Fodor's Expert Review Château de Noizay

Filled with the mystery of the past—this was once the fabled redoubt of the Protestant plotters in the 1559 Amboise Conspiracy—Château de Noizay is fitted out with Renaissance chimneys and salons, a parterre garden, and guest rooms so regal that you may feel like bowing or curtsying to the staff. The adjacent 19th-century "Clock House" is a gracious pastel-hue haven. Noizay itself is a tiny, off-the-beaten-path treasure—don't miss the idyllic countryside hike down Rue François-Poulenc, past the famous composer's pretty 18th-century house, a troglodyte hamlet, and endless poppy fields right out of a Monet painting.