Inside the walls
What to see inside the Château d'Angers
The Apocalypse Tapestry, the ramparts and towers, the royal lodgings and chapel, and the château's gardens.
Check availability on Viator ↗The Apocalypse Tapestry
Begin with the tapestry, if only because the gallery rewards a clear head. Commissioned around 1373 by Louis I, Duke of Anjou, and woven in Paris between 1377 and 1382, it was made as six hangings illustrating the Book of Revelation in some ninety scenes, of which a little over 100 metres survives. The gallery is kept deliberately dim to protect the dyes, so give your eyes a moment to adjust, and follow the hangings in sequence rather than skipping ahead; the story is told in order, from John's opening vision to the New Jerusalem at the close.
The towers and the rampart wall-walk
A wall-walk runs along the top of the curtain wall and its seventeen drum towers, raised under Louis IX from 1234. Each tower is around 18 metres across, and the circuit they punctuate runs roughly 660 metres, enough to give a real sense of scale once you're standing on top of it. The towers were once taller; they were cut down in the sixteenth century, and the Mill Tower is the one that keeps its original height. The views open out over the Maine and the rooftops of Angers; the walk involves stairs and uneven historic stone, so flat shoes help.
The royal lodgings and the chapel
Inside the walls, a chapel built between 1405 and 1412 and the former royal lodgings (the logis royal) sit alongside the towers, a reminder that the fortress was a residence of the Dukes of Anjou as well as a stronghold. They're a quieter, more domestic counterpoint to both the military exterior and the tapestry gallery, and worth the extra twenty minutes they take.
The gardens
Gardens are woven all through the visit: a hanging garden of medieval plants on the ramparts, a vineyard and vegetable garden, a formal garden of clipped yews in the courtyard, and beds of hydrangeas near the royal lodgings. The patterned parterres in the dry moat were designed to be seen from above, so the best view of them is from the ramparts; the moat itself opens to visitors only on occasional special days.