Joan of Arc’s Orléans

Skimming the flat Beauce plain, Orléans sits 116 km southwest of Paris via the A10, barely 98 meters above sea level, where the Loire loosens into sandbars. Cross George V Bridge into Rue Royale and the 1429 siege map snaps into focus: artillery lines on both banks, bastions at the crossings. Sainte-Croix Cathedral carries late‑19th‑century Joan of Arc stained glass; around Place du Martroi and Hôtel Groslot, a Renaissance city hall where Francis II died in 1560, the medieval street grid still peeks through.

Your driver collects you at the hotel and keeps the Mercedes close, so stops flow and parking never steals time; you step in, step out, the car moves ahead. With Amani Limousines in Orléans, the pace stays yours: cathedral and Joan of Arc House (rebuilt in 1965 with the city archives), the galleries of Hôtel Groslot, then the Loire embankments to read the river’s geomorphology. To finish, a historic vinegar maker pours AOP Orléans tastings while the vehicle waits two streets away, ready for the ride back.