For most of my life in France, Paris was my compass. I taught at the Nouvelle Sorbonne and Sciences Po and lived just outside the city, close enough to feel its constant pulse. I drew energy from its rhythm, its lectures and cafés, its insistence on momentum. Which is why it still surprises me that my husband Pierre and I left that all behind for a 17th-century château in the Loire Valley. In Paris, my mind was always moving ahead, cataloguing lectures, meetings, errands, and ideas I wanted to explore. Here, there was nothing pressing, nothing urgent, and that empty space made me notice how I thought. Thoughts that normally skittered past caught themselves mid-flight, lingering long enough for me to consider them: memories of my childhood in Australia, music I had been playing, questions about the life we were beginning in this new place. It was strange, unsettling, and quietly exhilarating to feel my mind slowing, stretching, and expanding in ways I hadn’t realized it could.

I became aware of the rhythm of my breathing, of the subtle warmth of the stone under my hands, of the almost imperceptible shifts in light across the château walls. I noticed the crunch of my footsteps on the gravel, the whisper of the wind through the trees. For the first time in years, I could feel the shape of my thoughts as they moved, how they curved and bent around the silence instead of rushing past it. I realized I was paying attention not just to the world outside, but to the inner world that had been quieted by the constant pace of the city.

It was in that stillness that the château first revealed itself—not just its history, its stones, or its chapel, but the way it invited observation, reflection, and imagination. Every carved cross, every moss-softened stone, every mark etched by centuries of hands waited to be noticed. And when I finally looked up from my own thoughts, the fields blurred in the sun, the air thick with the scent of dry grass, the trees alive with birdsong. The silence remained, but it was no longer empty—it was full of possibilities I hadn’t seen before.

What drew us to Détilly wasn’t grandeur but the odd, intimate details that made the place human. The medieval chapel, dedicated to Notre-Dame de la Pitié and Saint Marc, bears crosses carved by the Knights Templar, reminders that this stretch of the Vienne River was once more frontier than refuge. I don’t consider myself mystical, but stepping into that space, I felt its weight. The chapel isn’t solemn so much as steady, a sanctuary where centuries and everyday life meet.

That same sense of continuity shaped how we saw our role here. From the start, we never felt like owners. We are caretakers—of leaking roofs, moss-softened stones, and a story that began long before us. Our Irish wolfhounds seem to know this better than anyone. Ramsès roams the grounds like a watchman, while his son, Aramis Destilly, lingers by the chapel door as if tuned to something the rest of us only half-hear.

Of course, history here isn’t just romance—it’s cracked stone, doors that stick, and roofs that groan under winter rain. Preservation is rarely dramatic; it’s patience, repetition, and learning to live with the slow, uneven tempo of a place that’s seen far more seasons than we have.

At Détilly, imagination rises differently. One afternoon I sat watching light shift across the west-facing chapel door, and from that stillness a scene for a novel took shape—something I never would have found in Paris’s constant rush. Guests at our summer writers’ retreat often feel it too. One, standing beneath the old arch, said she felt “history leaning close, but kindly.” Another, after an evening in the garden, told me she had “heard my thoughts for the first time in months.” I know what they mean. The château doesn’t just provide a backdrop—it participates.

And yet, the château’s voice is just as present in the mundane. The real surprise isn’t that we moved here, but that we’ve come to love the small, daily negotiations: coaxing life from a sulky boiler, finding warmth in stone that holds the cold, and tackling repairs that never quite end. None of this was in our plan, and maybe that’s why it feels so alive. There’s something steadying in that work, a quiet satisfaction that comes from tending to the place rather than simply fixing it. It isn’t about efficiency anymore, but about learning to move in step with the château’s slower rhythm, letting its needs shape the pace of our days—and, eventually, shape us.

Living at Détilly keeps us asking: What does it mean to dwell inside history? How do you make a life in walls that have already sheltered so many others? We don’t have the answers. For now, we walk the grounds with the dogs, patch the roof when it leaks, welcome guests when the season allows, and watch evening light pour through the chapel door.

Maybe that’s enough—to live alongside the past, not only to look at it, with all its imperfections, its demands, and the quiet rewards that come when you stop trying to shape a place and let it shape you.

Château de Détilly, 18 Rue des Fromentaux, 37420 Beaumont-en-Véron, is located near where the Vienne River joins the Loire, 5 miles from Chinon.

© 2025, Grahame Elliott

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Recently, Chartres has also become an overnight destination thanks to the vibrant and animated illuminations of the cathedral and twenty other historic sights and monuments that make for an enchanting evening walk-about. And the allure of Chartres by night has given a boost to expanding and upgrading the town’s lodging and dining offerings.

So we packed our toothbrushes and took the train, an hour’s ride southwest from Paris’s Montparnasse Station, to visit Chartres by day and by night, as you’ll see in this France Revisited video.

Restaurants and Lodging

The best of the lot is the Grand Monarque Hotel & Spa, a handsome 4-star establishment that’s less than a 10-minute walk from the train station in one direction or from the cathedral in another. It houses Le Georges, a 1-star Michelin restaurant, and La Cour, a fine brasserie, as well as a bar, a fitness space and a wellness center.

Jehan de Beauce is a stylish, 35-room 4-star hotel located across the street from the train station and a 10-minute walk from the cathedral. The owners also operate the pleasant restaurant Le Molière, a 5-minute walk from the hotel.

A few steps behind the cathedral, the Hôtellerie Saint Yves has the particularity of belonging to the diocese, but you needn’t be on a pilgrimage to Chartres, or even Catholic, to appreciate the location, the comfort and budget pricing of its modest rooms, and the atmosphere of this 17th-century building, a former monastery.

There are also several of worthy B&Bs near the center of town.

Le Moulin de Ponceau is a charming and appetizing address for a meal by the Eure River. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

Then there are those irresistible seats in the cafés and restaurants beside the cathedral.

Saturday morning, until 1PM, is food market time at Place Billard, the covered market in the historic center, close to the cathedral and the tourist office.

The Chartres Tourist Office is located in a 16th-century half-timbered building at 8 rue de la Poissonnerie, a 2-minute walk from the cathedral. See here for the dates of festivals and other events in Chartres. Also see this article about the five fabulous Notre-Dame Cathedrals within 100 miles of Paris (Paris, Chartres, Laon, Amiens, Reims).

Cycling on the Veloscenic Route

Chartres is also now a biking destination or stopover due to the development of the 280-mile (450-km) Veloscenic cycling route from Paris to Mont Saint Michel. Chartres on its own can serve as base for a day or two of cycling. Electric or “muscular” bikes can be rented next to the Chartres train station for any length of time, and electric bikes are available at the Chartres Tourist Office for one or two days. In either case, be sure to reserve in advance—well in advance for weekends and summer.

Among several options of circuits around Chartres, there’s a sporty 35-miles (53-km) ride to the Château de Rambouillet with a midway pause to visit the Château de Maintenon. From Rambouillet you’d then return with the bike to Chartres by train. Trains run frequently between the two towns and take 30-40 minutes. Or limit your day to the Chartres-Maintenon cycling route, then back by train or bike. Either way, you then rest and dine before enjoying the stroll through illuminated Chartres, before heading elsewhere by bike, car or train the following day.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

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On a far more intimate scale, the Clos Lucé in Amboise, a charming brick chateau in the Loire Valley, also made the cut. Though called a chateau, the Clos Lucé more resembles a large manor, and its magic is less about royal high-rollers than the Italian commoner who resided on the grounds for three short years: Leonardo da Vinci.

With three paintings in his luggage—Mona Lisa, St. Anne and John the Baptist—Leonardo da Vinci made the long and arduous journey across the Alps to Amboise via mule-train and riverboat in 1516 at the well-paid request of King François I, his last noble patron.

While Leonardo’s French dwelling has been open to the public since the 1950s, its displays have changed and expanded over the decades, and a free-standing, immersive gallery inaugurated on the grounds in June 2021 now makes the Clos Lucé an even more enticing place the understand the genius of Leonardo (Léonard in French). It includes 21st-century high-tech gizmos that the Renaissance man himself would undoubtedly have appreciated.

The Clos Lucé is a 10-minute walk from the sprawling clifftop Château d’Amboise, that has dominated the town and the Loire River for over 800 years, where eventual King François (Francis) I grew up. Shortly after his coronation in 1515, France embarked on string of military victories on the Italian peninsula, the latest in a series of incursions there. Though they failed to secure for France the control and influence that it long sought in Italy, they did lead the king to appreciate Italian culture and to a meeting with the great Renaissance man himself. An art lover and an artist groupie, François I installed his famous Florentine guest near Amboise Castle in what was then known as the Manoir du Cloux, a 15th century turreted pink brick mansion that would later come to be called the Château du Clos Lucé. An underground passage, since filled in, linked the two properties for private king-to-genius visits.

