Loire Bliss fantastique

Romantics will be very happy: your own entrance to a private and pretty stable conversion with roses around the door and the sun streaming in from the courtyard garden. Downstairs is a small, open-plan living/dining room with a fully equipped corner kitchen, a scrubbed pine table with flowers in a jug, quirky beams, comfy sofas, neutral colours and a wood-burner for chillier evenings. Upstairs find a cosy bedroom with a large iron bed, seagrass rugs, white lace sheets and pastoral views from the window – and double doors to a marble wash basin and amazing roll-top copper bath from which you can watch the forest. (Worth coming for the bathroom alone, with its delicious white bathrobes and luxuriously deep bath.) Tina and her husband live in the 15th-century mill (the grounds are yours for wandering) and can give you breakfast and dinner – a treat for foodies; they also leave you wine, homemade jams, bread and cheese. Tucked away yet only three kilometres from Noyant, there are bicycles to borrow, an antiques market in Saumur, walks from the door and a wealth of châteaux to visit. Fantastique!