Indre-et-Loire, Loire Valley
A private car and an English-speaking chauffeur from your Paris hotel or any of the three airports to Tours, the capital of the Touraine and the town most visitors use as their base for the chateaux of the Loire.
From central Paris, one way: Executive Eco from €455 · Premium Van from €715 · tolls included
Instant price
Tell us where you are going and the price appears straight away. Nothing is charged online. A real person confirms your transfer in writing, usually within the hour.
Fixed price, agreed before you travel.Child seats, tolls, meet and greet and waiting time all included.
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Tours is the practical centre of the Loire Valley. It is a real city of some 140,000 people, with a university, proper restaurants and a covered market, and it happens to sit within forty minutes of half the chateaux anyone comes to the Loire to see. Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, Langeais and Chenonceau are all short drives from the middle of town. Amboise is twenty-five minutes east. That combination is why most people who plan more than one day in the Loire end up sleeping in Tours.
The city itself repays a morning. The old quarter around Place Plumereau is genuinely medieval, timber-framed and lopsided, and it fills with people at lunchtime rather than performing for tour groups. The cathedral of Saint-Gatien took three hundred years to build and shows it, with a Gothic body and Renaissance tops to the towers, and inside a small tomb for the two children of Charles VIII that stops most visitors in their tracks. Saint Martin, the fourth-century bishop who cut his cloak in half for a beggar, is buried under the basilica that carries his name.
What Tours is not is a village. If what you want is a single postcard chateau and nothing else, Chenonceau or Chambord will serve you better as a straight day trip. Tours is for the traveller who wants a base.
Your chauffeur meets you where you are, at the time you choose. There is no queue, no shared shuttle and no waiting for other passengers.
Door to door from anywhere in Paris or the Ile-de-France. Your chauffeur waits at the entrance, helps with the luggage and leaves when you are ready.
Your chauffeur tracks the flight and adjusts to delays at no extra cost. Meet and greet in the arrivals hall with a name board, or kerbside if you prefer.
Gare Montparnasse, Gare de Lyon, Disneyland Paris, a cruise port or a town along the way. Tell us the address and we quote the real road distance.
Tours is about 240 km from central Paris, roughly two and a half hours down the A10. It is an easy drive with one long uninterrupted motorway stretch, and the only reliable delay is getting out of Paris itself at rush hour.
The exact distance depends on your Paris address and where in Tours you are staying, so the calculator above works on the real road distance between your two addresses rather than a city-to-city average. The figure you see is the figure you pay.
The TGV from Montparnasse does the same journey in about an hour and ten minutes, and we will say so plainly: if you are two people with cabin bags going city centre to city centre, the train is quicker. The car wins when you have real luggage, small children, an early flight to connect with, or a chateau or two you want to stop at on the way down.
A morning covers the old town comfortably on foot. The chateaux are what the afternoons are for.
The heart of Vieux Tours, ringed with fifteenth-century timber facades and cafe tables. Best late morning, before the lunch crowd takes every chair.
Three centuries of building in one facade, superb thirteenth-century glass, and the small marble tomb of the two children of Charles VIII.
The covered market is where the Touraine actually shops. Goat cheese, rillettes, Vouvray. A good stop before a picnic on the way to a chateau.
Villandry and its gardens, Azay-le-Rideau on its island, Langeais, Chenonceau. All between twenty and forty-five minutes from the middle of town.
If you have one full day and a driver, the pairing that works best is Villandry in the morning for the gardens and Azay-le-Rideau after lunch, both small enough that you are not exhausted by four o'clock. Tell us what you have in mind when you book and we will tell you honestly whether it fits in the day.
Two and a half hours each way is a long day for small children. A few things make it easier, and none of them cost extra.
Baby seats, toddler seats and booster cushions, fitted before you get in. Tell us the ages when you book and they will be in the car.
The Executive Eco takes three large cases, the Premium Van seven. Pushchairs and day bags travel in the cabin, not on somebody's knees.
Break at Orleans or Blois, or stop at a chateau on the road down. On a day hire we agree the stops with you in the car; there is no meter running.
One fixed rate per kilometre of real road distance. No airport surcharge, no night rate, no charge for luggage or child seats.
About two and a half hours for roughly 240 km, almost all on the A10 motorway. Allow an extra half hour if you leave central Paris between four and seven on a weekday evening.
If there are two of you with cabin bags and you are going centre to centre, the train is faster and we will tell you so. Take the car if you have full-size cases, small children, an airport connection, or you want to stop at a chateau on the way down.
Yes. Chartres, Orleans, Blois, Chambord and Amboise all sit on or near the route. Book a day hire rather than a one-way transfer, tell us which ones you want, and we will tell you before you leave how many realistically fit.
Yes. The calculator on this page works out the real road distance between your two addresses and applies the per-kilometre rate. You see the figure before you confirm and it does not change afterwards, whatever the traffic does.
Yes. Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, Langeais, Chenonceau and Amboise are all short runs from the town. A day hire from your Tours hotel is usually the sensible way to do it, and the chauffeur waits at each stop.
Yes. We meet flights at Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais, track the arrival time and wait if you are late. Your cases go straight in the boot and come out at your hotel in Tours. No trains, no changes.
Yes. Many visitors stay in a chateau-hotel or a gite in the surrounding countryside. Give us the exact address and the quote is calculated to that door, not to the centre of Tours.
Yes. All our chauffeurs speak English. Booking, confirmation and any question along the way are all handled in English, which is the main reason most of our passengers choose us over a local taxi.
Places most people combine with Tours, and the pages that explain how we work.
Tell us where you are staying and when you want to leave. You will have a fixed price in writing and an English-speaking chauffeur at the door.
