Loire Valley In 2000, UNESCO added the central part of the Loire River valley to its list of World Heritage Sites. The valley includes historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Montsoreau, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours. The climate is favorable most of the year, the river often acting as a line of demarcation in France's weather between the northern climate and the southern. The river has a significant effect on the mesoclimate of the region, adding a few degrees of temperature. The climate can be cool with springtime frost while wine harvest months may have rain. Summers are hot; however, influences
Indre-et-Loire Indre-et-Loire Indre-et-Loire () is a department in west-central France named after the Indre and the Loire rivers. Indre-et-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of Touraine. Tours, the departmental prefecture, was a centre of learning in the early Middle Ages, having been a key focus of Christian evangelisation since St Martin became its first bishop in c. 375. From the mid-15th century, the royal court repaired to the Loire Valley, with Tours as its capital, and at the confluence/crossing-point of the Loire and