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Indoors in the Grand Manège, you can sit and admire the horses performing those complicated maneuvers that make up the art of dressage. You start the tour watching how some of the 150 students working in the outdoor rings and their horses are trained. Discipline and hard work, practice, and understanding are the mainstays of the school, which is much the same as it was in the days before tanks took over from horses. It was founded in 1815 after the Napoleonic wars had destroyed so much of the French cavalry to train both riders and horses for yet more warfare. This 300-hectare estate is where the elite come to train under expert Ecuyers (riding instructors). The National Riding School (Le Cadre Noir) is just outside the main center of Saumur, a car journey or a taxi ride away. Walking around Saumur you’ll soon see its military roots in the open parade grounds surrounded by 19th-century barracks and the huge school for training horses. Finish with a tasting then buy some of the delicious bubbly to take home.

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Visit Veuve Amiot for a free visit, which starts with a film and continues with a tour around the cellars with old equipment to show you how wine was once made by the workers whose pictures hang on the dank walls. Most of the wineries making the wine are in the suburb of St-Hilaire-St-Florent and you will need either a car or a taxi to get there. Today much is closed for restoration though there is a museum of decorative and fine arts which you can visit. Built in the second half of the 14 th century by Louis I, Duc d’Anjou it was once a magnificent structure. Today the château is best viewed from the outside. It is a book of hours, a collection of prayers for the canonical hours, created between 14 by the Limbourg brothers for John Duke of Berry.

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Its fairytale white towers, delicate stone tracery, and mullion windows were depicted in Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, the 11th century illuminated manuscript that is reproduced everywhere. The château of Saumur stands above the city. Set in a delightful square the Gothic church is surrounded by wood-framed buildings that now house cafes and restaurants. Start by strolling through the medieval streets that run from the river to the Eglise St-Pierre. It is easy to get to the attractions in this compact city and Saumur is close to other attractions, including the Abbey of Fontevraud, as well as great Loire chateaux and the Loire cities of Tours and Angers. Saumur makes a great short 2- or 3-night break from London or Paris. You have to change either in Paris or in Angers, which is the best option. By Train: The train from London St Pancras to Saumur takes from 6 to 7 hours.By Air: The nearest airport is Angers which you can reach by British Airways from London City Airport from March to October.In the Maine-et-Loire department of the Loire Valley (49).

Here you’ll find the Armoured Corps Academy and the French Cavalry Academy, housed in two-story gracious 18th-century buildings around a dusty square that is now a car park. Saumur is famous above all for two things: its excellent sparkling wine (you can visit many of the producers), and its military associations.

It’s a glorious area known for its odd troglodyte dwellings built in the limestone cliffs by our oh-so-distant ancestors. Saumur lies on a beautiful stretch of the western Loire valley between Tours and Angers before the mighty river flows into the Atlantic at Nantes.