Camping La Vallée des Vignes

Rosé and roses – if you’re fond of these two, you’re in the right place. The pink plonk is perhaps the best known produce of the local wineries but in fact there are reds, white, sparklers and liqueurs to sample too as you tour round them. The several producers within a few kilometres of the site make for a particularly pleasing day of cycling and sipping (hire bikes from the site if you’ve not brought them). Doué-la-Fontaine (10 minutes away by car) calls itself the Rose Capital of France and with good reason – some seven million rose bushes are cultivated around here. There’s a rose museum and some gorgeous gardens to visit, but perhaps the best way to view the blooms is to wander on the rose trail at Les Chemins de la rose, a four-hectare park with over 1,000 varieties to admire. Also in Doué-la-Fontaine is a superb zoo, thought to be the world’s only troglodyte zoo, where monkeys, big cats, birds and others live in and around the caves and remains of a rock quarry. There’s a château in Saumur, half an hour away, and while you’re there you can take in a balletic riding display at the Cadre Noir riding academy, paddle canoes along the Loire and call into the local wineries to explore the sprawling underground cellars and sample sparkling wines.