Chateau Chenonceau

Chateau Chenonceau is high up the list of the top ten chateaux you must visit if you come to the Loire, so today we went there.  It is only twenty minutes drive from our accommodation.  It is actually not on the Loire river, but the nearby Cher.

As well as the chateau building itself there are acres of gardens and forests, so the whole estate is quite large.  It is the most-visited chateau in France, after the Palace de Versailles, receiving close to one million visitors each year.

Chateau Chenonceau

The vegetable gardens.

Acres of forest.

Extra colour was provided by these colourful people.

Sue heads into the maze.  Will she ever return?

The chateau itself was built about 1520 on the foundations of an old fortified mill, dating from 100 years earlier.  This is the main part of the structure, on the left in this photo (below).  The bridge across to the other bank was added later, and then the galleries over the bridge in 1560, by Catherine Medici.  Before that King Francis I gave it to his mistress Diane de Poitiers, who was responsible for much of its early development, but when he died his wife Catherine Medici evicted Diane and took over.  So Chateau Chenonceau was very much shaped by powerful women.

The chateau straddles the Cher river.

The desk of Catherine Medici.

The kitchens are down near water level.

Detail from a cabinet.

The chapel.

Some of the team who work the gardens.