Loire Valley Grandeur ~ Where are the Jays

Chenounceaue

Our last stop on our tour of France is the town of Cheverny. We like to finish a trip with something special. This former chateau now luxury hotel in the Loire Valley is what brought us here. As we enter the property, we are greeted with a half mile long drive through the woods. The hotel is a mixture of a chateau and of wooden cottages with porches so a mixture of old-world fancy and modern luxury cottages. Our room turns out to be in the chateau. The reception set the tone for our stay with a relaxing drink and comfortable place to sit while they parked the car and deliver our bags to the room. The check-in person took us on a tour of the first floor with its very high ceiling. We were introduced to the game room, music room, boot room, gym and a spa. We will not use the boot room since it is so dry and we skip the spa. We like our room, but it is dark - little light and a dark colored wall.

Luxurious, but dark

Part of the music and game room

Back side of hotel

We have made reservations for their regular restaurant tonight and then their Michelin starred restaurant our last night. Happy to report that the regular restaurant is quite good unlike the last hotel! We eat outside under a canopy of grape vines and start to check out the other guests. We notice several families with grade school kids and younger and many couples with dogs - I think all were small well one was an English Bulldog. Then there is the family that sits at a large table near us. It is a mom, dad, 3 kids and 3 nannies. Yep, each child has their own nanny. Now the youngest is probably under 2 so I could understand 2 nannies in a way, but 3! I should add the children are all-in high-end designer clothes and as Jeff said mom has had some work done. Oh well they seem nice.

Restaurants

Chenounceau or Chateau of the Ladies

You have probably seen photos of this chateau. It is famous for its portion that goes over the river Cher, the current building was started by Thomas Bohier and his wife Katherine Bioconnet. They tore down most of a previous castle leaving only the keep which is now the Marquese Tower. They built the part of the chateau that is on land. The portions with the arches over the water would come from later owners and there were a lot of them! This chateau was a desirable home for several ladies of the royal family. The royal connection started when Henri I gave it to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. She added the bridge. When Henri died, the queen mother, Catherine de Medici, kicked Diane out and took it over for herself. Catherine de Medici kept court here, so she added 2 floors to the bridge which them became a ball room and the upper floors were for visiting court members. Later Henri II's widow, Louise de Lorrain would live at the castle while in mourning. And finally, Louise Dupin was there during the French Revolution - it was because of her popularity that the chateau was not demolished at that time.

Chenounceau

Path out of Nazi occupied France

This is a popular chateau to visit and of course it had gotten hot again, but we were able to see it and to explore one of the gardens and the opposite bank of the river some. One of the lasting memories I have from this chateau (other than the views over the river) are all the old tapestries that are here. I think the tapestries were from the 14th century and in pretty good shape - they don't photograph well.

The tapestries caught our eye

The kitchen was another interesting area of the house. It is in the base of one of the arches going across the river. They were able to get deliveries from the river with a pulley system. Of course, the long hallway across the river is quite nice too.

Kitchens over the water made deliveries easy and discreet.

Amazing tabletop

Like most chateaus there is a lot of land around it. When you cross the bridge, you can enter into a forest area where one of the ladies was buried. This route was also used during WWII 1940-1942, to get French Resistance fighters out of the country. The side of the river with the main chateau building was in occupied France while the bridge landed in the “Free Zone” controlled by the Vichy government. Thus, the sneaking people out and the bombing in the area by the Germans. Back on the chateau side of the river there are 2 very nice formal gardens. One was Catherine's Garden and the other was Diane's Garden. At least how they planted it this year, we thought Catherine's Garden was prettier. Also, the approach to the chateau is along a tree lined path which we really appreciated on another hot day!

Loved the gardens

Can’t have too many images

Both of us wearing our new hats

Chateau Cheverny

Truth be known, I only suggested we visit this chateau because it was so close to us. There was a lot more to this chateau than I gave it credit for. No, it does not have a long history of royal owners, but it has been exceptionally well maintained, and the same family still owns it. We had bought our tickets through our hotel, so we are able to walk past the line and go right in the door. We immediately find ourselves in an open area with a courtyard nearby, some grassy areas off to our right. The courtyard has a water feature with palm trees in pots in it and Jeff wanders in to take a photo. Quickly learn this is off limits to tourists and later realize it is the horse stables.

