I'm an American Ex-Pat living in Worchestershire. I love cheesy indie folksy type music (like Sufja...
I'm an American Ex-Pat living in Worchestershire. I love cheesy indie folksy type music (like Sufjan Stevens and Fleet Foxes) , old skool Classic Literature, Sleeping In till noon on Sundays, and Backpacking around random villages in Scotland =)
Member since:01.02.2009
Reviews:24
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When I think of the Loire Valley, I think of one of the most enjoyable Family "touristy" days i've ever had. Sometimes, when we go on holiday with our families, we can have a good time together. Yet there usually is always something that goes amiss.
How often have you been vacationing somewhere gorgeous where you waste hours and hours arguing amoungst your family about "where to go", and "what to do"?
Or, how many times have you gotten into a little skirmish with someone your travelling with?
What about when you were sick that one time and had to stay at your hotel/villa, and your family went sightseeing without you. Then it turns out they met a famous person and had the best day of their entire trip on that day you were sick?
Yeah.....sometimes, it's not always CRAZY FUN to go on holidays with your entire family. Then again, sometimes....it is. Our trips to the Loire Valley have always been...amazing. We continued to find something new to do, and never disagreed about where to go. It was as if the place had some magical "getting along together", hold over us.
In the Loire Valley......you dont fight.....you don't argue.....you don't get bored.....you don't whine.....you don't feel tired.....you don't frown. My mother said " The Loire Valley is like Brigadoon". You'll only get that statement if you actually watched that old movie with Gene Kelly. What she meant by that, is there is some type of, ethereal quality about the region that you have to see to believe.
Despite my drama queen sounding antics above, I'm being quite serious. The Loire Valley is one of my top three reasons "Why I still love France". I'll briefly give you a glimpse into the region that I'd kill to have a summer home in.
Even if this review page didn't have the picture of this Chateau for everyone to see, it would still be my first choice.
It's rare for my family to all agree on something "completely". Maybe that didn't come out right? What I mean is.....if one of us "likes" something, the other will "kinda like it"......., then another will say........ " it's ok" , and, another will say ......" I dunno what I think about it", then there is always one that says ........." I hated it"! It's so hard to find something that everyone likes EQUALLY.
With Chateau de Chambord, we ALL loved it. And when I say loved, I mean....l-o-v-e-d it. As your driving up to the Chateau, and you see it in the distance, it's hard not to pull the car over and start snapping pictures. There is a bit of Japanese Tourist in all of us. So, when we see something visually striking we have no quams with getting out our cameras in order to take a piece of that home with us.
To say this Chateau
is only visually striking is a vast understatement. There is so much more to this place. The history of the Chateau itself for starters.......
* HISTORY LESSON TIME *
This Chateau is quite old. Maybe not Scottish or German Castle old, but close. It started being built in the 1500's by Francois I. It was in construction for many years during his reign, but he only ended up living in it for a few weeks before he died! The amount of work involved in building this place, is staggering.
Not only the money it must have taken at the time, but the innovative architecture is impressive. I was surprised to find out that the grand staircase that runs through the very middle of the Chateau, was "supposively" designed by Da Vinci himself! Now I can say I walked on Da Vinci's staircase......I understand it's JUST a staircase, but.....you haven't seen this staircase. It is , it's own entity. Google this Chateau and look at the pictures of it. You'll be wowed, I assure you.
As we walked through, I translated various signs and plaques. Each one I came upon and read you could hear me say " What?!" out loud several times. Oh, and I also said a lot of "Your Kidding Me's". Since i've been told I have a miniature flare for the dramatic, I translated with a little bit of embellishment. By the time we ended our Castle tour, my mother thought the place was haunted, my sister wanted it turned into a Hotel, my brother wanted to write a thesis about it, and my Father just kept saying "Facinating".
I'll tell you the summerized history about the castle and share a few of my "embellishments" with you.
Apparently, like I mentioned above, King Francois I had this castle commisioned for no real reason since, he didn't even get to live there. Although, there are plenty of Tapestries he had collected and commissioned over the years that are hanging all over the walls. It's obvious when looking at these tapestries, he loved ancient battles and war in general. He kinda reminded me of G.W. with his war mongering attitude.