The Cloux-cum-Clos is also associated with an earlier relationship between a royal and a commoner, that of Louis XI and a kitchen boy named Etienne Le Loup. Legend holds that one fine day in 1471 the king ventured into the royal pantry and asked the teen how much he was paid. Etienne replied “as much as the king,” leading Louis to inquire how much he thought the king earned. “As much as he needs, just like me.” The king was so charmed by this response that he gave the kid a title and the Clos Lucé holding. Etienne then expanded the manor on the site, making it much the way it appears today from the outside. Whatever the true reason for the king’s generosity, Etienne, in 1490, sold the property back to the crown, then on the head of Louis’s successor, who transformed portions of the interior (a royal chapel was added). The stage was soon sent for the property to serve as the royal guest house for da Vinci.

A Da Vinci Theme Park

Since 1855, the Clos Lucé estate has been owned by the Saint Bris family. While his parents opened the grounds to the public in 1954, it’s the current landlord, François Saint Bris, who has sprinkled the pixie dust of Leonardo’s genius throughout the property.

“Genius” is notoriously difficult to convey to a large audience. But Leonardo’s brilliance as an artist, architect, inventor, engineer and urbanist is demonstrated by actual things that can be seen, touched or used: Mona Lisa in the Louvre, the Escher-esque spiral staircase that’s primarily attributed to him at Chambord, and here at the Clos Lucé many models and visionary images to amaze and delight visitors of all ages: swiveling bridges, helicopters, automobiles, bat-winged gliders, ideal cities, urban sewage systems, theatrical spectacles and, alas, armored tanks and machine guns.

Growing up on the property, François Saint Bris wasn’t immediately drawn in by the da Vinci mystique. As a child, he says, adult discussions of “le grand Léonard” sounded like “le grand renard” (the giant fox), which was more interesting to him than “a guy called Leonard.” Clearly, he has come around as he has increasingly turned the Clos Lucé into a da Vinci theme park, with further projects on the drawing board.

The new Leonardo da Vinci Galleries form an immersive playground that recreates—though some sleight-of-hand tech from IBM, Dassault Aeronautics and the numeric architecture firm Arc-en-Scène—da Vinci’s most fantastic accomplishments. Geared to delight both children and adults, the new invention and architecture spaces, housed in a freshly renovated 19th-century factory on the property, expand on the already extensive simulations that visitors could see at the main abode of the Clos Lucé. They’re filled with 3-D models and videos, including games that simulate Leonardo’s gliders flying over the Loire, while his art is honored in a virtual and musical montage with 200 images dissolving and evolving across the walls.

And it doesn’t stop there. The extensive gardens, echoing the flowers and foliage depicted in Leonardo’s paintings, are punctuated by scale models of the inventor’s innovative bridges and computer-generated images. In the chateau/manor itself, visitors can see a reconstitution of Leonardo’s bedroom, a reconstruction of his studio, the oratory frescoes that Charles VIII commissioned for his wife Anne de Bretagne, and a life-size, walking-talking hologram of Leonardo chatting about art with the Cardinal of Aragon.

Amboise Castle and Da Vinci DNA

No “Homage to Leonardo” tour would be complete without a visit to the Château d’Amboise, in whichever order you choose to visit them. While the castle housed over a dozen kings and a plethora of dukes over the ages, it also held unwilling guests. D’Artagnan escorted the flashy financier Nicolas Fouquet of Vaux-le-Vicomte fame, to the grounds after Louis XIV accused him of embezzlement and before he was sent to a more distant and damning prison. The Emir Abd El Kader (1808-1883), leader of the Algerian resistance, was a prisoner of state at Amboise, along with his family and an entourage of 83, from 1848 until liberated by Louis Napoléon Bonaparte in 1852. There’s a statue to his memory in the castle’s park.

Inside the castle, one can see a sentimental yet historically inaccurate vision of Leonardo’s death in the arms of François I that was painted by François-Guillaume Ménageot in 1781. While the two men were indeed on very friendly terms, the king was in Saint-Germain-en-Laye when Leonardo died at the Clos Lucé.

There’s greater mystery connected with Leonardo’s final resting place. On his deathbed, the artist asked to be buried in the royal chapel in the gardens of Amboise castle, and this request was granted. However, that chapel was destroyed during the Revolution—a statue of Leonardo in the garden marks the chapel’s former location—but at the time no one was overly concerned with the graves on the site.

Leonardo’s lily-bedecked tomb was moved to another chapel at the castle site, Chapelle de Saint Hubert, a small, freestanding Flamboyant Gothic edifice, decorated with antlers because Hubert is the patron saint of hunters.

But is Leonardo da Vinci really buried there?

It wasn’t until 1863, when historian Arsène Houssaye started poking through the debris, that a coffin and some coins minted during François I’s reign were discovered and nearby remains were designated as da Vinci’s.

This has engendered countless, Dan Brownish discussions over the years along on the lines of “was the body now entombed in the current Amboise grave left-handed like Leonardo?” Advances in DNA research—and the da Vincimania that accompanied the 500-year commemorations of his death in 2019 (when the Clos Lucé drew a record 520,000 visitors)—sparked an international fire-storm of interest in the genetic heritage of the remains in the tomb.

Leonardo’s DNA has proved elusive. He apparently had no direct offspring yet his extremely prolific father, a Florentine notary, spawned double-digit half-siblings for the artist.  Samples from the remains in the Amboise vault have been sent to several DNA labs, but there’s been no definitive answer as yet. For the moment, Leonardo’s chromosomes are still as enigmatic as Mona Lisa’s smile.

Practical information

Though more likely visited during extended explorations in the Loire Valley, Amboise can be the object of a carefully-timed day trip from Paris. Trains from Paris’s Austerlitz and Montparnasse stations take between an hour and a half and two hours. The Clos Lucé and the Château d’Amboise are just over a mile from the train station. A shuttle bus links the train station with the center of town.

Parking for cars and bicycles is also available in proximity of those sights. There are three public parking lots in Amboise within walking distance of the chateau, along with a designated Clos Lucé lot.

There are two restaurants on the Clos Lucé grounds: La Terrasse Renaissance (salads and crepes) and La Table du Moulin (grilled meat, salads and take-away sandwiches), to be enjoyed on shaded picnic tables. A third restaurant, L’Auberge du Prieuré, specializing in Renaissance-style fare and wines spiked with herbs and honey, is open for groups of 15 or more, reservations required. Picnics are also permitted on the grounds of the Château d’Amboise, which has an on-site café. There are also many cafés and eateries in the stroll-worthy town Amboise, though the primary points of interest are the castle and the Clos Lucé.

Château du Clos-Lucé – Parc Leonardo da Vinci, 2 rue du Clos Lucé, Amboise. Closed December 25 and January 1.

Château d’Amboise/Amboise Castle, Montée de l’Emir Abd El Kader, Amboise. Closed December 25 and January 1.

© 2022, Corinne LaBalme

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Orléans and New Orleans have been bound by name ever since the latter’s founding as a French colony in 1718, when it was christened in honor of Philippe, Duke of Orleans. But it wasn’t until January 5 this year that the French city on the northern tip of the Loire and the American city on a southern bend of the Mississippi formerly declared themselves related. Sisters, in fact, as Mayor Olivier Carré of Orleans and Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans signed a sister-city pact.

In November last year, Mayor Landrieu et al. had come calling on Mayor Carré in Orléans (photo above), with other stops in Paris and Monaco.The formal signing took place in New Orleans on the return visit when Mayor Carré led a delegation of Orleanais to visit their New Orleanian counterparts.

The occasion for this sister act is the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Orleans within the territory of Louisiana, itself named in honor of King Louis XIV in 1682. Philippe d’Orléans, the king’s nephew, wasn’t just any old duke. After Louis XIV’s death in 1715, Philippe was appointed as regent of France to oversee the kingdom during the youth of the next King Louis, who was 5 years old when he became the XVth. Phil was therefore the man to honor in 1718.

The recent signing was also timed to coincide with New Orleans’ annual celebration on January 6 of Joan of Arc’s birthday, which includes a parade and festivities honoring the city’s French cultural heritage.

While Joan’s birthday is otherwise overshadowed by Mardi Gras as far as festivities go in New Orleans, she receives perpetual honors as a heroine in Orleans. It was, after all, at the gates of Orleans that her reputation took a great leap when she led the charge to help lift the English siege of the city on May 8, 1429. The French victory at Orléans proved to be a major turning point in the Hundred Year’s War against the English. It launched a series of French victories that restored and enhanced the king’s position, helped open the route to Reims for the official coronation of Charles VII, and eventually chased the English from most of the continent. Think of it as the D-Day of the Hundred Year’s War.

An image in relief on the heroine’s statue at the center of Orléans’ oversized central square, Place du Martoi, shows Joan leading the charge during the siege that earned her the moniker of Maid of Orleans (la Pucelle d’Orléans).

That statue, shown at the top of this article, was damaged during the Second World War and restored in 1950 in part thanks to donations from the City of New Orleans.

New Orleans eventually received its own statue of Joan, “A gift from the people of France to the citizens of New Orleans,” as is written on the pedestal. Erected in 1972, that one is a copy of state-sponsored gilt statue by Emmanuel Frémiet first placed on Place des Pyramides in Paris in 1874. Philadelphia and Portland also have copies, as does Melbourne, Australia, and six other cities in France.

