The Royal Touch

(Pete, Bryan and Lisa on the bank of the Loire in Tours)

Having just one full day in the valley, we went on an all-day castle tour in a bid to see as much as possible. I'm glad we did, too; the chateaux are notoriously hard to access without a car, so we fully appreciated the transport in our careening VW van. The first chateau, a smaller building called Azay-le-Rideau, was lovely; it sits on a small river and shows the marks of the many different generations it has seen since the 16th century. We had time for a quick walkthrough before driving through the lilac-dotted countryside to our second castle of the day, Villandry.

(above: Azay-le-Rideau)

Villandry is known more for its stunning gardens than its castle, and it shows. From a moat teeming with fish to geometrically designed, thematic hedgerows to a serene man-made lake, it's the quintessential French 'backyard'. It even had the same designer as Versailles. Along with its herb garden (unchanged since medieval monks began it), the castle retains a sense of time standing still that seems to be native to La Vallee de Loire.


After lunch we arrived at the stronghold of the town of Amboise. The lordly chateau has guarded its people from atop its hill since the eleventh century and has housed royalty as well: from Charles VII to Francois I, who grew up in the castle. It was Francois who was a great patron of his time; during the French Renaissance, he championed free thinkers and even lured Da Vinci to spend the last three years of his life tinkering away at the nearby manor of Clos Luce.



(above: le Chateau d'Amboise; below: drawings swaying in the trees of Da Vinci's grounds)

Although Da Vinci is buried in the chateau d'Amboise's tiny chapel, his last home is far more venerated by current admirers. The house has a special exhibit about his life and works, but when we visited we surreptitiously slipped into the manor's extensive grounds instead. The quiet woods are split in two by a small river, and spotted with Da Vinci's myriad inventions: everything from his preliminary drawings for a helicopter to his plan for a water-pumping machine have been realized in the 21st century by IBM (using materials of Da Vinci's time) and subtly placed among the trees. I'm not sure how Da Vinci would react if he knew his plans were put into action by a multinational technology company, but I guess he worked for the late medieval equivalent, the kings and queens of Europe. He'd understand.


After some free wine-tasting (and wine-buying) in the cool basement of the chateau and the visit to Clos Luce, we were off to our last chateau, the classy domicile of Chenonceau, 'le chateau des dames'. The 'women's castle' is a white monolith straddling the River Cher, accented by manicured French gardens and a leafy, tree-lined avenue. It was owned and added to over the centuries by a series of female proprietors, starting with Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King Henry II. She added the famous arch, the galerie, over the river that connects the castle to the far bank. Later on, Catherine de Medici moved in and ruled France from its tiny library until her son was old enough to take over. After she died, it passed from woman to woman until about the mid-19th century.


The surprisingly small number of rooms bear the marks of a woman's touch-- elegant bedrooms are balanced with intricately carved stone staircases and the tour-de-force galerie. The chateau is significant to French history not only because of its royal origins but also for surviving the French Revolution and for its role in the 20th century World Wars. In WWI it served as a makeshift hospital and in WWII, as a passageway from occupied to free France; if you walked in one door of the galerie from occupied France, you could slip out the other into the free zone.

But that was it for the day...our chateau-hopping at an end, we had some Italian for dinner and are getting ready to leave the canola fields of the valley for the stone beaches of Nice tomorrow. I really, really hope this isn't the last I see of this part of France, though. It's too beautiful to miss.