In a way, Francois I, was like your typical rich CEO billionaire. They go off, have a mansion built, and are more interested in making it BIG and grandious, instead of residing there. That being said, historically Francois I was a good king, and the country did florish under his reign. When he died though, the castle was.....completely empty.
It wasn't just empty for a few yrs, it was empty for almost 100 yrs, until the new King gave it as a gift to the Duc d'Orleans. During the century it had been abandoned, it was full of animals, extremely dirty, and decaying. Can you imagine seeing this magnificant castle abandoned for nearly 100 years? It sounded like something out of Sleeping Beauty to me. Was the castle cursed?
(Embellishment #1 - Yes, I told my family that the Francois I cursed the castle and said he would haunt whomever was living there at the time).
After the Duc d'Orleans got it from his brother the new King (He was one of the Louis's, I think the XIII. ), he started renovations of it. Of course, not living there, just making it MORE grandious, I guess he took his antics from every other French King in existance. His renovations took a while (The French aren't known for their speed), so he only physically resided in the Chateau for a year or two. When he died, it passed on to the new King....another Louis.
Now, what they said was that Francois I, already had Cheateau's all over France. What he built this Chateau for was as a hunting lodge. This area of the Loire is famous for it's forests. Later on, i'll be doing another review about the National Forests in France, where you can go Wild Boar watching..... I digress.....back to this so-called "hunting lodge".
A HUNTING LODGE? Are you kidding me? What about this Chateau says LODGE? It looks like Princesses and ladies in waiting should be living there. It even has the spooky lonely feel of the fairy tale Castle of Beauty and the Beast. Good ole Francois was deluding himself to think he could go kill some boar, bring it back to this magnificant monstrosity, and feel manly. Anyways....
One of the King Louis' that had it next, added a massive amount of stables. I think it was enough to house over 1000 horses. This Louis must have loved his horses and wanted to be doing some major fox/boar hunting.
* Sidenote* The strange thing about the placement of this Chateau is that there really isn't any village nearby. Most Castles, Schloss's, and Chateau's , have at least a village or town within walking distance, but this place was known for it's seclusion.
When your on the massive grounds, you'll see a portion of these infamous stables. You'll also notice that various equestrian events take place on the property and the stables to this day. At least THAT got and is still GETTING, some use. It was noted in the brochure for the Chateau, that the stables were used more than the Chateau itself.
(Embellishment #2 - When I mentioned about King Louis and his 1000+ horsing stables, I added that the King actually slept in the stables . This was because, when he had spent one night in the Chateau, the Ghost of Francois the I, pushed him off the bed and told him to get out of his house.....I can't believe my family bought that too.....it wasn't even that original of an embellishment!) Since the Louis King was only there a few weeks a year during his hunting trips, the Castle was again, virtually abandoned. When he died, it was completely empty for 40 yrs. Until....
A deposed king of Poland was granted Sanctuary there for about 10 yrs.
( So a Polish king that was kicked out of his country, had lived in the Chateau for the longest time out of the 200 yrs the castle had been around.....how's that for mind-boggling).
After said Used-to-be-King-of-Poland left, it then was passed on to another and another and another. During these "anothers", it was left emtpy again many times. One plaque said,
Pictures of Loire Valley (France)
Loire Valley (France)
that if you look the amount of time lived in the castle by all the "owners" of it, it only amounts to.... 80 yrs
So this 500 yr old castle, only had someone living it, for 80 yrs. Even when the owners would leave, they would NOT have servants or attendants or stewards live on the property. It would be closed up completely. I'm not sure why, but that was eerie to me, AND...wasteful. All the money that was put into this gorgeous chateau, yet, very few people took advantage of it. If I had lived during the time they had "closed up" this place, I would have claimed Squatters Rights to it, you can be damn sure of that!
##### End of History Lesson #####
* And now, the Rest of the Story........*
This Chateau is probably most famous around the world for the Liquor of it's namesake. Chambord liquor is a very spicey blackberry flavoured drink in a distinct purple "crown" bottle. You can even stop by the headquarters of the Liquor makers. It has a huge gate with a large "Crown" in the middle, that stands maybe....30 feet tall? It's massive. And in the distance you can see a miniature Chateau/Mansion. Obviously, the liquor sells well enough to support a very lavish looking headquarters.
