Musée du Champignon

Underground museum in working mushroom caves cut into Loire tuffeau

The Mushroom Museum, just west of Saumur, occupies a long stretch of disused tuffeau quarry tunnels still used to grow mushrooms commercially. The visit walks you past beds of champignons de Paris, oyster mushrooms, shiitake, and stranger varieties — pied bleu, pleurote du panicaut — at every stage of cultivation. Underground galleries open up into surprising chambers carved from the soft white limestone.

It is more interesting than it sounds, particularly when paired with the nearby Saumur cave wineries. The shop sells fresh mushrooms, dried morels, and mushroom-based products. Allow about an hour. Closed in winter.

things to do museum
A story
Most of the white champignons de Paris eaten in France grow not in Paris but in these caves around Saumur. The Loire tuffeau quarries — extracted to build the region's white-stone châteaux — became, after the stone ran out, the perfect dark, cool, humid environment for cultivating mushrooms commercially.