Chateaux of the Loire Valley

The Loire Valley has long been famous for its chateaux, which are basically similar to castles, although less obviously concerned with military matters. There are many chateaux in the Loire Valley, and they are wonderful resources to understand the conspicuous wealth of the French nobility prior to the French Revolution in 1789. Of course the chateaux were also connected with French royalty, the creme of French nobility. The nobility were predominantly hereditary nobles, so that people achieved their status and their wealth essentially because of their birth, rather than their talents or their achievements.

In this short post, I will describe briefly only two of the chateaux, which I have had the good fortune recently to visit. The top picture shows the Chateau de Chenonceau, a favourite of many people, located on the Cher river near Tours. The other chateau is Chateau Villandry, also located near Tours. The conspicuous feature of Villandry is its beautiful and geometric gardens, as can be seen from the picture below:

Chateau Villandry was resurrected fairly recently (around a century ago), as it had fallen into disrepair. Joachim-Leon Carvallo gave up a promising career as a medical scientist to devote his energy, time and money to the chateau, and especially to its gardens. The gardens are arranged in beautiful geometric patterns, as the vegetable gardens above suggest. Here is another part of the gardens – the Love Garden – which looks different the higher up the viewpoint. From a reasonable distance, the love hearts (and thus the name become clear:

Other gardens at Villandry are similarly geometrically interesting:

The many vegetable gardens are neatly arranged too, in geometric patterns of various shapes and colours. I don’t know what they do with all the vegetables produced, but I assume that they will be important to the chateau to generate additional income.

While the main interest in this chateau is in the garden, the inside of the chateau is not uninteresting, as the images below suggest:

There were enormous bunches of fresh flowers in the building, and many rooms had period furniture of various kinds. One of the images above shows a view of a kitchen, while another shows a detail from a room described as an ‘arab’ room, and which displayed some wonderful Islamic patterns (the only examples I have seen amongst the chateaux so far).

Of course, there were many lovely flowers among the gardens, such as the following, which was new to me:

In contrast Chateau de Chenoncaux had a more interesting interior, with sumptuous decorations in rooms characteristic of the times. For example, the photos below show bedrooms fit for a king:

Indeed, residents for a while included King Henri IV and his wife, Catherine de Medici, so it was important that the bedrooms be fit for kings (and queens). Extravagant fireplaces and rich tapestries also gave an air of extreme wealth to the rooms:

One of the rooms contained an enormous portrait of the king (Louis XIV), adding credence to the royalty connections of the chateau:

Throughout the chateau were art works, priceless tapestries, beautiful furniture as well as lovely floors and ceilings. Here are some pictures to give a hint of that, showing also one of the enormous bunches of (fresh) flowers on display.

The building has changed over time, starting out as a remodelled version of a mill, and then gradually being extended (across the river) by the addition of long corridors to produce the shape shown at the top of this page. These corridors served as entertainment spaces and places for artistic work to be displayed, although their purpose has changed a little now, and are often full of tourists. They also provide an easy way to cross the river to see the Chateau and its gardens from across the river.

A chateau has to work, of course, and a good example of this was the clever arrangement to provide a rotisserie facility over an open fire, using a heavy weight and a clockwork mechanism cleverly for the purpose:

An interesting aspect of Chenonceau, apart from its treasures and its beautiful construction, is its interesting history. Over the course of a few hundred years of French history, it has firstly served the nobility and royalty, then became a base for intellectual thinking (most obviously through the agency of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a key figure in the Enlightenment who was a frequent visitor for a while.

After the French Revolution, when the old nobility and the church were attacked by the people of France, the character changed yet again and then in the twentieth century, it served as a hospital for French wounded soldiers. the location of the chateau – right on a  line of demarcation – gave it particular importance, as it became a mechanism for people to escape the clutches of Nazi soldiers and a means of escaping across the river.

The gardens of Chenonceau are less extensive than those at Vilandry, but just as geometrically organised. The two main areas are shown below, showing large square spaces with lovely spring flowers appearing recently.

Elsewhere in the grounds are other attractions, including an old maze (the idea of Catherine de Medici, it seems), a small farm and lovely forest paths to walk along, as the following pictures show.

There are many other chateaux in the region and they are certainly worth travelling to France to enjoy.