What does a visit to Amboise cost?

What you are actually paying for

One ticket, at one desk, covering the whole ticketed site: the Logis Royal, the Saint-Hubert chapel with Leonardo da Vinci’s tomb, the terrace, the gardens and the ramp towers. There is no supplement for the chapel, no separate charge for the terrace, and no timed slot. It is refreshingly simple after Paris.

Two things are bundled in that most visitors do not realise they have paid for. The first is the guided visit — the château runs its own, daily, about an hour, and it is included; I give it a page of its own because knowing about it changes what people buy. The second is the HistoPad, the tablet that reconstructs the demolished rooms in augmented reality, described on this page.

Who does not pay

The categories are the château’s own, not the state’s, because Amboise belongs to a private foundation rather than to France — see who owns the château. In broad terms: young children enter free, students and under-eighteens pay a reduced rate, disabled visitors and their companion pay a reduced rate, and there are family and group rates. Bring the card or the identity document that proves it; the desk asks.

What is not discounted here is what you might expect from a national monument: there is no European under-26 free entry and no first-Sunday rule, because those are state schemes and this is not a state château.

What makes the spend vary

Three things, and one of them is not the ticket. The first is whether you add a guide: unnecessary for most people given the included visits, genuinely useful for a fixed time or a guaranteed English commentary — the honest comparison is on guided or on your own.

The second is whether you add the Clos Lucé, five hundred metres away and a separate property with its own ticket. It roughly doubles the day and, for anyone here because of Leonardo, it is the half that explains the other half: see the two together.

The third is how you get here, which for most visitors dwarfs the entrance anyway. A day trip from Paris that includes three châteaux is a different order of spending from a train to Amboise and a walk up the hill — both are laid out on the getting-there page.

One ticket, and a short château

I will say this plainly because it is the fair way round: Amboise is a compact visit, and the ticket reflects a compact site. What you are buying is not scale — Chambord has scale — it is a royal lodging where the French Renaissance began, a chapel with Leonardo’s tomb in it, and one of the great views of the Loire. If that is what you came for, it is excellent value. If you wanted a palace, read is it worth visiting first.

Booking the day

The entrance itself is not bookable online, so what is below is the day trip that includes entry to Amboise along with Chenonceau and Chambord. The full set of formats is on the bookings page.

A reminder: what you book above is the guiding, or a day that includes entry. The Château Royal d’Amboise has no online entrance ticket — you buy that at the château’s own desk, and its guided visits are included in it.

Frequently asked questions