Day 32, Friday, September 29, 2023

The Château de Chenonceau is approached by walking down a very long tree lined road called the Great Driveway…. that continues through the beginnings of gardens.

We finally arrive at the magnificent Chenonceau Château.  This tower on the left is part of the keep from the original fortified castle.  The rest of the castle was demolished in the 16th century to build Chenonceau.

We enter the Guard’s room beside the main gate and I notice that there is still part of the original pattern on the floor along the walls and under furniture. There is no trace of the pattern on the rest of the floor.

Next stop is the kitchen.  This is the first chateau we have seen that has a kitchen that looks capable of making meals for hundreds of guests.  This is the biggest wood fired stove I have ever seen.

Here are the other rooms that make up the complete kitchen area.  A huge fireplace with automatic rotating spits for cooking meat behind the wood stove, the dining room for Chateau employees, the larder and the butchery are all magnificent. There is also one more room with an enormous bread oven.

The Gallery was built on top of the chateau’s bridge by Catherine de Medici.  This was used as a ballroom and for other festivities.  It is 60 meters long but only 6 meters wide.  I noticed that the white floor tiles must have been made of a softer stone than the black as they are considerably more worn.  Like the coloured tiles in the Guard’s room, the tiles near the walls are not worn and remain the same height.

During the First World War, 2,254 injured were treated here.   The chateau was turned into a hospital and the gallery was filled with beds.

Cesar of Vendôme’s bedroom (the owner of Chanonceau in1624), Diane de Poitiers room,  (King Henri II’s favourite mistress), the bedroom of the wife of King Henry III (who stayed in mourning after his assassination in 1589), and the Five Queen’s Bedroom, in memory of Catherine de’Medici’s two daughters and her three daughters in law.

Bob didn’t even notice the caryatids framing this window opening.

This incredibly ornate frame is found in Louis XIV’s drawing room.  Notice the collection of rose bouquets below the painting.  Château Chenonceau is filled with the most incredible floral displays.

These are only a few of the enormous floral displays we saw.

I did mention that they are enormous!Jean-François Boucher is the head florist at the Chateau. He creates 200 bouquets a week every week of the year for display in the chateau.  This link has an interesting article and video about all this. https://thegoodlifefrance.com/the-chateau-de-chenonceau-the-castle-of-flowers-in-the-loire-valley/

I have never seen so many orchids.  The first photo shows one of two identical arrangements and the second is outside the door to the public washrooms.

A view through the leaded glass windows towards the Keep and the moat.

There is a little balcony that offers views of the Keep, and the two flower gardens. The top one is Diane’s Garden (remember the mistress?) and the bottom is Catherine’s garden (the wife of King Henry II.)

One more bedroom, that of Catherine de’ Medici, reminds us that it is always wise to look up when visiting Chateaus and castles.

The ceilings are painted and gilded with numerous initials and coats of arms of Catherine and Henri.

I find it fascinating how these chateaus evolve over the years.

We finish our visit of the chateau and find a lovely spot for our picnic lunch before heading back to walk through the grounds of the chateau.  We find our way to the center of the maze with a view of caryatids that once decorated the front of the chateau.

The cyclamens are in full bloom everywhere under the trees.  

We walk through Diane’s garden which is pretty but rather monotonous.  All the flower beds are the same, once you see one of them there isn’t much incentive to walk around to see the others.

We walk towards the chateau, which is truly magnificent…

and as we pass to the back side, the sun comes out to beautifully illuminate the chateau. During the Second World War, the River Cher was the demarcation line, so the entrance to the chateau was in the occupied zone but the Gallery’s south door gave access to the left bank and made it possible for the Resistance to pass many people into the free zone.

We find a comfortable bench and I do a drawing of the Keep while Bob catches up on a bit of reading.

I thought it might be fun to rent a canoe and paddle about on the Cher River, but maybe it is harder than it looks?

The historic 16th century wine cellar is still in use today.

There is much to see, including this interesting fountain…

and so many incredibly huge trees.  The deer is a statue.

You can just make out Bob’s head peeking out between the trunks of this tree.

There is a Carriage Gallery in one of the stables with both noble and rural horse drawn vehicles.

And then there are the gardens which are used to grow the many flowers and plants for those enormous bouquets in the chateau, along with some vegetables.  These are strange looking squash with such long necks.  I love the hand blown cloches that are stored under  the eaves of a shed.  I’d love to have these for our garden back home, instead of our plastic ones.

As we are leaving the gardens we see hot air balloons taking flight from behind a line of trees.

As we leave, walking back along the Great Driveway we encounter these strange, rather spooky beings. For some reason they make me think of the Game of Thrones Whitewalkers…but they are only entertainers for a fundraising event for sick children that is taking place in the evening.