Saché is a town of Indre-et-Loire, in central France, Loire Valley, 25 km southwest of Tours.
Crossed to the north by the course of the Indre, the territory of 28 km² encompasses varied landscapes with valleys, hills and wooded or cultivated plateaus.
The village affected by the Hundred Years War then found a certain prosperity thanks to its fertile land. Then the local lordship advantage of the ease enjoyed by the entire region when Touraine and the Loire Valley are becoming popular sovereign.
The rich heritage preserved in the village and in the surrounding countryside (castles, manors) attests. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thanks to Balzac that performs many stays in the locality and other creators who dwell there as Calder, Saché (around 1,400 inhabitants) is building a reputation haunt of artists. Tourists also now appreciate its bucolic living environment, its heritage and its cultural activities and "nature". A choice destination close to other sights such as Azay-le-Rideau, its neighbor.
It's a real circuit he should be considered to review the rich heritage of the town in terms.
If there is a castle to visit, it is that of Saché precisely. Built in the Middle Ages, embellished in the Renaissance, it was enlarged over the centuries and renovated in the nineteenth century by its owner Jean Maronne. It was at this time that the novelist Honoré de Balzac's going to make from 1825 to 1848 ten stays, fleeing the bustle of Paris but also his financial worries. His parents were friends of the owners. In a comfortable and peaceful setting, even a park adjacent to the castle, Balzac can write in peace and thus in many of his books, including The Lily of the Valley, we recognize Saché and landscapes.
This is why in 1951 a Balzac museum is created in places, protected as historical monuments since 1932. The museum includes several rooms of the castle including the room where the writer lived. Are also presented paintings and sculptures belonging or citing the author and his work, manuscripts, prints, photographs, personal items. Are becoming reconstituted places related to some of his most famous novels (the Tours priest's room or den of Foedora in Skin of particular grief). The museum is labeled House of Illustrious. Open daily except Tuesdays from October to March. Free or guided visit. Price: 4 to 6 euros. Information at +33 2 47 26 86 50.
The cultural heritage tour and may then include Castle Valesne overlooking the Indre valley and adjoins a forest. Surrounded by a garden and a French park, the building dates from the fifteenth and was redesigned in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. See again the castle of Goatherd (XV, XIX, mentioned by Balzac in The Lily of the Valley), the mansion Boulay (remodeled in the nineteenth), built in local sandstone and has a beautiful round tower to pepper shakers, manor Bécheron (XVI, remodeled in the nineteenth), which remained the American sculptor Jo Davidson.
We also mention the workshop of the famous sculptor for its mobile, Alexander Calder, whose work has been installed in the town square. The workshop is adjacent to a small house Calder loved working there and stay regularly. His heirs made available to the State Calder workshop, and French and foreign artists can stay in residence to create in a bucolic setting.
Note that also lived in Saché painter Yves Ellouët and his wife Dawn, herself an artist and daughter of the founder of surrealism, the poet André Breton, is still in the town.
winemakers lodges restored by the town, the old priory of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries depended on the abbey of Beaumont-lès-Tours, in the village also deserve attention as finally the church of Saint-Martin-de- Vertou restored in 1870 on medieval foundations and whose architectural traces centuries of stylistic changes (Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance).
For athletes, also a city stadium, a pond ideal for fishing as the promenade, the tennis courts are available. Information at +33 2 47 26 86 65.
Finally, there is the potential for excursions: tours allow you to enjoy the green and quietly rolling landscapes that punctuate including old mills reflecting the rich milling activity of yore and of course wood and castles...
You can also walk or bike to reach Azay-le-Rideau or the greenway following the course of the Loire, less than 10 km from Saché.
Maps and information +33 2 47 26 86 65 or +33 2 47 45 44 40.
To change you visit castles, visiting a place in Thilouze, which takes a bit of folklore, called museum of domestic life, as objects that are accumulated over 5000 m² reflect developments rural society over three generations. This is an old farm which all the barns and sheds are completely filled with items from sales to regional auctions, a kind of "chatty graveyard" for the kingdom of Pluto! Please note, these places are not open to the public only on Friday and Saturday. For the visit, it is advisable to have a single flashlight and to be well fitted. Moreover the presence of young children is not recommended.
Approach the large square and do not be fooled by the surrounding disorder yard the object in it are constantly filing and storage. Explore the buildings around the courtyard, you sneaking through the narrow passageways formed between shelves overloaded, piles of dishes, wedding gifts, vases, clocks, lamps, old radios... Your tour continues in the first hangar, north, on your left. Here are stored more than three generations of furniture of all styles, usually stacked. Stroll in a bit unreal scenery, slowly advance through the labyrinth you find there can be the object seen by your grandfather; locate the place for that is that Pluto will release the no risk to you. Three other warehouses of the same type you expect a little further... Eye scan this strange world that reflects the richness of human invention through the modes and ages. If you've found the desired object, the pay as before, on the farm. Here, no counter, cash or CB terminal, but a simple washing machine bed where Pluto set for sale on a big book. The transaction often ends with a drink: one remakes the world and one day there, one returns to the scene, inevitably, like a pilgrimage, as if these inanimate objects still had a soul. To get there: the town hall square of Saché, head of Pont-de-Ruan and Thilouze, (2 km). Go through the village and, after 3 km, at a place called The Chotardière, commit to left on a small road. Large premises are drawn 200 meters: you have arrived. Park your car a little outside. The place is isolated, situated on a plateau windswept amid the sunflowers crops, rape or corn.