Orléans’ Joan of Arc Festival (Fêtes Johannique) in early May, culminating on the 8th, is the highlight of the festival schedule of the city. As part of the the sister-city exchange this year, New Orleans will be the guest of honor at the festival (French President Emmanuel Macron may also attend), whilc also taking part in Orléans’ annual Foirexpo fair, April 6-15 , and Gastronomy Fair, Nov. 23-26. During the summer a pop-up boutique will sell goods from Louisiana. Other sporting and educational exchanges are also planned. In the longer term, the two cities have agreed to express their sisterhood in exchanges and discussions relative to water issues, tourism, culture and heritage, economics, and education and training.

For further tourist information about Orléans see the site of the Orléans Tourist Office. For information about the surrounding countryside see the site of the Loiret Tourist Board.

Elsewhere in the Loire Valley, Tours is sisters with Minneapolis and Trois-Rivières (Quebec), Nantes is sisters with Jacksonville and Seattle, and Saumur is friends with Asheville (NC).

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

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Relais & Châteaux… If those words mean nothing to you, it’s a safe bet that your travel budget and fantasies typically stops short of 5-star lodging. Relais & Châteaux, a grouping of individually owned hotels and restaurants, publishes a luxurious color catalog with drool-inducing cheesecake photos of its platinum-card fantasy resorts. It’s 815 pages of travel porn.

Today’s Relais & Châteaux spans the globe from A(rgentina) to Z(ambia), with 544 resort/restaurant “members.” Of course, all this glamor had to start somewhere and “somewhere” turns out to be roughly 80 miles south of Paris, in Loiret, a region on the eastern edge of the Loire Valley, at a quiet, family-run inn called the Auberge des Templiers.

Back in the 1940s, the French were just getting used to the concept of paid vacations. Naturally, everyone wanted to go south for their holiday, and the National 7 highway, linking Paris with the Riviera, took on a mythic allure, similar to that of Route 66 in the US.

In 1945 the grandmother of the present owner of the Auberge des Templiers opened her roadside family kitchen to hungry vacationers happy to hit the road in liberated France. Nine years later, what had become a prosperous inn joined seven other National 7 inns to form Relais de Campagne, an association dedicated to “calm, comfort and courtesy.” Their pilot group was federated under the Relais & Chateaux banner in 1975.

Of the original eight hotels, only the Auberge des Templiers still exists. Guillaume Dépée, the third generation to run the family business, occasionally finds it difficult to fit into the corporate mentality of the present-day R&C, a gold-plate logo that embraces wine tasting in Uruguay, Chinese spa treatments in Nanjing, and luxury safaris near Kenya’s Maasai Reserve.

“There’s an emphasis on global investment and celebrity chefs, which are areas where a small family hotel like mine simply can’t compete,” says Guillaume Dépée, whose restaurant nevertheless has one Michelin star. “I don’t do glitter; I do authenticity. I give people exactly what I want as a consumer and what my grandparents stood for: calm, comfort and courtesy.”

Calm and comfort? Oh yes! The Auberge is a woodsy haven with wisteria-bedecked terraces, 400-year-old trees and a large outdoor pool. The guestrooms are housed in delightfully eclectic buildings with thatched or gabled rooftops. No two are the same since each generation of the Dépée family makes its own additions. The present owner added an Esthederm spa for the summer 2017 season plus a poolside champagne bar with sushi snacks created by Chef Yoshihiko Miura.

Courtesy? Yes, that’s also there but it works both ways. “This is my family home and I don’t mind ejecting guests who are rude with the staff,” says Dépée, noting that a prized staff-member has worked at the hotel since his grandparents’ day. Unlike most hotel directors, Dépée lives on the premises, in the house where he grew up, sharing his digs with a stray cat who developed a penchant for Chef Miura’s sashimi.

While the chef hails from Japan (and has a coveted license-not-to-kill with fugu), he displays a Franco-French sensibility for dishes like savory crabmeat with avocado cream and delicate lamb chops accented with herbs straight from the hotel’s garden.

“We buy only from local suppliers who use no pesticides,” says Dépée. “We have our beehives for honey and I support local wine-makers. Just don’t expect tuna, strawberries in January or water in plastic bottles.”

In other words, you can dine at the Templiers without fretting too much about your carbon footprint.

“I totally support the Relais & Châteaux ecological initiatives spearheaded by [Brittany’s three-star chef] Olivier Roellinger. As members of the hospitality business, we are the ambassadors and guardians of the precious ecosystems that make our locations so attractive to others.”

The Auberge des Templiers is also surprisingly affordable, offering some economical mid-week packages and lunches – either in the restaurant or poolside.

The Auberge des Templiers may be removed from the block-buster chateaux of the Loire Valley but the World Heritage portion of the Loire Valley actually starts right nearby, with the castle at Sully sur Loire. A few miles from there is Saint Benoit sur Loire, notable for the extraordinary details and luminosity of the Romanesque basilica of Fleury Abbey. An excursion from the inn might also include a visit to Gien, famous for its earthenware (faience) and its International Hunting Museum and to Lorris for the Museum of the Resistance and Deportation.

Auberge des Templiers. Les Bézards, 45290 Boismorand. Tel: 02.38.31.80.81. Closed February 15 to March 10. The Auberge is a 75-minute train trip from Paris-Bercy to Nogent-sur-Vernisson. For those arriving for car-free R&R the hotel can arrange to meet guests at the station, a 10-minute drive from the inn.

(c) 2017, Corinne LaBalme

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Summer now brightens the Loire Valley. The limestone chateaux sparkle in ochre and gold. Chambord stands out in a clearing in the forest as an enormous and intricate block of limestone encrusted with slate in its crown. Cheverny appears bleached in the midday sun. In summer’s light Chenonceau seems to prance more lightly than ever over the Cher River. Azay-le-Rideau now enjoys its days in the sun after several years of restoration. The slate bands of Angers glisten grey.

But there’s more to these chateaux than elegant masonry. This year, while continuing to honor its royal and noble stonework, the Loire Valley is celebrating its gardens and their history. Whether you think of it as the Loire Valley, Val de Loire, the Valley of the Kings or “that region with all the castles,” the valley, with its confluents, is now in full bloom.

The history of the chateaux of the Loire Valley is intimately linked with the history of France of the 15th and 16th century. During that period the kings, along with their financiers and entourage, frequently sojourned in the valley. That period corresponds to an evolution of the architecture of the dwellings of the rich and powerful. The high crenelated walls, blind except for their arrow slits, of the defensive castle lost their utility in the 15th century; canons and other arms meant that defenses had to be further out. Castle architects could therefore drop their defenses, so to speak, giving way to more open, ornamental configurations in the form of luxuriant castles and palaces. At the same time, the castle garden evolved from plots for fruit trees, vegetables and herbs to the geometric embroidery of what came to be known as the French garden.

Even though the Bourbon kings in the 17th century returned their focus to Paris (the Louvre, the Tuileries) and the capital region (Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, finally Versailles), the chateaux of the Loire Valley were not forgotten. And their surroundings gardens often expanded along with the scope and fashion of the French garden. By the 18th century the arrival of exotic plants from the New World at the port of Nantes, at the far end of the valley, further enriched noble gardens with vegetation, trees and medicinal plants.

The history of French gardens is therefore intimately related to that of its chateaux, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Loire Valley.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Loire flows north from low in the center of France before veering west to the Atlantic. When we speak of Val de Loire, the Loire Valley, we refer to the 180-mile stretch of that western flow, from Sully-sur-Loire (southeast of Orleans) to Nantes, including its surrounding confluents and rivers: the Cher, the Indre, the Maine, the Loir.

UNESCO has designated the banks of the Loire from Sully-sur-Loire to Chalonnnes-sur-Loire (just short of Nantes) as a World Heritage Site, calling it “an outstanding cultural landscape of great beauty, containing historic towns and villages, great architectural monuments (the châteaux), and cultivated lands formed by many centuries of interaction between their population and the physical environment, primarily the river Loire itself.”

This year the Loire Valley Mission has placed the region’s gardens as the centerpiece of the cultural season. From château to château—some we may think of as castles, some as palaces—gardens and garden exhibitions throughout the valley invite travelers to take a stroll through the evolution of French gardens: from the closed medieval garden square to the fountains and grottos of the Italian-cum-French gardens of the French Renaissance to the vast aristocratic and royal gardens developed around a central axis, and in some cases to English gardens of the 19th century.

Villandry

The Year of Gardens in the Loire Valley was launched this spring at the valley’s the most famous gardens, those of Villandry.

Henri Carvallo, Villandry’s owner, is the great-grandson Joachim Carvallo, a Spanish doctor, and Ann Coleman, an American heiress to the Coleman iron and steel business, who purchased the property in 1906. They (re)created the Renaissance garden based in part on vegetal archeology, eliminating in the process a 19th-century English garden created by their predecessors. At its origin (during the Renaissance and for the Carvallos) the kitchen garden was created for both decorative and botanical purposes. The Carvallos added terraces, symbolic ornamental hedge gardens, a labyrinth and a water basin.

Joachim Carvallo founded La Demeure Historique, an association of private owners of historical homes and gardens, which remains an important player in the field of heritage sites in France.

Having grown up with a vegetal game board for a backyard, it’s no surprise that his great-grandson Henri Carvallo would become adept at the game of chess. He is a former president of the French Chess Federation and chess tournaments are occasionally held at Villandry.

