Chenonceau!

Ohhhhhh man, I am getting a little behind on regaling you all with stories of my travels! But I currently have no more trips planned, so it's time to catch up. After touring Normandy, my dad and I headed to the Loire Valley - château country! Our first stop was the Château de Chenonceau, which was built in the early 1500's (and designed by architect Philibert DeLorme!). A lot of kings and queens and French nobility lived there over the years, but today it's a Monument Historique and open to the public. It's the second most-visited château in France after Versailles!

To get to the actual Château after buying your tickets (no, your Mont Saint-Michel ticket won't work here, Dad...), you walk down this long tree-lined path, and the castle slowly appears in the distance. Chenonceau is especially cool because it was built over the Cher River, so boats could come right up to it. The château is beautiful and has been really well restored/maintained. All the Christmas decorations were still up, and a lot of the fireplaces had fires going, so even though it was massive, it still felt almost kind of cozy.

There are roughly one billion rooms in the château, and you get a really good pamphlet with a map and some background about each room. I don't remember all the details, but plenty of courtly intrigue took place here! It seems like every room you go into was once the bedroom of some king or queen of France. During World War I, the château was used as a hospital, and you can see the main hall where soldiers were treated. 

Diane de Poitier's bedroom

Hall where soldiers were treated during World War I

The kitchen

One of the first straight (as opposed to spiral) staircases in France!

The Five Queens' Bedroom
(Queen Margot, Elisabeth of Valois,  Mary Queen of Scots, Elisabeth of Austria, and Louise of Lorraine)

One of many tapestries

View out from the château

There are also huge beautiful gardens you can walk through around the château, and past the gardens, the château is surrounded by woods. It definitely felt very castle-y, and again, there was almost no one else around! 

It was especially interesting to see Chenonceau and a little bit of the Loire because one of the books I read last semester, Le Lys dans la Vallée by Balzac, takes place in the Loire. Le Lys dans la Vallée was not exactly my favorite book ever, but my professors talked a lot about how inspired Balzac was by the Loire, so I wanted to see for myself. I was so lucky that my dad could come visit me and rent a car, since most châteaus are pretty tricky to get to by train/public transportation.

À bientôt!