Angers; Friday, 25 September, 2026

I had a bit of a lie-in, which turned out to be a mistake as the two large coach parties staying at the hotel had already visited, and laid waste, to the breakfast buffet by the time I got down, and nobody had restocked it as there was only about 45 minutes of breakfast left, so I had the meagre rations that were available before heading back up to my room to grab my stuff and checkout.

As it was a really nice morning, and I had about 40 minutes until my train, I decided to walk the 20 minutes or so to the station, popping into a supermarket along the way to pick up some water as the forecast for the day was for it to be a hot one, despite it being late September.

The train journey over to Angers went smoothly and from the station I walked the 10 minutes or so into town, heading first to the Place du Président Kennedy outside the Château d'Angers, one of the key sights of the town, and the home base of the Plantagenet dynasty who at one point ruled large parts of what is today France as well as England, and naturally they have left behind a pretty impressive castle, which I had a wander around the outside of before heading down towards my hotel for the weekend as it was getting close to the start of check-in.

Thankfully my room was already ready when I got there, so I was able to check-in, drop off my bag and then head back into the centre of town to properly visit the Château d'Angers. I spent a good couple of hours exploring the castle buildings and the ramparts, as well as the spectacular Apocalypse Tapestry, housed in it’s own specially designed building in the castle grounds.

Just outside the gateway to the castle is the starting point of the, mandatory in all French tourist cities, Petit-Train, a 50-minute guided tour of the city, which I was just in time to catch the last tour of the night. The multi-lingual commentary was through the downloading of an app onto my phone which actually worked pretty well and meant I got a good overview of the city and the location of most of the key sights.

At the end of the tour I had a bit more of a wander through the old town part of the city around the castle, eventually finding myself by the Cathedral, which was still open to visit so I had a look around that.

From the castle to the cathedral I’d been, without realising it, following the Fil Bleu, a Blue Line painted on the street in the old town that takes you on a guided walk around many of the key sights that aren’t accessible except on foot, so as I’d already done a part of it I decided to continue following, only checking afterwards that the full route is 3Km long and it started by the castle.

At the end of the walk I felt I’d deserved a nice dinner so I had a bit to eat in a restaurant in the centre of town before heading back to the hotel to grab a nightcap and then rest my now aching feet.