The Mezgers: Loire Valley

CHATEAU DE ARPENTIS (near ABOISE)

Not sure when this gem was built but their info says the first well-known Lord was a dude back in 1316 so that's pretty old. And according to their records King Louis XIII was invited to dinner on June 20th 1619 (did he come???)!

See those 3 middle windows just right of center? That was our room...

Puny little side view

Using the hillside for garage/work space.

The grounds (including mote).

A sweet older couple we talked with at breakfast took our pics.

Our humble dwellings: Quentin & Aymeric

We booked another (cheaper!) room but the suite wasn't occupied so they upgraded us just to prove how nice the French are!

Our humble dwellings...

Not a bad view to wake up to. There was literally a white horse out grazing just beyond the pond the first morning.

Can you believe this ceiling?

Night #2 adventure - just getting ready for bed and there is a bat hanging out in the rafters. I high-tailed it for the bathroom and told Kyle I'd come out when it was taken care of. A few minutes later he told me "it's gone" which just means he didn't hear it anymore and it had probably gone to sleep in the rafters. Made these Austinites feel right at home.

Those "nails" are really wooden pegs.

Frenchy-french breakfast - pastries, fruit salad like you used to get in your cafeteria lunch, yogurt, jams...and because they cater to Americanos...

A little station to make your own hardboiled eggs. (Apparently the french think eggs are lunch/dinner food, not breakfast.) I think they belong at all meals.

Seriously, this place was pretty magical and only a few minutes drive from Amboise and "civilization" - its ideal to have a car in the Loire anyways so you can easily get between chateaus so it felt just perfect.

CHâTEAU DE CHAMBORD
Here we go - Chateau numero uno

The grounds are huge and you have to park a ways away and walk through a little "village" to get there - you can see the towers peaking up in the distance

Whoa.Is.Right.

This place is beastly and imposing.

Historical overview: Built by young King Francois I (begun in 1519, not completed until after his death) - he reigned for 32 years and only spent 72 days here. Intended as a HUNTING LODGE. Combines traditional medieval architecture but also heavily influenced by the Italian province of Milan (which King F1 tried to reconquer) and the Italian Renaissance. Built at the same time of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City and rumored to possibly have been designed by Leonardo di Vinci.

Some of the scale seemed a little off to us...

Fond of the stone inlay, giant spiral staircases, and this guy.

And I am a total sucker for motes.

And towers

And gargoil-y things.

Awesome stairs

Central tower

Moss on the slate roof, discolored stone being refinished. Can you imagine that power-washing job?

View out towards the grounds. Not symmetrical enough for my liking given the structure.

Some interior details - KF1's signature salamandar.

Love these old lead windows (surely reproductions) and the view through them.

KF1 may not have done much hunting here but somebody sure did!

The chapel - completed during the reign of Louis XIV - the architect of Versailles.

We're jet-lagged and pooped but this was an awesome first start to our stay in the Loire Valley.

CHâTEAU DE CHENONCEAU

Day 2 - get ready for a fairy-tail castle.

The walking-up view - much smaller than Chambord.

Getting around to one of the side gardens.

Bam. Over the water.

Right here we took a little extrovert traveler break to befriend an older couple traveling together and take each others pictures.

Okay - BA BAM!

Historical Overview: This one comes with drama - it's called The Ladies' Chateau.

Built from 1513-1521 by Thomas Bohier but mostly designed by his wife Katherine Briconnet. In 1547 King Henry II gave the chateau (I guess he can just do that) to his mistress Diane de Poitiers who added the arched bridge across the river to access hunting grounds. When he died (in a jousting tournament in Paris!) his "vengeful" wife Catherine de' Medici kicked her out (and into another, smaller chateau in the Valley). Catherine added the 3-story structure on top of the bridge. She died before completing her vision to build a matching main structure on the other side of the bridge.

(Remember the Medici's from Florence? Love all the cross-over!) It's colorful history - mostly thanks to women - goes on: a couple more queens, x-queens, etc.; it housed a salon with french Enlightenment elite such Montesquiu, Voltaire and Rousseau; was an army hospital during both world wars (privately funded by a family made wealthy by their chocolate factory). Okay, back to photos.