Ten gardeners work full time at Villandry, with Laurent Portuguez at the helm. Portuguez was hired 10 years ago to head the project for the construction of a new garden, “the sun garden” (2008), and was soon named head gardener for the property. The Carvallo family now lives in what used to be the estate’s farm building, the basse-cour, as does Portuguez.

Villandry’s gardens, open yearround, draw about 350,000 visitors per year. During the time of the stewardship of Henri Carvallo’s parents about 20 percent of visitors would pay the extra francs to enter the chateau. Now about 50 percent pay the extra euros to do so. There are several charming rooms to furnish visitors’ noble fantasies and a Maureque room as a reminder that the expanding world view of the Renaissance bought with it a taste for exoticism. The main attraction to entering the castle, however, is the view from the top of the tower overlooking the gardens.

Other major gardens

Gardens throughout the valley and along its confluents have been replanted, modified, restored or created over the past century, as one would expect from plots originally landscaped hundreds of years ago. Some have disappeared completely, for example Blois, where the city has grown over the garden.

Among the most notable visible today are:

Chambord. Chambord is a national domain where Francis I’s 16th-century castle is bordered by a reconstitution of a garden envision by Louis XIV in the 17th-century gardens and designed in the 18th century. The garden was inaugurated by President Hollande early this year.

Chenonceau. Perhaps due to its soap-opera quality, the historical anecdote that all visitors seem to know when arriving in the valley is this: After the death of her husband King Henri II, who’d been mortally wounded in a jousting tournament in Paris in 1559, Catherine de Medicis forced an exchange of castles upon the late king’s mistress Diane de Poitiers. The queen swapped her emotionless Chaumont overlooking the Loire for Diane’s more modernly elegant Chenonceau stepping across the Cher. Chenonceau’s role in that famous catfight has probably contributed to it being the most-visited privately owned chateau in France, though it is indeed a feast for the eye and the owners, the Meniers (chocolate magnate Henri Menier purchased Chenonceau in 1913), have developed a spectacular setting into a thriving business. The chateau is preceded by a gardens initiated by Diane to one side and by Catherine to the other. A separate garden provides the profusion of flowers seen inside the chateau. There’s also a labyrinth on the property, some donkeys and an English garden that will be inaugurated this fall.

Chaumont-sur-Loire. Meanwhile, back at the Loire, Chaumont is no longer the mammoth that Catherine was quick to swap. Today it would today be well worth an exchange. Overlooking the river between Blois and Amboise, this vast domain belonging to the region Centre-Val de Loire doesn’t need the Year of Gardens to call attention to itself as a destination for garden-lovers. Each year since 1992 an international assortment of landscape gardeners has been selected to create new gardens on a portion of the estate. This year’s theme is Flower Power. Altogether the gardens form a renewable space of innovation, creativity and pleasure for the senses.

Angers. Angers Castle is an impassive fortification on the Maine River. Though one doesn’t typically think of visiting the fortified castle of Angers for anything but a view of its imposing walls and the spectacle of the Tapestry of the Apocalypse inside, snippets of garden and horticulture plots along the top of the walls offer a panorama of the vegetal vocabulary of the French Renaissance. In 2017 Angers and Nantes were ranked as having best policies regarding green urban spaces and preserving diversity, according to the Observatoire des Villes Vertes, an organization that brings together directors of green spaces in cities throughout France. The OVV noted Tours, a central city in the Loire Valley, as the city with the most green space accessible to the public.

Azay-le-Rideau. Sitting on an island in the Indre River, Azay has finally been released from the scaffolding that for three years prohibited an open view of its 16th-century grace. Here it isn’t so much the variety of trees or the English garden that adds to the overall architecture of the setting as the surrounding water in which the castle is mirrored.

Other gardens

The diverse range of chateau gardens and other significant gardens in the Loire Valley that are in the spotlight this year are presented on the website Jardins en Val de Loire. Summer travelers looking to visit gardens beyond the blockbusters noted above will find ample suggestions there for further garden explorations and more breathing space. A program of events is also found on the site.

Don’t worry though if you can’t make it to the Loire Valley this year. The gardens and their history will still be here in the years to come.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

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Sitting on a cliff overlooking the Loire River, the castle of Chaumont has great appeal year-round for a drive-by photoshoot. But the true fairy tale is in the backyard from April 1 to November 2 when the annual International Garden Festival, now in its 25th year, makes the castle, its stable and surrounding 79 acres ready for an enchanting variety of close-ups.

This is not your great-grandmother’s garden party. Every year the festival invites creative folk from other fields (e.g. Baroque music conductor Willliam Christie, architect Shiguru Ban, Michelin-starred chef Alain Passard, choreographer Benjamin Millepied) to get their hands dirty in the vast domain of Chaumont, where they’re joined by landscape gardeners and architects and botanical-minded individuals more accustomed to playing in the mud. Young garden creators selected in an annual competition for garden projects round out a truly international festival that displays great diversity in conception and execution.

The results are often playful, thought-provoking and unusual, and the current offbeat crop created around the theme “Gardens from the Coming Century” is no exception.

Among this year’s headliners is the decadently hedonistic “Perfumer’s Garden” created by Hermès “nose” Jean-Claude Ellena, who thoughtfully includes a circle of low-rise lounge chairs. (Message: There’s no excuse not to smell the roses and get up-close-and-personal with the roots.)

“Explosive Nature,” designed by landscape architects Marguerite Ribstein and Grégory Cazeaux, is guerilla gardening at its best, created by “seed grenades” lobbed at random towards a wooden bridge structure. It’s a Darwinian Battle of the Buds based on ancient Japanese terra-forming techniques and one of the most classically harmonious gardens of the year.

There’s so much growing at Chaumont that a map—and at least half a day—is necessary. Besides this year’s offbeat ephemeral gardens, there are plenty of old-fashioned art-for-art’s-sake flower gardens, a magnificent variety of long-rooted trees and an ambitious indoor/outdoor art show drawing big-name, blockbuster talents like Andy Goldsworthy, El Anatsui and Marc Couturier.

Unlike the gardens, the castle itself, while old enough to have a working drawbridge and to have been a pawn in the 16th-century Catherine de Medicis/Diane de Poitiers Chaumont-for-Chenonceau real estate swap, is definitely your great-grandmother’s castle… if she were a party-loving 19th-century heiress, that is.

In 1875 17-year-old sugar heiress (and Kim Kardashian prototype) Marie-Charlotte-Constance Say bought what was then a rundown castle. With her husband, Prince Amédée de Broglie, she turned the castle and its domain into France’s premier party venue. The French A-List drank the Princess’s bubbly and an Indian Maharajah sent an elephant as a bread-and-butter gift.

There are lots of elephant photos in the regionally-owned castle (75% self-supporting) since the curators have been banking on emphasizing the site’s colorful 19th century history (less expensive to procure) when refurbishing the castle. While there are some “old” rooms, like the quirky salon dedicated to Catherine’s astrologer, it’s never the “ordinary” Renaissance chateau. The rooms are filled with artworks by the contemporary likes of Sarkis and Gabriel Ozozco.

Don’t miss the stables. Not only is this equine manor house architecturally splendid and vintage harness and saddlery equipment (lots of Hermes here), but that’s where two of this year’s highlight instillations are on view: a fanciful vegetal sculpture signed Patrick Blanc and a gloriously, green marble evocation of the Seine created by Mathieu Lehanneur. The latter was voted by DeZeen Magazine as one of the eight “must see” installations worldwide in the summer of 2016.

Those wishing to explore far and wide on the castle grounds might also go hunting for the princess’s dog cemetery on the edge of the woods.

Practical information: Visiting the castle, the stables, the garden festival at a leisurely pace will take at least several hours. There are decent lunch possibilities on site: a snack bar, a pasta bar and an actual restaurant. Entrance to the castle, the stables and the garden festival costs 14€, 6€ for children 6-11 years old and it’s free for younger children. Two-day passes are available for the passionate gardener. See Chaumont’s website for further details.

Getting there: Chaumont is between Blois and Tour, 165 miles southwest of Paris, about a 2½-hour drive. Trains to Onzain/Chaumont-sur-Loire leaving from Paris’s Gare d’Austerlitz take roughly 2 hours depending on the route; the entrance then a 10-minute walk from the station. Trains operate year-round but most frequently in July and August.

Lodging nearby: There’s the attractive little 3-star Hostellerie du Château (pool, restaurant) in the village so in walking distance, and the luxurious 4-star Domaine des Hauts de Loire (Relais & Chateau) in nearby Onzain.

Preparing for 2017: The competition is already underway for entries to take part in next year’s festival under the theme “Flower Power.”

© 2016 Corinne LaBalme

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This little Loire loop—three days, two nights, including two days of biking—is of the latter kind. Beginning and ending in Blois, itself easily reached by train from Paris in 1½-2 hours, this itinerary provides an excellent introduction to the Loire Valley, its castles, its wines and its biking routes. All that with little preparation. Your most difficult decision may well be what to pack in order to keep your biking load light.

