Our Experience Living in Orléans, France for 6 Weeks

We just wrapped up six weeks living in Orléans, France. It was the first stop on our Baby Trip that will see my husband, Colin; our daughter, Baby C; our dog, Ellie; and me slow travelling through Europe for seven months.

Orléans is a mid-size city of about 120,000 and 90 minutes southwest of Paris by train. It’s located in the Loire Valley, the region of France known for chateaux, and along the Loire River.

Orléans’ biggest claims to fame are its history as a river trade port, having the fourth tallest Cathedral in France, and the Siege of Orleans that lasted almost one year until it was lifted by Joan of Arc in 1429.

But all we knew when we showed up in September 2025 was that Orléans was close to Paris (where we had just flown into from Canada), looked charming in photos, and was about to be our home for the next six weeks.

So after 1.5 months in the city, what did we think of Orléans? Is Orléans worth visiting? Is it a good place for a longer trip in France?

I’m very happy to say that we had an excellent experience temporarily living in Orléans, getting to know this delightful French town and exploring the wider Loire Valley region.

Below I’ll dive into our full experience of living abroad in Orléans – how we chose it, where we lived, what daily life was like, what we saw, what we ate, etc.

I’ll also share my tips for anyone visiting or moving to Orléans, plus whether or not I’d want to return.

PS: If you’re interested in following along on our Baby Trip in real time, subscribe to my Substack newsletter. I’m sharing weekly dispatches from our time abroad and we can chat in the comments.

And catch up on the next bases of our Baby Trip: five weeks spent living in London and two months spent living in Brighton!

Why did we choose Orléans?

To be honest, Orléans actually wasn’t our first choice for our mini expat year. In fact, Orléans wasn’t even on our radar; we had no clue it existed!

We were originally booked to spend the first six weeks of our Baby Trip in Rouen, a city in Normandy. But after our Airbnb was cancelled on us at the last minute, I had to go back to the drawing board.

It quickly became apparent that Rouen was no longer an option for us unless we wanted to…

• split our time across a few rentals (packing and unpacking needlessly)
• stay in a smaller or shared space (not fun with a baby and a dog)
• take a risk on a poorly reviewed place (no thanks!)
• completely blow our travel budget (also no thanks)

So I widened the search. I was looking for anywhere that was an easy train ride from Paris (as we already had our flights booked into Charles de Gaulle) with a suitable and affordable apartment available for six weeks.

Because our Rouen place was cancelled on us last minute, there were understandably not a lot of options for a six week long stay. The apartment we ended up booking in Orléans was one of very few places we could even consider.

The apartment met our criteria, the city was an easy train ride from Paris, and a few travel blogger friends I reached out to agreed that Orléans was a good pick.

So despite not knowing that Orléans even existed mere days before, we decided to take a risk and go for it. Luckily, it turned out great!

What we loved about living in Orléans

As I think you’ll gather from reading this post, we really loved living in Orléans, France. Here’s why:

The city itself is very charming. The old town is full of half-timbered houses and cobblestone streets; it often felt like we were wandering through some medieval fairytale.

It reminded me a lot of our life in Prague where I would find new beautiful buildings every time I walked the dog. Orléans had that same aesthetic appeal.

Orléans is pretty quiet, which suited us well since we’re usually back home with Baby C by 6pm in order to start dinner and her bedtime routine. If there is a nightlife scene, it was nowhere near us.

That being said, the city still felt lively. There were lots of people around, eating at restaurants, shopping in the food markets and attending the local festivals. Things were quieter at off-peak times and on the side streets, but it never felt deserted.

Orléans had all of the big city amenities we needed. There were lots of grocery stores, good public transit, countless restaurants and cafes, clothing stores, pharmacies, and very importantly, many delicious boulangeries and patisseries.

While a smaller city, we still found plenty to do in Orléans. We visited museums and churches, went on walking tours, attended local festivals and shopped at markets. It wasn’t an overwhelming sightseeing itinerary, but I never got bored.

