Day Trips – Branfere

Branféré offers visitors the chance to stroll a magnificent park, planted with century old trees, amid free-ranging animals from all over the world.

The extraordinary story of the Jourde family, the previous owners of Branféré, testifies to how this domain transformed, little by little, from private chateau to animal paradise, to world renown site for environmental education. Beginning in the 18th century an amateur botanist planted the vast 60-acre park with rare plants and trees: Araucaria from Chili, Séquoia, Pins Laricio Pines, Camélias, Azalias, Rhododendrons and a 300 year-old Asian Weeping Platane from Asia.

In the chateau, Helen Jourde's paintings, certain of which have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, illustrate her love for the animal world and her fascination for exotic flora of all kinds.