Chaumont, Cheverny and Chambord, the three chateaux on this route, are different enough that castle-fatigue won’t set in. The distances covered, about 30 miles per day for each of the two cycling days, is moderate enough to appeal to occasional cyclists while significant enough to attract frequent cyclists who might add a few zigzagging miles to make for a more challenging ride.

While the route is flat, with only a few slight slopes, the distances are great enough that they may be a bit much for children and for those unaccustomed to athletic activity given that you’ll also be doing a lot of walking while visiting the chateaux and their parks and gardens.

This loop covers just a small part of the 500 miles of cycle trails that are covered by Loire à Vélo (Cycling Loire), the Loire Valley system trails going from the outer edge of Burgundy to the east to the outer edge of Brittany to the west, by way of chateaux, vineyards and the towns and cities of Orléans, Blois, Tours, Saumur, Angers and Nantes.

Here’s a 3-day, 15-step itinerary for little Loire Valley loop that begins with a touring day on foot in Blois, reached by train from Paris.

Day 1. Blois.

1. Pack lightly—whatever you can carry on your back and/or in a saddle pack when biking. Take the morning train to Blois from Paris.

2. The castle, tourist office and center of Blois are a 15-minute walk from the station. The Blois Tourist Office is next to the castle entrance. You can pick up a town map there along with maps and information about the chateaux in the surrounding area covered by this loop.

3. Check into hotel or B&B. (Or, since you’ll have packed lightly, carry your bag with you until you’re ready to check in in the afternoon.)

I stayed at the B&B La Maison de Thomas, a friendly little place in the very center of town. The ground floor of the B&B serves as a wine bar in the evening, one of a several places in town to get familiar with Loire Valley wines, particularly the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny vineyards you’ll be biking past. For other lodging possibilities as well as dining options see the bottom of the article Blois Castle: The Key to the Loire Valley.

4. Visit Blois Castle (read that same article for an overview of its historical and architectural significance) and, if it’s up your alley, La Maison de la Magie, The House of Magic, across the square from the castle. Don’t miss the dragons that emerge periodically from the window of the House of Magic. A bit of wandering between the castle, the river and the cathedral can complete the afternoon.

5. After tasting two or three wines at La Maison de Thomas, you might enjoy, as I did, the relaxed gastronomy at Christophe Cosme’s Le Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs. (Closed Sun. and Mon.). The Blois article mentioned above also lists other dining options.

6. See the sound-and-light show in the courtyard of the castle beginning at 10pm in April, May and September, 10:30pm in June, July and August. An overview of a day in Blois as outlined above appears in the photolog Great Encounters: Blois.

Day 2. Chaumont and Cheverny.

7. Rent bikes from the friendly folks at Traineurs de Loire, 12, rue Saint-Lubin. It opens at 9:30am. You’ll likely walk by the shop during your wanderings on Day 1 since it’s just below the cathedral. If you’d like to picnic you might pack it in Blois before setting off. Otherwise you would have lunch at Chaumont.

8. Ride to the castle at Chaumont-sur-Loire, 20k (12.4 miles) from Blois.

9. There are two entrances to Chaumont: one on the ride near the river, the other upon on the hill behind the castle property. If you want the challenge of a biking up a hill (and the thrill of wheeling down) then take the back entrance. (I took the challenge.)

Give yourself plenty of time to visit Chaumont: the castle (1465-1510), which Queen Catherine de Medicis purchased in 1550 to use in the famous Chambord-for-Chenonceau housing exchange with her husband’s mistress Diane de Poitiers after King Henri II was no longer alive to protect and spoil the latter; the view of the Loire from the castle terrace; the lush castle grounds; the 5-star stables (still displaying its original saddler by Hermès) created during the tenure of Marie Say, Chaumont’s extravagant owner from 1875 to 1938; the animal cemetery for her beloved dogs and monkeys. From late-April to mid-October, Chaumont hosts the International Garden Festival from late-April to mid-October, with two dozen gardens restored or created each year. For garden lovers the festival alone can seduce a visitor a few hours with a lunch and café pause, so you’ll have to remind yourself that you’ve got biking to do.

10a. If you leave Chaumont while the afternoon is still young you might ride to the Chateau de Beauregard. Beauregard is 18.2k (11.3 miles) from Chaumont. Cheverny is then 8.3k (5.1 miles) from Beauregard.

10b. I spent so much time at Chaumont that I rode on directly to Cheverny, a ride of about 22.9k (14.2 miles), give or take a vineyard. Cheverny is described in this article. In addition to the harmony and elegance of the château and its park, a major draw of Cheverny is its kennel for 100 Anglo-French hunting hounds. Since you’ll be arriving here in the mid to late afternoon, you can watch the hounds, tail in the air, devour mass quantities of raw meat during feeding time. The feeding takes place at 5pm daily (with exceptions) from April 1 to September 14. The remainder of the year the feeding takes place at 3pm on Mon., Wed., Thurs. and Fri. (except holidays). It isn’t that they don’t eat on other days but they’re probably out working during the hunting season.

11. Either before or after entering the chateau grounds, you might taste-test some Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny wines right by the entrance at the Maison des Vins de Cheverny, the official tasting table/wine shop of the association of winegrowers from the two appellations. These are the wines from the vineyards that you’ll be riding through on this 2-day loop.

Cheverny is a young, fruity wine largely using sauvignon and some chardonnay for the whites and pinot noir and gamay for the reds and roses. Cour-Cheverny, far less well known and with more cache because of its more limited production (one-tenth that of Cheverny), is made from grape varietal called Romorantin, a grape now specific to this area, cousin to chardonnay, introduced by king Francoise I, and so proprietary that it’s typically written with a capital R.

The tasting table/wine shop It isn’t a cozy setting but it’s the opportunity to learn something about these wines if you haven’t yet had the time or inclination to visit a vineyard between chateaux. The Maison des Vins de Cheverny is open daily from Easter to the beginning of November, 11am-1:15pm and 2:15-6pm. Since the tasting room may be closing before you finish visiting the chateau grounds at that time, so I suggest stopping here before going in—furthermore, that’ll give you time to digest the alcohol before getting back into the saddle. The chateau itself is open until 6:30pm April-October, until 5pm the rest of the year, though the grounds stay open later.

12. There are two good options for a fine meal and a good night’s sleep: the 3-star Auberge du Centre in Chitenay, 7.4k (4.6 miles) from Cheverny, where I enjoyed a most pleasant evening during this loop, and the 4-star Château du Breuil, on the edge of Cheverny, 4.4k (2.7 miles) from the chateau. Both have restaurants. Breuil also has a swimming pool.

Day 3. Chambord and return to Blois.

13. The ride from either of the hotels noted above to the Chateau de Chambord is just over 21k or 13 miles, making for a leisurely morning ride. Here’s an article about Chambord, the Loire Valley’s XXL castle.

14. There’s plenty to keep you busy at Chambord and extra cycling trails to be taken in the area, so in visiting the area you’ll have to make sure that you leave yourself plenty of time to get your bike back to the rental place in Blois, which closes at 6pm.

The most direct route to Blois through the countryside is 16.4k (10.2 miles), but for the more scenic route you’d head directly to the Loire at Saint-Dyé-sur-Loire then ride downstream to Blois, staying on the left (southern) bank of the river until you cross over the old bridge at Blois. That route adds a few miles, plus there are some great riverside photo ops along the way. And on my own trip I encountered such a strong headwind along the river that the last 7 miles felt like three times that, but it was well worth it for the beauty of the ride.

I therefore suggest allowing yourself a good two hours to make it back to Blois.

15. Once you’ve dropped off the bike give yourself 30 minutes to get to the train station—make that an hour so as to relax in a café near the rental shop before taking the train. Back to Paris? Or further down the river to, say, Saumur, for the start of another little loop in the Loire?

Text and photos © 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

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Blois (pronounced a sharp blwa, vampire-like) holds a prominent place on the map, yet its castle is often ignored in favor of more photogenic stars of the valley. Chambord, Chenonceau, Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, Usée and Saumur, for example, readily lend themselves to adjectives such as majestic, exquisite, idyllic, dramatic, elegant or storybook. (Match the adjectives with the chateaux and you get a free subscription to France Revisited for the rest of this year.)

Blois Castle, le château de Blois, stands on a rise on the right bank of the Loire but it offers no great photo op from the river. The Blois Tourist Office might well sue me for libel for showing this gray-weather shot from the bridge across the river.

And the main entrance to the castle is more promising though still not as imposing or impressive or fairy-tale as we’d like our castles to look, particularly when seen under an indeterminate sky.

But that doesn’t make Blois any less notable. This is in fact the most historically and architecturally significant of the chateaux of the Loire Valley. Admittedly, that isn’t a line you use to get your spouse to choose Blois as a vacation destination or to get your 12-year-old excited about a trip abroad (how about telling him/her that there’s a Magic Museum with dragons in the windows across the square?). Nevertheless, Blois is a key to understanding the valley’s castle-scape.

What it lacks in outward photogenia it makes up for in details, in revealing history and in convenience to daytripper and valley bikers. Blois does have character(s). You just need to get closer to see it/them.

Let’s take a look.