Orléans is really well-situated. It’s only 90 minutes on a direct train from Paris and gave us great access to the Loire Valley for castle day trips. I loved having all of these other adventures on our doorstep.

Despite how awesome Orléans is, it isn’t overly touristed (at least not in Sep/Oct when we were living there). None of the attractions we visited were ever crowded and we rarely ran into other non-French visitors.

To demonstrate just how non-touristy Orléans is: I wanted to buy a few postcards before we left so Colin looked up “souvenir shop” on Google Maps. He couldn’t find a single one!

While a few stores around Orléans do sell postcards and other touristy trinkets, it appears there isn’t a dedicated souvenir-only shop.

While I know that we were only living in Orléans temporarily, I liked that we didn’t stick out like tourists. We spoke our basic French to shopkeepers and servers, who usually would answer us back in French (this never happens in Paris!).

At many of the events we attended, we were the only out-of-towners in a crowd of locals. That made it feel like we were truly living in Orléans and taking part in local activities, rather than just seeing the city’s highlights and moving on.

Lastly, I really loved our apartment. I’ll share more about it later in this post, but it had a huge positive impact on our stay in Orléans.

And what we didn’t love

While it was great to have a train station that easily connected us to Paris and the rest of the Loire Valley, the train schedule was limited because Orléans is a smaller city.

Unlike in Paris, where there are multiple major train stations that have 20+ tracks, Orléans just has the one train station with about six tracks.

And as the trains seem to mostly cater to commuters, sometimes there were only trains departing in the morning and then not again until late afternoon.

This made it particularly tricky for us to go on day trips while trying to manage Baby C’s nap schedule. And it was a hassle for my mom, who actually ended up taking a bus back to Paris since the train schedule was so inconvenient.

Another thing that challenged us were some of the limited opening hours in Orléans. We soon learned that a lot of the city is closed on Mondays – including most museums, shops and restaurants.

Some places extended those limited hours to be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays or closed on weekends. We once tried to find a cafe to sit and have a coffee on a Tuesday and circled the city centre for almost an hour before giving up.

While I mentioned above that we never ran out of things to do in Orléans, we did get close. I’m pretty sure we visited every museum in the city and did just about everything I could find for us to do.

Not all of the attractions we went to in Orléans were of super high interest to us and some of them were a bit disappointing. If we had been in a bigger city with more options, we’d have been more picky about what we spent our time and money on.

PS: Wondering what we did spend our money on? Check out our full family travel budget breakdown for our nine month trip!

Most of the food we ate was delicious and I found some favourite restaurants in Orléans. But we did have a few strike-outs with food, namely a few Asian restaurants and one really bad French spot.

And then there’s the minor inconveniences of life in France/Europe compared to our life back in Canada.

Things like not having a dryer and needing 2+ days to hang dry laundry, not being able to get groceries delivered, needing to learn a new system for sorting trash, sidewalks being quite stroller un-friendly, etc.

Of course, these inconveniences were nothing compared to all of the benefits of living in France. They’re just small annoyances we learn to live with.

Our apartment in Orléans

As I mentioned above, our apartment was what led us to Orléans. And it turned out to be as awesome as it looked in the Airbnb listing.

The apartment itself was perfect for us: two large bedrooms with comfortable beds, a huge living space, a modern kitchen (with a dishwasher!), and separate toilet and shower.

It had some classic French charm with its high ceilings and tall windows, hardwood floors (original? maybe!), stone fireplace and a beautiful gold frame mirror.

But it also had lots of modern amenities too, like air conditioning, automatic blackout shutters and the aforementioned dishwasher.

Location-wise, it was perfect. Located on a quiet side-street across from a school, we only heard noise a few times per day when the kids were coming and going. Even then, the chatter was fun and Baby C loved looking out the window at all the kiddos.

Our apartment was a 10 minute walk to the Orléans train station, 10 minutes to two different grocery stores, 6 minutes to the main square in the city centre, and just a couple of minutes to restaurants, shops and bakeries.

