www.angersloiretourisme.com. ‘Black’ Angers is a thoroughly agreeable town. The capital of Anjou, it marks the western end of châteaux country with an imposing fortress wrapped in a 1-km curtain wall of locally-quarried grey shale and 17 drum-like towers banded with white stone. The highlight of the Château d’Angers tapestry collections is the 14thC Tapisserie de I’Apocalypse, 76 panels (a total of 100 m ´ 5 m), which depict St John’s visions from the Book of Revelations. It is stirring stuff, fantastically detailed and coloured, teeming with hail and brimstone, terrifying images of Armageddon and the final triumph of the heavenly host.

Jean Lurcat first saw the Apocalypse tapestry in 1938, and it was to inspire much of his artistic output. In 1957, nine years before his death, he began work on his own vision of the 20thC in a series of tapestries entitled Le Chant du Monde, now housed in the Hôpital de Saint-Jean across the River Maine (closed Mon). The opening sequence is a grim reflection on nuclear war; later tapestries celebrate the delights of Champagne and the cosmic thrill of La Conquête de I’Espace. An adjacent gallery houses contemporary exhibitions.

Near Pont de Verdun, montée Saint-Maurice cuts up the hillside to the Cathédrale de Saint-Maurice, at the heart of Vieux Angers. The tremendous carved portal gives on to a single nave supported by distinctive 12thC Angevin vaulting, while the transepts contain lovely rose windows. (A more complex arrangement of 13thC vaulting graces the choir of the Eglise de Saint-Serge, a 15-minute walk further north.)

Behind the cathedral, on place Sainte-Croix, the decorative Maison d’Adam is a favourite local landmark with criss-cross timbers and carvings including an apple tree. South along rue Toussaint, a 13thC church has been irraginatively converted into the glass-roofed Gallerie David d’Angers displaying a petrified forest of the 18th-19thC sculptor’s works. Around the corner, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, 10 rue du Musée, runs the gamut from Italian primitives to the 20thC.

For classical and Oriental antiquities and a notable collection of Japanese engravings, head for the Musée Pincé, 32bis rue Lenepveu, arranged in a gorgeous Renaissance building.

A handful of appealing châteaux near Angers include Château de Brissac (20 km S via the N160/D748); Château Montgeoffroy (20 km E via the N147); and Château de Plessis-Bourré (18 km N via the D107).