Good to be a bourse at these stables

We wander around to the side of the courtyard and decide to walk the grounds first before it gets too hot. We head for a bridge over a small lake that has the love garden and black swans. The bridge was nothing special, the love garden was statutes, the black swans were interesting to see. From there we realize we are at an end of the property open to visitors except if you take a cruise where you will see exotic trees. We decide to go on the cruise. The exotic trees include redwoods from California. We learn that one of the early dukes was interested in several things including horticulture. He moved land around so that what was swampy land could be used as forests or to grow vegetables and wine. We also learn he was an amateur archeologist and found several interesting pieces on the grounds from Roman times. Like the English, the French Nobility liked to hunt using hounds thus there is a kennel here. Oh, but not just any kennel, there are around 100 French Hounds housed in the kennel which we can only see part of. Additionally, one of the statutes on the grounds is of a French Hound.

Look for the Swan’s reflection

Jeff’s new puppy

Framed this well

Time to enter the house! There is a say a 100 yard walkway to the house. We get in the house, and they hand us a brochure on the rooms we will see. Unfortunately to keep the house cooler and to protect the furnishings from the sunlight, most of the windows and shades are covered so it is on the dark side and I can't read it! We still enjoy the house. First room is the dining room. Makes me think of Christmas the way it is decorated with lots of red accents. It is a nice big room with a large fireplace. Most of the rooms of this house have painted beams on the ceiling. While the write up says the Marquis and Marquise still live in part of the house, I felt like we saw the whole place. On the second floor we found rooms like the arms room which was huge and had a variety of armory and trunks and then the "private apartments" with a couple of wedding dresses in one room and a room that was their family dining room. The top floor was their chapel. When we left the building, we wandered around the property for a few more minutes and then walked into the street which dumped us into the small town where we had a choice of 3 restaurants for lunch before we headed back to our hotel and the pool!

Amazing dining hall

Chapel

View from the back

With a great dinner last night and an even better planned for tomorrow, we decided to keep it simple with picking up a pizza and opening a bottle of red wine. Sounds simple right, wrong. We had seen some concerning smoke at a couple locations while driving around during the afternoon. Unfortunately, for Jeff’s drive to pick up the pizza it turned into fire trucks and police vehicles racing down the road. A series of closed roads that google maps was unaware of made the drive challenging, especially when he encountered smoke.

Chateau de Fontainebleau

Our last stop in France was Fontainebleau - the only chateau that all French Kings and Emperors used. It is also the only place with a throne room. We are stopping on our way to our airport hotel, so our time is a little constrained. We don't explore the lands, and we made quick time through the castle. (skipping the lands was an easy choice since it is hot again). It is a very nice place to visit and less crowded than Versailles. Apparently, it was not that great of a place until Francis I fell in love with the place and its hunting grounds and started turning it into a real chateau. This also explains why we saw a serpent here and in Chenonceau because it was his emblem. Many key French events happened here. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette enjoyed quiet time here and his father had spent much time here too. After the revolution, it was still used, it was here that Pope Pius VII was held captive and here that Napoleon abdicated and left for Elba. The key rooms for both of those events are still here. Even the table that was supposedly used by Napoleon to abdicate is in the room.

When you start in the chateau, you begin in an area that was set up as a museum for Napoleon I - we skimmed through that pretty quickly. There were paintings of major battles, old weapons and some sculptures. Finally, we moved onto more of your traditional castle with elaborate rooms with fancy furniture. Like Versailles there is a long hallway. It is not mirrored and I actually prefer it to the famous hall of mirrors at Versailles. Like the other chateaus in Loire Valley, there are many nice, old tapestries hanging on the walls. Here too much of the windows are covered so many rooms are on the dark side. We see the throne room and a king's bedroom or two, rooms for guards, a chapel. We see a globe that was built for Napoleon that was not meant to be artistic, but factual. It was all very grand and very interesting, but we needed to go.