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France

Angers – First Encounter

Happy Monday eventprofs!

Before I continue with presenting you the venues we visited on our first day in Angers, I totally forgot to mention one very important thing about Angers in my first post. In 95% of all venues we visited and in the city centre we had a free Wi-Fi which is an absolute must for business travellers. In addition, we had a free of charge Wi-Fi in the Best Western Hotel d’Anjou where we stayed for three nights.

From Air Museum the tour continued to Angers city centre where we visited the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, a unique events venue. After a short visit of the conference facilities we continued to see the exhibition of David d’Angers, Angers born artist whose works are highly respected and at which he featurs important figures of his era from political, literary and artistic spheres. All the sculptures in the museum are plaster models, which were the preparatory models for his final work. Instead of destroying the pieces, David d’Angers and his family donated the sculptures to the museum of his hometown. These models were then cast in bronze, or sculptured on marble and stone and now scattered throughout France and Europe. The tour guide incited our interest in the exhibition and it seemed we stayed longer than expected in the gallery. But of course that was not an issues and from there we went to see shortly the Musée Jean Lurçat, another unique and spacious venue.

To our misfortune it started raining and didn’t stop until the evening (Luckily that was the only day it rained). On the agenda we also had a Buggy tour of Angers which took place regarding the rain. The idea overall was good, but since it was raining non-stop and we all got wet the tour was shorter than expected. 

The team at Angers Convention Bureau had another small surprise for us and took us to learn about the traditional game of Val de Loire, la Boule de Fort. We spent some time mastering the game before heading back to the hotel to change for dinner.

Stay tuned for more to come about our dinner at the newly opened Loire & Sens resort hotel with amazing catering and event facilities!

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Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Anger

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Musée Jean Lurçat

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Touring Angers on a buggy  

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 La Boule de Fort, traditional game of Val de Loire

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Arrival in Angers

Hello eventprofs!

If you follow my social media, you know already that last weekend I participated in a fam-trip with Angers Convention Bureau(CVB) which was organised for London and France based event planners. The trip was fantastic, we discovered not only Anger but the entire region. The destination Angers Loire Valley is a real gem and I can’t describe how much I enjoyed the trip and the kind hospitality from the CVB team and the local suppliers. Every day had such a busy programme from 9am until12am I couldn’t even update the blog. Now I’m back and extremely excited to share with you all the venues and activities we had in the past days.

To start with I want to give you a small introduction to the region and Angers CVB. Angers is the capital of the Anjou region and the fief of Cointreau, the famous liquor. Angers has universities and research centres which foster research and innovation in the region. At the same time the region offers incredible history, culture, viticulture and gastronomy experience.

Angers CVB was founded five years ago and already has secured high profile conferences. Only three years ago British Airways started directs flights between London City Airport to Angers operating on Saturdays and Tuesdays. If you come from Paris it’s only about 90 min by TGV. Other regular flights are from Nice airport. Having regular flights from London City Airport makes it a perfect destination for corporate events, such as arriving on the weekend for incentive and staying until Tuesday for business or going by train to another French destination.

The three main industries for the region are plant (végétal), electronics and healthcare and many companies within these sectors choose to conduct business in Angers to align their activities and objectives with their core business.

Angers CVB is a one-stop-shop for everyone wanting to organise an event in the region. They can assist with the planning process of any type of events, be it a small conference or incentive or more complex events with over 500 participants, including hotel reservations, catering, evening activities and more. Angers CVB picked just the best for us, it was an incredible trip and I can definitely recommend the destination for corporates based in London as some of the venues offer the exclusivity, luxury and sustainability practices corporates desire for their events.

Our arrival to Anger was very quick and easy, only one hour flight from London City Airport and we were welcomed by Valérie and Marie from Angers CVB at the airport. The Airport in Angers is so small our airline was the only one there and we received our luggage instantly and headed to the first venue, Espace Air Passion.

Espace Air Passion, or Angers Air Museum is located next to the airport. It’s the second largest air museum in France and offers its space for events, be it gala dinners, concerts, exhibitions or seminars and presentations.  Any event can be combines with a museum tour and the control tower .It was interesting to discover that the museum is maintained by dedicated volunteers.

For lunch we were served a very luxurious lunch box by Le Val d’Evre Traiteur and it was just the beginning of all gastronomic surprises to come during the four days!

For now enjoy the photos and stay tuned for new posts about trip!

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All photos © The MICE Blog

Paris

Just back from Paris… such an amazing city! Every time I go there I discover it in new light. I promise to share with you some of Paris gems on the blog soon.

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P.S.- did you know that originally the Eiffel Tower was built for an exhibition, the Exposition Universelle?