Mayenne: Laval, Sainte-Suzanne and Preserved Nature

Two days in the Mayenne, a quiet department that tourist routes often cross without stopping. The trip starts in Laval, with its old castle, its old bridge and its Naive Art museum housed in the castle and devoted to Henri Rousseau, born in the town in 1844. Sainte-Suzanne, listed among France's most beautiful villages, keeps an eleventh-century keep and ramparts that held out against William the Conqueror; Saulges and the Erve canyon add decorated prehistoric caves and a Romanesque chapel, before the chateau de Craon and its English-style park. The pace is slow and uncrowded, two hours from Paris by train. The Mayenne river can also be paddled or navigated by licence-free boat from Laval.