Way back in 1991, we spent our Honeymoon camping along the Loire Valley here in France. Camping was all we could afford at the time...even if it wasn't the most romantic of honeymoon options! I REALLY wanted to come back here & revisit the area WITHOUT a tent! And so we have.
In the last few days we have visited some Chateaus we hadn't met before & have revisited a few that we could vaguely remember. It has been a treat to introduce our daughter to a part of France she hadn't experienced, and one that is so special in our history together.
The first Chateau on our list was Chenonceau. This is possibly the most visited & for good reason...it is beautiful! As with each visit, I have taken hundreds of photos, so for this blog I am only going to give you two; one of the Chateaux itself & one of something special we experienced whilst there.
Chenonceau was owned by a variety of strong women, amongst them was Catherine deMedici, who swapped this chateaux which Diane de Portier was living in, with the chateau at Chaumont -Sur-Loire!
There were beautiful tapestries & furnishings & paintings throughout this house, but one feature that made a big impression on me, were the flower arrangements. They were stunning & in almost every room. I later found out that there is a full time flower studio in the grounds & they grow all their own flowers for the express purpose of making these displays to delight visitors like me!
Our next Chateau was Azay-le-Rideau & I remember it as being my favourite from our visit 25 years ago. Alas, we arrived to see most of it wrapped up for extensive restoration work. That definitely took some of the glamour away!! Never the less it was still pretty & more intimate than Chenonceau.
We loved the billiards room! True, this is not something that we would normally be so attracted to, but our accommodation at the moment has a billiards table & we have been having a few games of 8-ball. It's a novelty!!
The beautiful Chaumont-Sur-Loire is what Diane de Portier got in exchange for Chenonceau & in my opinion, she got the better deal! It was our first visit here & aside from having the BEST chocolate tart we have yet had in France, each room of this Chateaux was stunning. It also had impressive stables which are now used for art exhibitions & even a donkey stable! Awwwww!
We came at the best time of year, because they are currently holding their annual garden festival. The grounds are full of outdoor rooms prepared by garden artists trying to create something unique & inspiring. This was very impressive, a true merging of the outdoors with the indoors. The use of mirrors made this so effective.
Villandry is known world wide for it's gardens, but the Chateau itself is also a delight to wander through & the windows to the outside provide spectacular views. This has been adapted over many generations to cater to the needs of family living. The current owners even live somewhere on the property.
The gardens are famous for their intricate knot work & the various symbols contained there in. What is surprising to most, is that these are predominantly VEGETABLE gardens, & as they are now completely organic, I suspect the flowers may have some permaculture attributes to their location alongside the veges. The walk around the raised area surrounding the gardens was pure delight.
Our last Chateau was Usse. This is allegedly the inspiration for Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' castle! This too, is not state owned & the family have slowly restored interesting aspects of their Chateau. They still have a chapel & wine caves intact, so these added another dimension to our visit, as did the collection of old fashioned carts the forbears of the current owners would have been transported in!!
One thing that set this Chateau apart, was the use of mannequins to create scenes in each of the rooms. Apparently each year they hire costumes from different periods of history. In one of the turrets, mannequins portray the tale of sleeping beauty, which I suspect that child visitors would get more of a kick out of than I did....it involved an awful lot of climbing stairs!!
One could easily spend at least a month here seeing a different Chateau every day, but we were very happy with the few we saw & the variety within that limited number. It was an enchanting way to explore the area too.
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