Amboise Castle, a left bank chateau 22 miles downstream, is more photogenic from across the river but it’s now far less notable inside. Amboise is where Charles VIII (born 1470-reigned 1493-died 1498) died from fracturing his skull on a door lintel (careful when visiting old castles, folks, they weren’t designed with Disney building standards in mind, and just you try suing someone for tripping on a cobblestone).

Charles VIII and Queen Anne of Brittany were childless, so with no direct heir his cousin Louis d’Orléans ascended to the throne as Louis XII (1462-1498-1515).

Louis XII

Louis may have had Orleans in his name but he was a native Blésois, as the inhabitants of Blois are called. A century earlier, in 1391, his grandfather Duke Louis I d’Orléans, brother to then king Charles VI, had purchased the fortress of the Counts of Blois whose power had waned. He took full control of the county six years later. While most of the counts’ fortress was razed to its foundations to make way for the new castle of the mounting Orleans clan, Louis I kept the fortress’s Great Hall (1214), one of the largest civil halls in France still existing today from that period.

Louis XII would in turn raze much of the castle of his father and grandfather, again conserving the Great Hall as he pursued a transformation of the family castle to make it worthy of a king. (We’ll return to the Great Hall later in our visit.)

Louis XII greets us above the entrance.

Below him, his symbol: the crowned porcupine. His motto: qui s’y frotte s’y pique, meaning rub against him and you’ll get pricked (literally) or cross swords with him at your peril or if you don’t watch out you’ll get burned.

The initials to either side of the porcupine: L for Louis and A for Anne, you guessed it, of Brittany, his cousin’s widow. Anne was no looker, but having the duchy of Brittany in her dowry made her quite the catch. Louis therefore obtained the annulment of his own childless first marriage to wed her. Anne’s symbol, the symbol of Brittany, was the ermine, a pattern of black stoat (weasel) coats against a white background.

Viewed from the outer square, Louis XII’s brick-and-stone wing, circa 1500, speaks of the end of an era (Gothic). Inside we follow the call of a new era (Renaissance), a pleasure palace with a vast hallway and a succession of royal apartments. The main Louis XII wing now houses the town’s Beaux-Art Museum (more on the museum later). A chapel, truncated by subsequent developments at Blois, also remains from this time.

Louis and Anne had two surviving children, daughters, Claude and Renée, however the succession laws of the French kings stated that the crown could only pass to a male heir. That meant the search for good (i.e. useful) marriages for the girls and likely inheritance of the crown by cousin François (Francis). There was therefore no better marriage for Claude (de France), the elder daughter, than to cousin Francois (d’Orléans).

Francois I

In 1515, less than a year into their marriage, Louis XII died and Claude’s husband became King Francois the First (Ier in French). (France has had plenty of Kings Louis and Charles and several Kings Henri but only two Kings Francois, the second being his grandson who reigned for only 17 months before dying from an inner ear problem at age 16.)

Claude, already duchess of Brittany by virtue of her mother Anne (she also inherited her mother’s looks), was therefore queen. Claude died at the age of 24, which gave her enough time to have seven children, including the future king Henri II—or perhaps it’s better said that having seven children by the age of 24 killed her, and getting syphilis from her husband didn’t help.

While Francois has gone down in history as a powerful builder king, Claude is remembered in the name of a sensual green or yellow-green plum, la reine claude, found ripe in markets in August. Francois I remarried after Claude’s death but had no children with his second wife, Eleanore of Austria, though plums continued to grow in the castle gardens. (Those gardens no longer exist; the city has grown into it.)

Francois grew up at the Chateau d’Amboise. It was there that he invited Leonardo da Vinci to be his neighbor. But Claude was naturally fond of her home castle at Blois and Francois I was intent on keeping it up-to-date. That meant tearing down portions of his predecessor’s château, already démodé, and creating something stylish and avant-garde.

This year France is commemorating the 500th anniversary of the coronation and reign of Francois (Francis) I. Chateaux great (e.g. Chambord) and small (e.g. Beauregard), however deeply or tangentially touched by the architectural and decorative spirit of the era of Francois I, are unfurling images of the broad-shouldered king with the long straight nose, sporting a thin moustache trickling into a full beard, wearing tights or armor, sitting in equestrian glory or standing in fur-lined grace. Blois itself is hosting a bookish exhibition called “Royal Treasures, the Library of François I,” running July 4-Oct. 18, 2015.

The equestrian statue of Louis XII may get the photo op at the entrance to Blois Castle, but it’s Francois I’s see-and-be-seen staircase that draws the lens once in the courtyard—though how to photograph it properly without looking like it’s been seen in a funhouse mirror is anyone’s guess.

Let me try again.

I give up. Photography may have become the lazy man’s travel writing but a skilled photographer still has his place.

Francois I (1494-1515-1547) would go on to launch enormous royal projects at Chambord, Fontainebleau and the Louvre, but he made his first mark on royal architecture at Blois. Palaces constructed or altered in his name were signed with his royal symbol the fire-breathing salamander and the motto nutrisco et extinguo referring to flames that nourish his people and extinguish his enemies.

The salamander sets the tone for decorative relief by the base of the showy outer staircase that defines the Francois I wing.

This is Blois’ architectural claim to fame. With loggia for nobility to look out onto the courtyard and to be seen from below, the theatrical staircase (1515-1519) and the wing of the castle that it serves set the stage for a new architectural style that would now developing throughout the valley. The Francois I wing gave royal momentum to the French Renaissance, thanks largely to Italian architects and decorators in its early phases.

This is no Eiffel Tower. Go to the top of the staircase and you’ll have little more than a view of tourist tripping over cobblestones down below (be sure to look up, though at the way in which the structure meets the ceiling). Nevertheless, this remains one of the architectural treasures of the Loire Valley. Again, not enough to plan a honeymoon around, but there you have it, 16th-century architectural sophistication—dramatic staircases were becoming all the rage.

If approaching from the train station, a 10-15 minute walk, your first view of the chateau is the back of the Francois I wing. Based on an Italian model, it looks more like an apartment building in Rome than a royal castle along the Loire.

It used to overlook the castle gardens but now faces a city road that wraps around a tremendous Atlas cedar. Beyond the cedar, one can also see from the balcony the orangery where citrus trees from the castle gardens were placed in winter. (The historical building now houses a gastronomic restaurant.)

Francois gets the architectural shout-out for this wing with the famous staircase, but the historical tale told inside speaks more about the era of his grandson Henri III.

Henri III

Francois I’s son Henri II (1519-1547-1559), who eventually died from being poked in the eye during a jousting tournament, preferred to place his architectural monograms elsewhere, including on the Louvre and at Fontainebleau. But Blois continues to speak of the presence of Henri II’s queen Catherine de Medicis and of their third son, Henri III (1551-1574-1589).

Henri III’s era of the French Court was as perverse and manipulative as our own in terms of power struggles, festivities, fashion, intrigue and assassination. We have our own politics in which a vocal, heavily armed group proclaims that the “true” religion should guide policy; we, too, go in for fear mongering, lies and rumors passed off for evidence that one man or one party will destroy life as we know it; we too hear the siren of the politics of nostalgia, etc. Admittedly, we prefer to assassinate character more than body these days and we pretend that telling an armed public that “someone ought to shoot that guy” is just an expression of disagreement, but we surround our politicians with a sizeable security detail just in case.

In 1576 and again in 1588, Henri III convoked at Blois an assembly of the Three Estates: the clergy, the nobility and the Third Estate, i.e. all others. The assembly took place in the Great Hall of 1214, originally built as a multi-purpose hall for the Counts of Blois. At its best the Estates (or States) General, as it was called, served as an advisory body offering wise counsel to the king. Otherwise it might be a way in which those with lesser or no power could let off steam or a quarrelsome nuisance that the king would ignore. The body met periodically at various venues from the early 14th century until 1614, then not at all until 1789, when discontent was so loud that Louis XVI could no longer postpone the reunion—but more than reunion, revolution was in the air.

The Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants marked the tenure of Catherine de Medicis and her three successive royal sons. It came to a head during the reign of Henri III. It was bad enough that factions of warring nobility saw no room to compromise, but the ultra-Catholics felt that disaster would befall the kingdom since Henri III was childless, making the heir to the throne his cousin Henri de Navarre, a Protestant.

The Great Hall is a magnificent space for its time and for a family photo op on the throne. Portions of the apartments of Catherine de Medicis and of Henri III are also visible. It’s less the heavily restored décor that makes them significant as the events that took place there. With the right guide (human or audio), the events that took place but gets us thinking about how similar the power struggles of the late 16th century are to the politics of our own time.

In order to calm the warrior spirit of the hawkish Catholic nobility and clergy against the Protestants (Huguenots) on the occasion of the Estates General of 1588, Henri III had the Catholic leader Duke Henri de Guise assassinated as the duke was walking through the king’s bedroom to a supposed pow-wow with the king.

“My God he’s tall,” the king is reported to have said upon seeing his slain rival. “He even looks taller dead than alive.”

The Duke de Guise’s brother, the Cardinal de Guise, also a conspirator against the king, was assassinated in Blois Castle the following day.

Twelve days later, Queen Mother Catherine de Medicis, died here of natural causes at the age of 79.