There was also a park on the street behind us that had walking paths, a playground and designated areas for dogs!

Getting around Orléans

One of the best parts about living in Orléans was how easy it was to get around. Our apartment was perfectly located so we could get everywhere on foot.

Every day we set off from the apartment, pushing Baby C’s stroller and sometimes pulling Ellie’s leash, to explore the city. We walked to museums, grocery stores, the train station, restaurants, parks, shops and more.

The rare times when we couldn’t walk, we made use of Orléans’ excellent public transportation. We only took the bus or tram a couple of times, but in our experience it was always clean and fast (though sometimes buses were delayed).

We downloaded the city’s public transport app, Flash Ticket TAO, so we could easily buy our bus and tram tickets. TAO also runs a bike-share program in Orléans, though we didn’t have a chance to try it.

Groceries, shopping and errands in Orléans

Besides museums and monuments, we also just lived our regular life in Orléans. And that means the not-so-glamourous parts of long term travel like grocery shopping, replenishing wardrobes, buying medicine, etc.

Our go-to grocery store was the Carrefour located at the Orléans train station. This was one of the biggest grocery stores I’ve ever seen in Europe – nothing like the tiny grocery stores we got used to when we were living in Prague.

At times it was overwhelming how huge the Carrefour was, though it did give us plenty of options and sales to shop. I was a particular fan of the discount fridge at the back of the store!

There was also an Intermarche grocery store within a 10 minute walk of us – it was larger than I was expecting but not as big as the Carrefour. It doubled as an Amazon delivery location, which was handy for when we needed to order doggie poop bags.

On Friday afternoons there’s a food market at Place Martroi, the main square in Orléans. We didn’t buy much there besides some bread, but I liked the romantic idea that one day we might be full time farmers’ market shoppers.

Of course, our local boulangerie (about a three minute walk from our apartment) was another food place we frequented often. Their croissants and baguettes were incredible!

We visited a pharmacy once in Orléans to restock our Baby Tylenol. It was a different brand than what we have in Canada but the same ingredients – and so much cheaper!

We also visited the post office for stamps to send some postcards home. I even got the new, limited edition croissant stamp that smells like an actual croissant!

We didn’t have to do much clothes shopping (since we had packed well for baby and ourselves), but did pop into H&M and C&A. Both were well-stocked; C&A even had a plus-size section, which I was impressed to see.

We were able to buy some cold-weather staples for me and Baby C at C&A without breaking the bank. Orléans has lots of clothing stores, but most of the other ones were out of our budget, so I was happy to find what we needed at C&A.

Our favourite things to do in Orléans

Like I said above, we did A LOT in Orléans. With a city this small and walkable – and six weeks to cover it all – it was easy to check everything off the bucket list.

I put together a massive post of everything to do in Orléans but as a teaser, here were a few of my favourite attractions and activities:

• Attending the Loire Festival, a street festival that celebrates the Loire River, full of food stalls and artisan stands
• Visiting the Orléans Cathedral, the fourth tallest cathedral in France (plus seeing the impressive facade with flags waving as you walk down Rue Jeanne d’Arc)
• Taking a self-guided walking tour of Orléans with an audio guide, including popping into Hotel Groslot (AKA City Hall) and seeing the beautiful rooms inside
• Learning about the history of the internment camps near Orléans and honouring the memory of the children who were sent there at the Cercil Museum
• Seeing the beautiful paintings at the Fine Arts Museum and interesting natural history pieces at the Biodiversity Museum
• Hunting for the little mosaic tile art pieces above street signs all around Orléans (some of my favourites are pictured below)
• Walking through beautiful Place Martroi on a sunny day and saying hi to our girl, Joan of Arc, whose statue is the focal point of the square

Our favourite day trips from Orléans

Besides all of our exploring in the city, we also went on lots of day trips from Orléans through the Loire Valley.

We explored lots of medieval towns and Loire Valley chateaux – bringing Baby C along to all of the castles – and really made the most of Orléans as our base.

