Chenonceau to Cheverny to Chambord – June 9/13

This morning we headed off to the Chateau of Chenonceau; or as it is also known The Ladies Chateau, as it was owned and managed by 6 different women over the ages.

Chateau Chenonceau actually crosses the river Cher so this makes the construction very unique.

For example in the Chapel there is a trap door that leads to the support structure under the Chateau.

The kitchen is built in the base of both towers so it has easy access to water for cooking, cleaning, food delivery and also fire suppression.

 Nowadays on average they get 9000 visitors each day, so it is very popular.

The ground are beautiful and inside the Chateau in most rooms, entrance points and hallways they have fresh flowers that are changed once a week on Thursday.

One room that was quite bizarre was where one of the Queens lived for 10 years after her husband died. She had it painted all black, decorated in very dark colours and she stayed in this room all that time;kind of weird.

Chateau Chenonceau was our favourite Chateau that we visited……. it was beautiful.

From here we headed to Chateau Cheverny which has been in the Hurault Family for over 6 Centuries and today descendants of the family live in the right wing of the Chateau.

So, this Chateau looks a lot more lived in and many of the rooms look like you could remove the ropes keeping the tourists back and invite guests in.

Off to one side are the dog kennels where Today 80 large Hunting Hounds are kept and used for Boar and Stag hunting parties.

Back of the kennels are beautiful gardens with fruits and vegetables.

From Chateau Cheverney we headed into the small village for a group lunch.

After lunch we boarded the bus for a visit to our last Chateau on our tour which is Chateau Chambord.

This is the largest of all the Chateau’s in the Loire Valley (except for Chateau Amboise prior to it’s owner selling the parts of the stones as a quarry) the grounds of Chateau Chambord cover 5440  hectares; the same area as Inner Paris. The Chateau itself is absolutely is huge and reminded us both a lot of The Palace of Versailles.

Chateau Chombord was built as a hunting lodge by King Francis 1st, however even though he reined for 32 years he only spent 72 days at Chambord. The Chateau is built on a marshy area so even though they had many fireplaces to heat it they could not get rid of the  humidity, so it was always damp and cool. Our tour leader said that when the King traveled he would have as many as 15,000 travelling with him. They moved everything the King required including his massive bed furniture, etc. etc.

One very unique feature of Chateau Chambord is the famous double spiral staircase in the very centre of the keep that links the Chateau’s three floors.

From here we headed back to Paris it was late Sunday afternoon and the traffic and line ups as we got closer to Paris something we have never seen before……… crazy!

Once we arrived we said goodbye to all our new friends we had met.

Mike and Tricia from Australia were great company and who knows what our traveling future may bring we may end up visiting them in Australia.

We then headed over to The Hotel Diana by City Bus for the  night.

This was an amazing tour and we loved every minute of it 🙂