Loiret, Loire Valley
A private car and an English-speaking chauffeur from your Paris hotel or any of the three airports to Orleans, the city Joan of Arc relieved in 1429 and the closest point on the Loire to Paris.
From central Paris, one way: Executive Eco from €255 · Premium Van from €405 · 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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Orleans is the first place the Loire comes close to Paris, and at roughly ninety minutes by road it is the easiest introduction to the valley there is. You can leave a Paris hotel after breakfast and be standing in front of the cathedral before eleven. That proximity is the whole argument for Orleans: it turns the Loire from a two-day expedition into a comfortable day out.
The city is inseparable from Joan of Arc. In the spring of 1429 an English siege had held Orleans for seven months; she arrived in April and it was broken in nine days. Orleans has been marking the anniversary ever since, every year without a break since 1430, which makes the Fetes de Jeanne d'Arc at the start of May one of the oldest continuously observed civic celebrations in Europe. The house she stayed in has been reconstructed and is open to visitors, and the cathedral holds a series of nineteenth-century windows that tell her story panel by panel.
Much of the centre was flattened in 1940 and rebuilt afterwards, so Orleans does not have the untouched medieval texture of Blois or Tours. What it does have is a very grand cathedral, a handsome eighteenth-century spine of streets running down to the river, an excellent fine arts museum and quays along the Loire that are pleasant to walk. It is also the natural first stop on any drive down into the Loire Valley.
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 d'Austerlitz, 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.
Orleans is about 130 km from central Paris, roughly an hour and a half straight down the A10. It is the shortest run of any city on the Loire and by some margin the easiest one to do and return in a single day.
The exact distance depends on your Paris address and where in Orleans you are going, so the calculator above works on the real road distance between your two addresses. The figure you see is the figure you pay, tolls and fuel included.
Because it is so close, Orleans works well as part of a bigger day rather than a destination on its own. Orleans in the morning and Chambord after lunch is a comfortable pairing; adding Blois as well makes for a full but manageable day with a driver.
The centre is walkable end to end in twenty minutes, so half a day is genuinely enough unless you want the museums.
Enormous, Gothic in style but largely rebuilt from the seventeenth century onwards. Ten windows in the nave tell the story of Joan of Arc.
A reconstruction of the house where she lodged during the siege, on Place du General de Gaulle, now a small museum of the 1429 campaign.
The city's central square, with Foyatier's equestrian statue of Joan at its centre and cafe terraces on the sunny side. The heart of the May festivities.
Below the old town, with the Pont George V and traditional flat-bottomed river boats moored along the bank. The best twenty minutes of walking in Orleans.
If your dates fall between the end of April and the eighth of May, the Fetes de Jeanne d'Arc take over the centre with processions, a medieval market and a good deal of closed road. It is worth seeing, but tell us when you book so the chauffeur can plan a drop-off that is not behind a barrier.
Ninety minutes each way is about the shortest Loire day there is, which makes Orleans the easiest of them with young children.
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.
Chambord is forty minutes on from Orleans. On a day hire the car stays with you, so you can decide over lunch whether the children are up for it.
One fixed rate per kilometre of real road distance. No airport surcharge, no night rate, no charge for luggage or child seats.
About an hour and a half for roughly 130 km, almost all of it on the A10 motorway. It is the shortest drive to any city on the Loire.
Comfortably. Ninety minutes each way leaves you six or seven hours in the city, which is more than the centre needs. Most people add Chambord or Blois in the afternoon and make a full day of it.
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.
On a day hire, yes. The chauffeur parks nearby and is at the door when you come out. On a one-way transfer the journey ends when we drop you off, so if you plan to return the same day, ask for the day hire when you book.
Between late April and the eighth of May large parts of the centre are closed to traffic for processions. We can still get you there, but tell us when you book so the chauffeur plans a drop-off point outside the closures and a place to collect you afterwards.
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 Orleans. No trains, no changes.
Yes. Gites and chateau-hotels in the Loiret countryside, Sully-sur-Loire, Meung, Beaugency. Give us the exact address and the quote is calculated to that door, not to the centre of Orleans.
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 Orleans, 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.
