The Loir Valley is old France with new plumbing. I find it difficult to tell you just how attractive this is — so let’s stall for a moment and get our bearings. The valley under discussion is the Loir, without a final “e”. The Loire (with an “e”) is the grand one, where monarchs erected the big chateaux we’ve all heard of.

The more modest Loir runs to the north and roughly parallel. Then it dips down before joining its outsize brother around Angers. I hope that’s clear, for I don’t want mistakes: the Loire Valley may have the status, but the Loir has the time warp.

Away from main routes, it moves to rhythms ditched by the rest of France long ago. The river itself runs by hills, woods and farmland, past vineyards, less familiar chateaux and villages where traffic lights rate as innovative.

High streets remain bright with butchers, bakers and ironmongers. Busy ladies bustle about with baskets before returning home to their vegetable gardens. A chap on a tractor hails a brisk bloke with a briefcase, and both head for a sharpener in the cafe.

Old France indeed, but — and this is the trick — well dressed. As the sun seeps into, say, La Chartre-sur-le-Loir, it lights up an abundance of flowers and lends a soft glow to the chalk-white buildings. Villages and dignified little towns look as if blow-cleaned out of respect for past and present. The food is good and bathrooms work. If you fancy slowing down, I’d not hesitate. We kick off in Vendôme.

DAY ONE

You’re not long in town before learning that Balzac was here before you, as a troublesome schoolboy. He spent long hours in detention in the library, where, apparently, he read so voraciously that he fell into a “coma of ideas”. I know the feeling.

The library, in Vendôme’s lovely main park, has become the tourist office (a good place to start; get the maps). The school itself is now the town hall and, as usual in France, is roughly 10 times too big to administer 18,000 citizens.

No matter. The building is grandiose with brick and chalk-stone, the surrounding town full of light, grace and horticulture. Having split up just outside, the Loir wriggles through the old centre in any number of channels, alongside ramparts, weeping willows and wash houses, under little bridges and vast plane trees.

Stroll to the Holy Trinity church, whose flamboyant gothic facade flickers magnificently heavenwards in stone and glass. Then stroll some more, around the cloisters, along the tight-packed Rue du Change and, finally, for a drink under the chestnut trees on Place St Martin. Repair to Le Saint-Georges hotel (14 Rue Poterie; 00 33-2 54 67 42 10, www.hotel-saint-georges-vendome.com; doubles from £43). In a profoundly untrendy town, this is a surprise. Classic from the outside, it’s recently been redone on Afro and Latin-American themes within. Dinner is a brilliant fusion of French and foreign — brilliant value, too (from £20).

DAY TWO

Head out of town (direction: Montoire) into a landscape that survives from a time when speed limits were superfluous: wooded slopes, vineyards, cattle-sized fields. Dodging in and out of view, the Loir sets the meandering pace.