Loire Valley - France Best Place 🇫🇷 Travel & Discover

Among France's innumerable patrimonial riches and landscapes, monuments and historical sites that make and personify the country, the Châteaux of the Loire are unique. Nature may have provided the setting, but man has managed to use it with such artfulness that it appears as if God made the Loire flow through terrain just to set the stage of these castles. The Châteaux of the Loire required a new kind of harmony that would allow the style brought back from Italy by Charles VIII and Louis XIII to reach its full potential. Henceforth, the Loire and the Renaissance were eternally linked. The Ambrose Castle was the dream of Charles VIII. Ambrose occupies a strategic position on a limestone spur carved out by the Loire and the Amass, a promontory that offers natural protection against enemy incursions. The delicate chapel of Saint Hubert was originally part of the donjon, the keep. The harmonious doorway is in flamboyant Gothic style. Of all the Loire Châteaux, Blois has seen the most constant renewal of its architecture and decor, extending the splendor of the days when it was a royal seat. Louis XII made Blois his seat and changed the castle considerably. The courtyard façade of the Francois I wing and staircase are a symbol of the coming together of Italy and France that found expression in design and decor in the Loire Valley and marks a major turning point in the history of French Renaissance style. Situated at the crossroads of three provinces, many great figures have visited Chinon in the past. The most famous Count of Anjou, Henry Plantagenet, became King of England in 1154 and the fortress of Chinon acquired its present outline during his reign. The Tour de l'Horloge or the Clock Tower is one of the defining features of the town of Chinon. The Clock Tower was built on 12th century foundations and the upper part was rebuilt in the 14th century. The castle is divided along its length into three enclosures, each separated by a deep dry moat. The easternmost is known as Fort Saint-Georges, the central called the Château de Millieu, while the westernmost is known as the Fort de Coudray. Around the year 1000, terrain was coveted by two powerful local lords, the Count of Anjou, Fulcnera and the Count of Blois, Oudes I. At the end of the 10th century, Fulcnera conquered the site of Langeais, not far from Tours, and established a castle on the promontory. The open drawbridge is an invitation to enter into the refined lodgings of a great lord. It's the most fully furnished castle of the Loire Valley. When Jacques Siegfried bought the Château de Langeais in 1886, he set out to recreate a model 15th century residence, complete with furniture, tapestries and objet d'art of the period. Set on the south bank of the river Loire, the Château of Saumur enjoys a particularly favourable location. On a high limestone hill, it dominates the valley of the river Thouay. The castle we now see in Saumur was constructed by Henry II, King of England, towards the end of the 12th century. The following centuries were a period of transition and frequent battles and skirmishes between the English and French in the region. Transition also for the Château de Saumur as it passed from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The Château of Chambord is the most famous and majestic castle in the Loire Valley. Chambord lies at the heart of the largest national parkland, including a huge national nature reserve. François I decided during the first years of construction on the Chambord site to shift the centre of power from the Loire Valley to Paris and Ile-de-France. The construction is built of tuffeux, a low-resistant siliceous limestone, light or white in colour. The quality differs from quarry to quarry, most of which are located in the Cher. Though the Château of Chambord has been famous ever since construction began, little is known about this vast project. The château's stairs, created by the technical prowess of master masons and stonecutters, became a prestigious architectural ornament at the end of the Middle Ages. The elliptical barrel vault coffered ceiling on the third floor was inspired by Italian antique monuments or the transept arches of the newly constructed St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The vault is also decorated with the royal monogram F and salamander emblem of François I. These tapestries were woven in the early 17th century. In the tower of the north quarter, nothing is left but memories of the apartment of Queen Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, later used by Madame de Mantenon. The tapestries come from the history of Constantine, woven for Louis XIII in studios in Paris, after designs by Rubens. In the royal chamber on the second floor, the Marshal de Saxe combined the wood panelling decor with an identical tapestry for the alcove and the bed. The bed is a reproduction based on period documents. In the second antechamber, is an important collection of portraits of Bourbon royalty and grand courtiers. Court life under the reign of Louis XIV followed a strict system of etiquette. Courtiers passed through a series of antechambers before being admitted, if authorised by birth or by king's favour, to the antechamber itself. This ceremony had its architectural expression in the hierarchical arrangement of rooms, lined up one after the other in the royal apartments. With an architecture that possesses all the elegance of the French Renaissance, and a history determined by a handful of extraordinary women, the Château of Seine-en-Seul proves to be one of the finest jewels of the Loire Valley. It's an illustrious 16th century residence, whose distinguishing feature is its remarkable bridge gallery, crossing the Cher River. The gardens envelope Seine-en-Seul with a setting of greenery, water, forest and gardens. Seine-en-Seul was initially the work of Thomas Beauhier, one of the leading figures of the French business elite. Begun after 1513, its construction was undoubtedly quite advanced in 1517, when France's first decree, authorising the building of a bridge over the Cher, was issued. The Marquis Tower is the only vestige Thomas Beauhier kept of the medieval castle. Its windows, door and pseudo-fortifications around the crown have been modified with a Renaissance style. Similar to those decorating the castle's large dormer windows, the pediment above the door recalls France's first wing of Château La Bois. Ladies of the court, ladies of the heart, women with savvy and a sense of business. Seven women, two of them queens, determined the fate of Seine-en-Seul. The gardens of Seine-en-Seul had their golden age in the 16th century. Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici had them filled with rare plants and trees, and transformed them into a setting for extravagant celebrations. Begun in 1552, Diane de Poitiers' garden was planted on an elevated terrace that protects it from the rising waters of the Cher. Large quantities of earth were piled up to form a square which is surrounded by a thick wall topped with a promenade. Seine-en-Seul admirably demonstrates that life in a castle was not what the expression implies, and far from being an exercise in frivolity, it often represented a strong solid task. By exercising their authority in matters of taste and their managerial skills of agriculture and forestry, viticulture and administration, the ladies of Seine-en-Seul left behind a heritage of architecture, ornament and landscape gardening that's among the first and most striking in France. Inside the castle, the bedchamber of the five queens evokes the memory of Catherine de Medici's two daughters and three daughters-in-law. Seine-en-Seul is not only remarkable for its architecture and history, but also for the fine quality of its collections, as can be seen during a visit inside. Renaissance furniture, a vast ensemble of 16th and 17th century tapestries, and a great number of masterpieces decorated the castle. The galleries of the castle are covered by ogival vaults which run the length of the building. The Medici's bedchamber is decorated with a group of 16th century Flemish tapestries recounting the life of Samson. The spectacular Loire region was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.