourmande route offers another way to plan your stay. The route, documented in 2023, connects Loches with Saint-Jacques à Vélo and Le Louroux. It provides an opportunity to discover restaurants in Chanceaux-près-Loches and Le Louroux, among other things. Check current route conditions before setting out.

Plan your stay around what brings you here

These themes call for different planning considerations: La Forêt des Livres takes place on a recurring annual date, while current route conditions matter when cycling La Tangente Gourmande. The church and tileworks, in turn, offer different perspectives on local history. If you are looking for hotels for your stay, you can use these differences to decide first on your travel dates and then on the subject that interests you most.

Discover more destinations: Crotelles, Betz-Le-Château, Channay-Sur-Lathan, Trogues, Azay-sur-Indre, La Chapelle-Blanche-Saint-Martin, Chançay, Marray

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