Blois is the best base for the central Loire châteaux. Chambord is 18 km east — vast, dramatic, and crawling with day-trippers from late morning. Cheverny is 15 km south, an inhabited 17th-century mansion still owned by the family that built it, and the model for Captain Haddock's Marlinspike Hall in the Tintin books. Chaumont, 20 km west, hosts the annual international garden festival from April to October and has one of the most cinematic château silhouettes in France.
Further afield, Amboise and Chenonceau are both about 35 km west — half an hour by car, easily combined in one day. All these are reachable by car, by Châteaux à Vélo cycle routes, or in summer by the Rémi shuttle bus from Blois station.