And seven months later, on August 2, 1589, Henri III was in turn assassinated, caught off guard while on the pierced chair (i.e. the can) at the royal Chateau de Saint Cloud (near Paris). His assassin was a monk named Jacques Clément who represented forces of what we would now call the religious far right.

Upon Henri III’s death the king’s chronicler Pierre de l’Estoile wrote: “This king would have been a good prince had he been born in a better century.” It’s doubtful though that such a century has ever existed.

Henri IV

Heir and party to the Wars of Religion, Henri IV was not only a distant cousin rising to the throne but was also a Protestant, two strikes against him that meant he had to conquer his kingdom. He would eventually convert to Catholicism to be in phase with the majority, but without abandoning the reformers.

Photo Henri IV. The central role that the Loire Valley had played in royal politics was coming to an end as the Bourbon kings asserted a firm hand throughout the kingdom and took up more frequent residence in Paris and then Versailles. Henri IV’s main association with the Loire is far downstream at Nantes, where he signed the edict that granted the right to Protestants to practice their religion in peace along with certain politic rights, thus closing the Wars of Religion in France.

He nevertheless showed enough interest enough in Blois to order the construction of a new building in the gardens. As a builder, his heart—before it was pierced by an assassin monk in Paris in 1612—was more focused on urban projects in the capital.

After his assassination his queen Marie de Medicis assumed the regency for underage Louis XIII. But a power struggle ensued when he son reached royal majority in his mid-teens and he exiled her to Blois to keep her from meddling in affairs of state. A painting in the Louvre, La Fuite de Blois by Rubens, shows her escaping from Blois through the construction site that had been launched by Henri IV. That building was never completed and was eventually demolished.

(To recap royal deaths from 1498-1612: Charles VIII died from banging his head on a door lintel at age 27; Louis XII died from intestinal trouble at age 52; Francois I died from septicemia related to fistula around the unmentionables and kidney failure at age 53; Henri II died from a brain infection caused by being poked in the eye at a jousting tournament at age 40; Francois II died from an ear infection at age 16; Charles IX died from pleurisy at age 23; Henri III was assassinated by a monk will sitting on the can at age 47, and Henri IV was assassinated by a monk while riding in his carriage at age 56. Not pretty, but, ah, but the castles they built!)

Gaston, Duc d’Orléans

Louis XIII saw no need to keep Blois Castle in the French crown and so gave it to his younger brother Gaston in 1626. Had the power days of Blois ended? Not if Gaston could help it. Any pretext was good for Gaston (1608-1660) to conspire against or otherwise disobey his brother because as long as Louis XIII and Queen Anne didn’t have a son he remained first in line for the throne.

By the second decade of their childless marriage, Gaston could reasonably dream of occupying the throne should his older brother predecease him. Blois would then become a royal residence again.

So Gaston hired one of the top architects of the time, Francois Mansart, to build a new wing to his castle, thus bringing Blois into the modern era of the 17th century. Gaston may well have rebuilt the entire castle, razing the previous structures like an old villa on beachfront property, but the throne eluded him. In 1738, after nearly 23 years of marriage, Anne of Austria gave birth to a son (presumably fathered by Louis XIII). The existence of a healthy boy distanced Gaston one step further from the crown, and when Louis XIII died five years later, the boy became Louis XIV.

The Gaston wing resembles a stand-alone chateau and is notable for its relatively early Classicism, but viewed from the courtyard it sticks out as ambition gone wrong; the focal point of the courtyard remains the Francois I wing with its external staircase. Architect Francois Mansart would lend his name to the mansard, a high-pitched roof pierced with windows, then coming into fashion.

The grace of the Gaston/Mansart wing comes especially from the symmetry of the central structure with pavilions on either side reaching out to embrace the courtyard. Through his work here and elsewhere, Mansart nevertheless helped usher in an architectural style that would later become associated not with Gaston Ier but with Louis XIV.

Louis XIV’s prime minister Mazarin, tired of Gaston’s conspiring against the crown during the king’s youth, eventually exiled Gaston to Blois. There he lost the ambition (and perhaps the funding) to complete his dream castle.

The decorative elements of the interior were never finished. The interior monumental staircase of the Gaston wing, crowned by a copula, looks like a grand stage between plays. But Blois was now far from center stage, and the Loire Valley itself was soon but a sideshow as, about the time of Gaston’s death in 1660, Louis XIV began drawing plans for the entire theater district move to Versailles.

The Beaux Arts Museum

The main Louis XII wing houses a small collection that lends itself as much to pleasant if disinterested meandering as it does to a more studious examination of representative 16th- and 17th-century paintings, and to a lesser extent 18th- and early 19th-century works, including glossy, theatrical historical works from the early 19th century called “troubadour” paintings.

For students of 19th-century restorations of medieval and Renaissance castles, Blois Castle is a must see. But since none of those students is reading this, we might be tempted to pretend that that the original equestrian statue at the castle entrance wasn’t actually destroyed during the Revolution and that this window with the ermine of Anne of Brittany has been safely in place for 500 years.

No, let’s not pretend. Let’s be truthful here: The history of French chateaux is rarely that of a single moment in history, and all the more so at Blois. What we see is the result of evolving tastes and ambitions, good fortune and bad, and restoration. In 1788 Louis XVI, five years short of the guillotine, abandoned any royal prerogative to Blois Castle. It then served as barracks for troops and officers with no interest in protecting its historical significance. With the Revolution soon banging at the door there was no interest in protecting its royal symbols either. What was saved was saved for practical rather than historical or emotional reasons.

Then, several decades later, historical mindfulness came calling. In 1840 Blois became one of the first royal complexes in France to be designated a historical monument. Major restoration began several years later, beginning with the rehabilitation of the Francois I wing. The Beaux-Arts Museum opened in 1869.

A room inside this chateau is dedicated to the 19th-century restorers, particularly one Félix Duban, an architect who oversaw the restoration of Blois Castle until his death in 1870. In his terrific travel book “A Little Tour in France,” Henry James, writing in the 1880s, laments the heavy-handed restoration work that he encounters on his tour of the provinces. Nevertheless, it’s thanks to that post-royal history—as barracks, as possession of the city, as object of restoration—that we get to see and to appreciate the lessons in history and architecture that Blois teaches.

To Blois or not to Blois

That remains the question. Is it more rewarding to aim for the monumental unity of Chambord, the loveliness of Chenonceau, the dramatic view of Chaumont, or to get studious with Blois? You can’t go wrong as you plan or wing your way through the castle-rich area of the Loire Valley between Blois and Saumur. Still, a traveler much choose between chateaux while leaving time to enjoy the other pleasures that the region offers—vineyards, gardens, culinary explorations, a zoo, a long stroll by the river.

The architectural developments themselves may seem insignificant 500 years on. Nevertheless, Blois, considered a (perhaps the) key to the Loire Valley, deserves attention.

© 2015 Gary Lee Kraut

Useful information

Château de Blois, Blois Castle, is open daily except Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Fencing demonstrations are given July 13-Aug. 16, 2015. One reason to spend the night in or near Blois is to attend the wonderful sound-and-light show in the castle courtyard, April 4-Sept. 20, 2015.

Blois Tourist Office, is next to the castle at 23 Place du Château. Tel. 02 54 90 41 41. The office and its website also provide information about chateaux in the surrounding area.

Maison de la Magie, the magic museum and fun house across the square from the castle entrance. Watch for the dragons in the window. Open April 4-Sept. 20 and Oct. 17-Nov. 1, 2015.

Loire à Vélo is the name of the Loire Valley biking system covering a cycle trail of about 500 miles. Its official website is here.

Getting to Blois: From Paris, there are infrequent direct trains to Blois from the Austerlitz Station. They take 1 hour 25 minutes. More frequent indirect trains take 2 hours, arriving in Blois via Orleans (from Paris’s Austerlitz Station) or via Saint Pierre des Corps (from Paris’s Montparnasse Station). A daytrip from Paris is possible. One worthwhile approach to beginning your longer Loire Valley stay in Blois is to spend the first day and perhaps night in the town before renting bikes or a car for wider explorations in the valley. Bus service from Blois goes to the nearby chateaux of Beauregard, Cheverny and Chambord. Inquire at the Blois Tourist Office or see the bus schedule here.

Lodging in Blois and the surroundings area

B&Bs

La Maison de Thomas, 12 rue Beauvoir, 41000 Blois. Tel. 09 81 84 44 59 or 06 60 14 41 41. In the heart of the town, a friendly townhouse for those without wheels or for a night in Blois before or after a biking trip.

16 Place Saint Louis, 16 place Saint Louis, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 74 13 61. At Philippe Escoffre’s B&B a 5-minute hike uphill from center, three cozy rooms look out to the cathedral and over the river. Yes, the name is the address.

Le Plessis, 195 rue Albert 1er, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 43 80 08. On the downstream edge of the town with a chemical-free, salt-water swimming pool.

Le Clos Pasquier, 10-12, Impasse de l’Orée du Bois, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 58 84 08. Claire and Laurent Nicot’s B&B in a 15th-century manor house is another 1.5 miles further downstream.

Hotels

Côté Loire – Auberge Ligérienne 2 place de la Grève, 41000 Blois. Tel. 02 54 78 07 86. A 2-star hotel and restaurant in Blois by the river.

