Beneath the white and turreted château built by Louis X, home of the French Cavalry Academy since 1763, is Jean-René and Mary Lyn Camus”s stylish hotel, an 18th-century listed building overlooking the Loire. “The reception is warm, the lounges are beautifully comfortable. Our elegant, sumptuous room faced the château,” says a visitor in 2004. An earlier guest wrote: “We had a delightful room facing the river,” and added: “Staff were attentive and unobtrusive.” Other visitors had a “lovely second-floor room, with king-size bed and large bathroom”. Some rooms have a landscape mural by the bed; a suite is in style Empire. The restaurant in the garden, Les Ménestrels, is separately owned by its chef, Christophe Hosselet, whose “excellent” cuisine (13 Gault Millau points) might include carpaccio de thon et piment; filet de féra (a local freshwater fish) à la crème d”écrevisses. Local wines, such as Saumur, Chinon and Vouvray, are available by the glass. Not far away is the 12th-century Abbaye de Fontevraud, burial place of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart.