The Loire Valley, filled with charming towns and resplendent Chateaux, was once the playground of the French nobility, with its beautiful scenery and game rich forests. It has been fought over, visited, and admired for hundreds of years.

Orleans

Orleans began as a Celto-Roman town named Genabun. The town is most famous for being the site of a battle in the Hundred Years War when Joan of Arc broke the English siege in 1429. Orleans was the venue of a massacre of Huguenot Protestants during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572.

The centerpiece of Orleans is the Cathédrale Sainte-Croix, a gothic style church that is actually the fifth by the name to occupy the site, started in the 17th Century and completed on May 8, 1829, the four hundred anniversary of the delivery of Orleans by Joan of Arc. Joan's pedestal on an altar is carved with scenes from her life. The 19th century stained glass windows tell the rest of the story. Also worth a visit is the Maison de Jeanne d'Arc, a reconstruction of the house where Joan of Arc stayed during the campaign to lift the siege of the city. The museum contains exhibits about her life, as well as costumes and weapons of her time. There are several dioramas which recount the major episodes in Joan's life, from the audience with the dauphin, later King Charles VII, at Chinon to the coronation at Reims, her seizure at Compiègne, and the stake at Rouen. Finally the Musee des Beaux-Art is primarily a picture gallery of French and some Dutch and Flemish works from the 16th to the late 19th centuries. Some of the works once hung in Cardinal Richelieu's château. The collection includes busts by Pigalle and a fine array of portraits, including one of Mme de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV. Among non-French works, the undisputed star is a lovely Velásquez commemorating the Apostle St. Thomas.