Troglodyte Loire

The troglodyte houses more than 70 species in enclosures dug out of the surrounding rock, creating dramatic enclosures. Open daily February-October.

These sculpted troglodyte caves offer an interesting blend of wine tasting, culture and history. The cellars here, open daily for tastings, are part of a historic 5-mile-long complex of underground galleries, which include an unusual ‘underground cathedral’.

Beneath this attractive Renaissance and neo-Gothic chateau is a remarkable 9th-century fortress, a troglodyte labyrinth complete with drawbridge, stables, and guardrooms. The chateau is also known for excellent wines, which you can taste in Les Caves de la Comtesse de Colbert in the chateau grounds.

This series of cool, dank caverns in Montsoreau is said to have once been inhabited by loups (wolves), then exploited as quarries, before being turned into a champignonnière (mushroom farm). Button, oyster and shitake mushrooms are cultivated here today.

This troglodyte restaurant serves delicious traditional fouaces, circular flatbreads, filled with mushrooms and cheese, and served in caves used as refuges during the 16th-century Wars of Religion.

Not many tourists know about this long-forgotten troglodyte village, hidden away in a wooded valley. You can tour the three abandoned farms, and children can pet the farm animals. Forty-minute guided tours are available by advanced request.

This postcard-perfect, medieval town clustering along the Loire River is a historic and aesthetic gem, and worth a special visit.

Once you’ve wandered through character-filled streets, lined almost exclusively with buildings constructed in the Loire’s iconic Tuffeau stone, wine-tasting cellars await in and around the town.

Saumur is one of the region’s largest wine areas, with multiple wineries offering visits and tastings, several located in troglodyte cellars and tunnels.

You could also stop by the Chateau de Saumur, mounted majestically above the town. It’s just as impressive inside, home to fine medieval architecture and a decorative arts museum.

The most complete and extensive troglodyte site in the Loire Valley, a museum of two former farms with stables and cowsheds, twenty furnished rooms and a soaring 13th-century chapel, all dug down into the tufa rock.