Some of my favourite day trips were to:

• Chateau de Chenonceau, perched over a river and known as the Ladies’ Castle with beautiful interiors and gardens
• Chateau de Meung-sur-Loire, which surprised us by having so much to see and some very cool animatronic dragons on the grounds
• Blois, a cool little town with a royal castle, House of Magic, WWII Resistance Museum, and huge painted staircase
• Parc Floral de la Source, an expansive park just 30 minutes out of central Orléans

We also enjoyed day trips to Chateau de Cheverny, Chateau de Chambord, Chateau de Villandry and the medieval town of Beaugency.

Our favourite restaurants in Orléans

Check out the full post of my favourite Orléans restaurants so you know where to dine when you visit, plus a few restaurants I recommend you skip.

To get you started, here are some of my top recommendations for where to eat in Orléans:

• Well in Town: A very popular New Zealand-style cafe that serves up delicious pizza and salads
• Oh My Donuts: Light and fluffy donuts with decadent toppings (the Kinder Bueno is my favourite)
• Yensabai: A Laotian restaurant on the other side of the Loire that makes drool-worthy beef skewers
• Saint-Paterne: Our local boulangerie with delicious, fresh croissants and baguettes

5 tips I’d give to someone who wanted to live in Orléans, France

If you’re considering moving to Orléans or even just visiting Orléans, here are a few words of wisdom I can pass along:

1. Stay in our Airbnb

I’m not being sponsored to promote this place; I just genuinely loved it. I think it’d be the perfect place for a family or small group to base for exploring Orléans and the rest of the Loire Valley, with lots of space and charm.

With two rooms on opposite sides of the house, it was the perfect space to host my mom while she travelled with us!

2. Pay attention to opening hours

Many places are closed on Mondays in Orléans (if not Saturday to Tuesday). Some places only open in the afternoons or close for one to two hours for lunch. They may also have special hours for holidays or in the off-season.

Oh and those hours may not be updated on Google Maps (we learned that the hard way more than once!). So pay close attention and have a back up plan.

3. Brush up on your Joan of Arc history

Joan of Arc is a superstar in Orléans, due to the fact that she reversed the almost year-long siege on the city in the 15th Century. You’ll see her everywhere, so it pays to know a bit about her.

You can visit the House of Joan of Arc in Orléans to watch a short and informative movie about her life.

4. Use Orléans as your base for exploring the Loire Valley

Orléans was a really convenient base for train trips and road trips around the Loire. You can get to many of the most beautiful and popular Loire Valley castles within 1-2 hours.

5. Attend a local festival

Some of our favourite memories from Orléans were attending local festivals, like the Loire Festival and Fete de l’Automne. If you can time your visit to line up with a local festival, I’d highly recommend it.

Every May Orléans throws a huge Joan of Arc Festival, which I hear is the one you don’t want to miss!

Wrapping up: Would I choose to live in Orléans again?

As I’m sure you can tell from all of my gushing above, I loved our six weeks living in Orléans, France. It made for the perfect start to the European leg of our Baby Trip.

We got to stay in a beautiful, spacious apartment in the best location so we could walk to everything in the city. We had all of the amenities we needed for daily life, and enough attractions within Orléans and nearby day trips to keep us occupied.

It almost feels like it was fate that our original Airbnb in Rouen was cancelled and we got to come to Orléans instead. If I were planning this trip again, I would choose Orléans from the start.

But would I return to Orléans after having already lived there for six weeks? Probably not. There are other places in France I’d rather discover.

Six weeks felt like the perfect amount of time for us to really get to know Orléans, do all of the available sightseeing in the city, and go on lots of day trips. I don’t think there’d be too much left to do on a return trip.

But I do highly recommend Orléans to other slow travellers. If you’re looking for a charming city to base yourself while you explore the Loire Valley that’s also conveniently on the train line to Paris, choose Orléans.

And just because I’m not signing up to live in Orléans again doesn’t mean I’ll never revisit. I’d love to return with Baby C one day when she’s all grown up to show her the first European city she called home!