The Marques tower (the only piece of the original castle/mill belonging to the Marques family to be left standing).

The chateau is flanked by two gardens. This is Diane de Poitiers' garden.

This is Catherine de' Medici's (competing) garden on the other side of the mote/river.

The first of many many many gargoyles - and seeing that they actually had a function - gutters!

Original builder's coat of arms on the entry door. FYI the knocker on the door is high enough to be used by people on horseback - so convenient!

Incredible original floor tiles in the guard room - SPQR is latin for "The Senate & People of Rome" - so yet another Italian influence.

Other interior details:

This place was so crowded I didn't really try to get any pics of the interior rooms themselves - but they were actually furnished (reproductions I assume) and had some amazing artwork. Each room had awesome wallpaper with personal touches like someone's initials all over it or items newly discovered in the Americas. Really cool - sorry I can't show you!

The floor in the grand gallery (the long hallway on the bridge over the river) is made of slate and limestone tiles - its hard to tell in the picture but they have worn quite differently over 500 years - the limestone is much more worn down.

Obviously people liked to stand at the windows and take in the view.

Another fun fact about the bridge: the Cher River marked the border between the colaborationist Vichy government and Nazi-controlled France - so lots of prisoner swaps took place here. And at night chateau staff helped resistance fighters and Jews cross in secret. Because it was considered a river crossing the Germans had artillery aimed at Chenonceau ready to destroy the bridge to block any Allied advance.

Details in the old kitchen.

Random room + random art person restoring random art

Kyle looking at Diane's garden. At one point he said he felt bad for how unceremoniously she was kicked out - after all the King had given the place to her. Ummmm - I know royal times were different, but lets not feel bad for the mistress, okay? :)

Over on Catherin's garden:

One of my favorite views - not that there is a bad one.

Catherine also built an Italian maze...

There he is!

(Kids would have loved this.)

Our plan for the Loire Valley was to see a very manageable two chateaus in two days while we got over jet-lag. Plus we had reservations the final evening for a sunset hot-air balloon ride leaving from one of the chateaus and cruising around the valley. But the morning of day two we got a call that it was too windy so our balloon wouldn't be ballooning. Much sadness. (And given that it seems nice out and pretty still to us it makes you wonder how often those things actually depart as planned!)

Anyways, over breakfast we talked with an older couple who was spending a lot more time in the area than us and they said if we had extra time that evening we should check out Cheverny...

CHâTEAU DE CHEVERNY
Because I took SO many pics at Chenonceau we didn't make it in for the main reason we came to this one...I'll get to that.

Chateau #3 - with a 3rd unique look!

Kyle working on his go-pro selfie-stick moves.

Less fortressy than the first, less princess castly than the second. Definitely very french looking.

According to the brochure - textbook Louis XIII style, inspired by the Luxemberg Palace in Paris.

Historical overview: Built in a relatively short 30 years (104-1634) by th Hurault family. It has been continuously owned by them except for two short periods - once in the 16th century when Diane de Poitiers (remember our mistress?) bought it to supervise the renovation at her castle (another chateau we didn't get to visit that is even more princessy than Chenonceu) called Chaumont sur Loire - this was right after she was ousted by Catherine.

Okay, but here's the reason we came: the kennel.

At dinnertime (5pm sharp) - all 70 hounds (half English foxhound, half French Poitou - bread for hunting) - line up in front of the laid-out food and eat on command (and only on command).

Some interior details - this place had even more original stuff than "normal" because its owners were well-liked and thus spared much during the Revolution.

Front view.

Out in the garden.

Taking a little break.

Ready for dinner. And sleep.

OTHER

Random pics from around the Loire

To or from one of the chateaus back towards Amboise - that's a nice little spot up on the hill, right?

Rick Steves doesn't rate it very highly but the Chateau de Amboise is beatiful from the road - probably the most fortified we saw given its position in town and right on the water.