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Capital of Anjou and gateway to the Loire valley, Angers is distinguished as much for the richness of its heritage as for its cultural and economic dynamism.
16th largest town in France, with 156,000 inhabitants within an urban area of 260,000 inhabitants, Angers is above all a youthful town with more than 30,000 students.
Thus, if the towers of the imposing castle fortress watch peacefully over the heights of the town, in the streets, museums, gardens, shops, gastronomic restaurants, art festivals and student life give colour to the famous Angevin softness".
Angers is located equidistant from Paris (2h30 by motorway and 1h30 by high-speed train) and from the Atlantic Ocean. With more than 300 km of navigable waterways and 250km of footpaths for rambling, it provides a range of activities for its inhabitants and its guests.
With its face to the future, Angers is nonetheless a town full of history. And what history! Since 50 BC from the time when Angers was called Juliomagus until the present rapid expansion, the town has seen passing through it some of the greatest figures in the history of France: the Plantagenêts, King René, the writer François Rabelais, the poet Joachim du Bellay, as well as the composer Clément Janequin and the surgeon Ambroise Paré.
Let us observe finally that Angers enjoys world-wide prestige by being the gateway to the Loire valley, recently recognised by UNESCO as a world heritage for humanity. The "cultural landscapes" surrounding the town and bordering the Loire are indeed of incomparable splendour and represent without any doubt one of the most beautiful natural wet regions of Europe.
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