We decided to make a last minute trip to the Loire Valley and needed a Saturday night stay, preferably in a chateau or something charming. Of course the majority of the chateaux were fully booked in advance. We booked the last room at another chateau through venere.com on Friday night, but when I called to reconfirm Saturday morning they had no record of the reservation. They did their best to reaccomodate us, but I stumbled on the Chateau de la Menaudiere on booking.com instead. It seemed less luxurious than the other, but the price was only half as expensive at 80 EUR for a "comfort" room. I decided to book directly by telephone to avoid another on-line booking mix up, and it was no problem to get the on-line rate. The operator did mention that they only had rooms with two seperate beds available, but would try to accomodate our request for a queen bed. The alternative was a non-descript chain hotel in Tours or Amboise, so we decided to "risk" it from the somewhat mixed reviews here. We were planning to visit the Zooparc de Beauval which is less than a half our drive away and we came by car, so the issues of transportation were not a big deal for us. Montrichard is a 10 minute drive away and Amboise 25 minutes or so. The receptionist recommended going to Amboise for dinner, since it's a larger more touristic town and we had a wonderful meal. Getting to the hotel was no problem by car on the road towards Amboise from Montrichard. The turn off is the next driveway after passing the Menaudiere Hospital. There is a long driveway (lit up at night, unlike the main road) as you approach the chateau. There is plenty of parking and the receptionist took us to room no. 20 in the smaller annex building. It did require going up and down some stairs, but the room was bigger than we expected, including a queen bed, a small mezzanine and view of the courtyard and main building. The decorations were classic but simple, with a small flat screen tv and a desk by the window. Later we found out that the tv had no reception, but we didn't bother to ask the receptionist to get it fixed since we didn't really want to watch anything in particular. There was a full size bath and shower head, but no shower curtain or screen. Soap and shampoo were provided as befitting it's 3 star billing. We didn't bother with breakfast the next day at 13 EUR per person, and had a wonderful picnic with a baguette and some cheese and sausages instead. We had a nice walk around the grounds and there is a small swimming pool and tennis court along with a pond. Overall we had somewhat low expectations after the mix-up with the other hotel, and we came away quite glad to have chosen the Menaudiere for our stay.
