An abundance of French charm
Review Submitted: January 14, 2009
Date of Stay: September 2008
My partner and I stayed for three weeks in this charming and well-equipped gite in September 2008. We hired a car and used St Aignan as the base for trips to explore the Loire Valley - especially the chateaux.
The owner was always generous (and prompt) with advice and information, and welcoming and warm while we were there. Everything in the gite was as described on the holiday-rentals.co.uk website - only, if anything, more charming in reality.
The gite being right on the old town square - the Place de la Paix (Place of Peace - and it was!) meant that we were immersed in the spirit of the place all the time. The buildings surrounding the square include dwellings, a restaurant/bar, a pizza restaurant and a few other shops. Most of the week, the square is used as a carpark but on Saturday mornings it becomes a fresh food market with stalls of fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat, seafood.
There is no garage with the gite but we found it no problem to park in the Place de la Paix for short stays, or in a larger carpark only a 2-3 minute walk away for longer stays.
Even though the feeling of the gite is village-ish - within a 2-3 minute walk, there are: several restaurants/bars, patisserie/ boulangerie, supermarket, chemists, newsagent, laundromat, library, hat and shoe shops, dress shops, bank, gift shops, butchers, bootmaker, etc. There's no wi-fi in the gite but you can access the web free in the library, and for a fee from the shop next door or the tourist info place (limited times though).
We enjoyed meals/drinks at all the local restaurants/bars we tried. But there were three experiences in St Aignan that were supreme highlights for me:
The restaurant Le Mange Grenouille (The Eating Frog). Even though their lunch special of set price two courses was great quality/value - choosing from their a la carte menu is something I would recommend most highly (their signature salad with scallops was delicate and superb).
La Petrie, the artisan patisserie/boulangerie, produces the best baguettes we have ever eaten anywhere. Works of art. In fact, some days I just wanted to eat their baguettes with butter (well, OK, maybe some local cheese too) and drink Loire wine and nothing else. In fact, I'd recommend doing this to save up for meals at Le Mange Grenouille!
Also special is a nearby hat shop run by two sisters who make some very original hats (I think it might be called Et Pat Et Moi but I'm not sure).
Most highly recommended!
Owner's Response: "La Petite Boutique" and St Aignan is exactly as described by this review. It is a place where you become part of this small town, where you live the french way and take home memories of the spectacular Loire Valley.
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