L’Auberge du Centre, 34 Grande Rue, 41120 Chitenay. Tel. 02 54 70 42 11. Nine miles south of Blois. I found this 3-star village hotel with a pleasant restaurant. A choice stop during a biking trip in this portion of the valley.

La Maison d’à Côté, 26 rue de Chambord, 41350 Montlivault. Tel. 02 54 20 62 30. An 8-room inn with restaurant (1 star Michelin in 2015) 6 miles upstream from Blois toward Chambord

Le Château du Breuil, 23 route de Fougères, 41700 Cheverny. Tel. 02 54 44 20 20. Ten miles southeast of Blois, in the countryside two miles from the Chateau de Cheverny, Véronique and Bernard Gattolliat’s 39-room 4-star hotel with restaurant an swimming pool.

Domaine des Hauts de Loire, 79 rue Gilbert Navard, 41150 Onzain. Tel. 02 54 20 72 57.Ten miles downstream from Blois, across the river from Chaumont, a 4-star chateau hotel and restaurant. The 170-acre property also has a tennis court, outdoor pool, a pond where one can fish and bikes.

Restaurants in Blois

For a daytripper, one of the cafés below the chateau de Blois should suffice, or simply a sandwich and pastries from one of the bakeries in that area.

For those spending the evening: I’ve fond memories of a relaxed, gastronomic dinner at Christophe Cosme’s Le Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs, 27 rue du Foix. Tel. 02 54 74 67 48. Closed Sun. and Mon. There’s also the Auberge Ligérienne, a part of the hotel Côté Loire noted above. For a more formal meal in an airy historical setting there’s L’Orangerie du Château, 1 avenue Jean-Laigret. Tel. 02 54 78 05 36. It occupies the former citrus green house or orangery of the chateau. Also closed Sun. and Mon. For a more contemporary decor, more contemporary gastronomy, Assa, one mile downstream from center on the edge of the Loire, has 1 Michelin star (2015). 189 quai Ulysse Besnard. Tel. 02 54 78 09 01. Closed Sun. dinner, Mon. Tues.

– GLK

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The elegant Château de Cheverny is chez moi for Charles-Antoine de Vibraye and his family. His ancestors have resided on the premises for the better part of 600 years and today de Vibraye (who might also be referred to as the Marquis de Vibraye), his wife and three children occupy roughly 10% of it. Much of the rest is open to visitors. Cheverny was one of the first private French estates to open its gates to the public (1922), and de Vibraye welcomes on average 350,000 guests per year to his castle-sweet-castle.

One expects de Vibraye (seen in photo) to describe Cheverny as a museum but the word usine (factory) crops up in his conversation just as often.

”I live inside my family business,” he explains. ”Cheverny belongs to the public, and making the tourist experience serene and enjoyable requires constant attention to detail. You can’t take your eyes off it for a minute. It’s like caring for a small child.”

The result of such devotion is a well-oiled machine. For numerous crowd-pleasing reasons, Cheverny is one of the more theme-parkish of the Loire châteaux. ”But it’s also one of the most authentic,” adds de Vibraye. ”Hardly any other chateau has been continuously occupied. At Cheverny, things may have been added but nothing’s ever been taken away.”

One thing that’s been added is Cheverny’s association with the Francophone comic book hero Tintin. This is the only Loire castle that comic book fans will recognize faster than many art historians. That’s because Belgian cartoonist Hergé based Marlinspike Hall (Château de Moulinsart), the property of Tintin’s buddy Captain Haddock, on Cheverny’s symmetrical silhouette. (Hergé shortened its wings lest Captain Haddock appear to rich.) One of the outbuildings at Cheverny houses a free-standing museum dedicated to Tintin, his dog Milou and other characters, with videos and special effects.

But the main event is the chateau itself. The place-name Cheverny debuted in 1315 on a deed registered to the newly-enobled Hurault family. The seigniorial domain has belonged on and off to the Herault family—of which the de Vibraye family is a branch—ever since. A peaceable existence allowed the domain to sit out the royal and lordly turmoil and high politics of Blois. It did, however, appear on BuzzFeed in 1551 when former royal mistress Diane de Poitiers took a 10-year lease after being evicted from Chenonceau, but almost all of the day-to-day archives have gone missing.

Construction of the current chateau began in 1625 with a design that signaled a strong tilt toward what would become known as Classical architecture. Those also visiting visited Blois Castle on their Loire Valley wanderings will find that Blois’s Gaston d’Orleans wing, begun in 1635, was designed in the same movement of harmony and symmetry.

Two-thirds of the Château de Cheverny is open to the public, without any of the yawn-inducing, near-empty rooms that one often finds in public castles. Visitors can marvel at a royal bedroom that rivals Fort Knox; a luxuriant dining room; suits of armor; playrooms stuffed with vintage toys; fireplaces adorned with gilded dancing girls; a flower-bedecked chapel; and even the current Marquise’s Cinderella-style wedding dress.

Visiting the interior of the chateau gave rise to one burning question for its owner. When you live in a historic château like Cheverny, aren’t you tempted to roll back the brocade bedspreads and sleep in the Royal Bedroom after closing hours?

”Never,” de Vibraye replied firmly. ”Those rooms belong to the public and that’s final. There was a TV crew here recently, filming lots of furniture in close-up, and I must admit I heaved a huge sigh of relief when they left and I got the velvet ropes back in place.”

The chateau interior is compact enough that it can well visited in about 30 minutes, leaving plenty of time to wander through the expansive park and the flower and kitchen gardens, visit the Tintin Museum (additional fee), enjoy the pretty setting at orangerie for a beverage or a bite to eat (inside or out; open April 1 to Nov. 11), perhaps even take boat-ride on property’s waterways.

At the Café de l’Orangerie you can try some locally made beer, but having passed through the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny vineyards along your way to Cheverny it’s likely that those appellation wines will be the fermented beverage of choice. For a tasting, the official Cheverny Wine Club is housed just outside the castle gate to Cheverny (see below article).

The Hounds
One of the major draws of Cheverny is its kennel for 100 Anglo-French hunting hounds. Cheverny has maintained its hunting heritage and the estate census also includes 11 horses, 70 stags and 200 wild boar.

This is no petting zoo. Those hounds are trained to be in prime hunting shape, and the deer are well advised to be too. The hunt takes place in the surrounding forest and other hunt-friendly woods, twice per week from October through March. About 25 deer are killed each year in keeping with local (departmental) hunting regulations.

Come feeding time you can watch the hounds, tail in the air, devour mass quantities of raw meat in a matter of minutes. The feeding takes place at 5pm daily (with exceptions) from April 1 to September 14. The remainder of the year the feeding takes place at 3pm on Mon., Wed., Thurs. and Fri. (except holidays). It isn’t that they don’t eat on other days but they’re probably out working.

If your kids love dogs, get them to the kennels about 15-30 minutes before feeding time for a ringside view of the buffet. Arrive after the crowd has formed and the kids who are too big to sit on shoulders may miss the show. It’s perfectly safe as the dogs are enclosed in a barred courtyard, although one 4-year-old near us was a bit frightened.

The chateau and grounds are open every day of the year, including holidays.

© 2015, Corinne LaBalme.

Château de Cheverny, 41700 Cheverny. Tel. 02 54 79 96 29.

Getting There: Cheverny is 10 miles southeast of Blois, passing near Château de Beauregard along the way. By car Cheverny is about a 30-minute drive from Blois and Chaumont, in separate directions.

From Paris, there are infrequent direct trains to Blois from the Austerlitz Station. They take 1:25. More frequent indirect trains take 2 hours, arriving in Blois via Orleans (from Paris’s Austerlitz Station) or via Saint Pierre des Corps (from Paris’s Montparnasse Station).

While it’s preferable to have your own wheels (car, van, motorcycle or bicycle) for leisurely explorations of chateaux and vineyards in the area, there’s bus service from April to August between the chateaux of Blois, Chambord, Cheverny and Beauregard. Bus information can be found here.
CHEVERNY and COUR-CHEVERNY WINES

Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny are appellations for wines grown between on the south side (left bank) of the Loire roughly between Blois, Chambord, Cheverny and Chaumont. Those are the vineyards you see when driving or biking in this area.

Cheverny is a young, fruity wine largely using sauvignon and some chardonnay for the whites and pinot noir and gamay for the reds and roses.

Cour-Cheverny, far less well known and with more cache because of its more limited production (one-tenth that of Cheverny), is made from grape varietal called Romorantin, a grape specific to this area, introduced by king Francoise I, and so proprietary that it has a capital R.

As with most Loire Valley wines, these all relatively inexpensive, typically 6€ to 12€ per bottle, some a bit more.

Maison des Vins de Cheverny, the official Cheverny Wines Club of the association of winegrowers from the two appellations, is located by the entrance to the chateau, making for an easy tasting stop to get familiar with these wines, at least for those not driving.

Maison des Vins de Cheverny. Open daily from Easter to the beginning of November, 11am-1:15pm and 2:15-6pm. Tel. 02 54 79 25 16

– GLK

Also see our articles about the nearby chateaux of Chambord, Beauregard and Blois.

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