Beyond the town centre
France > Loire > Cities > Saumur > Beyond the town centre
Saumur's cavalry traditions are displayed most proudly at the École Nationale d'Équitation, in St-Hilaire-St-Florent, a suburb to the east of the centre; take bus #B from the town centre. The Riding School (April–Sept Tues–Sat 9.30–11am & 2–4pm; €6.50 for morning visits, €4.50 afternoons) provides guided tours in which you can watch training sessions (mornings only) and view the stables. Displays of dressage and anachronistic battle manoeuvres by the crackshot Cadre Noir, the former cavalry trainers, are regular events (programme details from the tourist office or online at www.cadrenoir.tm.fr). The history of the tank – traditionally considered as cavalry not infantry – is covered in the separate Musée des Blindés, at 1043 rue Fricotelle, to the southeast of the centre (daily: May–Sept 9.30am–6.30pm; Oct–April 10am–5pm; €4).Another museum in St-Hilaire-St-Florent, of a very different nature, is the Musée de Champignon (mid-Feb to mid-Nov daily 10am–7pm; €6.50), which runs informative (if a bit dank and cold) Tours through some of the region's 500km of underground caves de champignons, used to grow seventy percent of France's commonest cooking mushrooms, the champignon de Paris. The entrance is 1km downriver, along the D751 from the last bus stop in St-Hilaire-St-Florent.
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