Outside of the Chateau they have several gift shops in a "made up" village look. It has an ice cream shop, a cafe , and a few Souvenir shops. They are incredibly reasonable as well. Generally , you expect tourist type gift shops to take full advantage of it's guests. Instead, you could get an expresso and a croissant for 4 euros (most "un cafe's" cost you 4 euros alone). Then you can buy sketches and paintings of the Chateau for only a couple euros as well.
The Cost of visiting the Chateau was only 12 euros each for adults over 25 yrs old, and 9 euros for under 25. Which to me, is surprisingly inexpensive. Warwick and Edinburgh Castle charge you around 15 pounds. With the Chateau De Chambord, you get access to the entire Chateau and it's gorgeous grounds which cover a broad area. You also didn't have to pay for parking.
My family and I spent about 4 hrs at this place from around 10 am till 2pm and, if we didn't have more things we wanted to see in the Loire Valley, we could have stayed there even longer.
If you visit France, and want to do something other than Paris (which I would recommend....there is SO MUCH more to France than Paris), take in this Chateau. I've been to dozens of them in France, and this one is without a doubt the most impressive.
*****Drive up to Someone's Personal Vineyard*****
The Loire Valley is littered with Vineyards. Especially in the area of Cheverny and Chinon. Many French will have mixed feelings about the wines in this area. They'll say Bordeaux is the King of Vineyards, but I'm not sold on that. The Loire Valley has a very broad amount of wines available. Even if you consider yourself a namby pamby wine afficianado, you cannot refute the quality of grapes in this region. The Muscadat is a special type of grape unique to the region. I only found this out because several of the "Vignerons" (The ones who work at the Vineyards), were more than eager to educate us about the region.
When we were at Chateau de Chambord, I asked a women in French where to go to do some local wine tasting. She recommended Cheverny since that was the closest. As we drove through the town and it's outskirts, it was obvious this place was dedicated to the Vine. We found dozens of signs to various vineyards and just started....Vineyard hopping. =)
The first we went to was very small and had "so-so" tasting Whites and not so good, Reds. We weren't discouraged though, and moved on to several others. It was so easy to buy a few bottles each time, because out of the dozen or so we visited, only 2 were not that amazing. One of my favorites was called "Domaine Du Moulin" on the border of Sologne. We bought a case of Cheverny White and a Pinot Noir to split amongst us and we drank those cases up in a few weeks.
Loire Valley wines aren't incredibly expensive. It was even more surprising to find out that our fave ,the Domaine Du Moulin, were one of the least costly.
Chinon is another region in the Loire Valley, and type of wine I really like. It might even be my favourite in terms of being "easy to drink. Of course, Chinon Wines are sometimes "poo poo'ed" but those Namby Pamby's of the wine snobs. (Just like Beaujolais's are......and I LOVE Beaujolais!) I was able to get a case of a TRES BON, Chinon for only 4 euros a bottle. I found the same one, at a local winery in Versailles months later, and it was 17 Euros. I was half wanting to re-sell them to the winery for a nice little profit, but I liked the wine too much to part with it. =)
You can't go wrong with most Vineyards in the Loire Valley. It's always cheaper and more fun , to buy wines direct from the maker. You don't have to worry about "picking out" a wine without knowing if it's good or not. Plus, they are VERY generous with their wine tastings. =) You pretty much HAVE to have a Designated Driver. =)
***** What Else Is there? *****
I guess other than the picturesque villages, towns, and Chateau's, the great Wines and friendly locals.....there isn't a whole lot else I can think of. Yet, I think those things are more than enough to make an area more than worthwhile.
It's a valley of rolling hills, many different Castles, open roads, fantastic wines, and NICE French people. What else is there to want?
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Hotel - Lotissement, Centre d'Activities du Pin, Beaucouze, 49070 Angers, Centre d'activité du Pin, 49070 Beaucouzé, Pays de la Loire, France - 2 Stars - 42 Rooms
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Mar 5th, 2009
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