French castle of Chambord celebrates five eventful centuries

The staircase's design means you can walk up from two different entry points and never meet before reaching the top. It was important to make a green connection between the castle and the forest. Oh look, a world boar. There's the whole family behind. Hello and welcome to a new edition. I'm Nadia Shabby and this week you find us back in the Loire Valley, this time in the grounds of the region's largest and most recognisable chateau, that of Chambord, where construction began exactly five centuries ago. The result of visible yet mysterious Italian influences. The edifice was redesigned multiple times but also looted and destroyed before finally being restored to become the tourist magnet it is today. Let's start with a closer look at Chambord's rich history. Dreamt up by King Francis I, how did Chambord become a Renaissance icon? In 1515, after his victory at Marignano, the king orders the edification of a new royal residence, a showcase of his power. Four years later, the builders get to work. Originally conceived as a hunting lodge, the edifice was only used by the king a grand total of 50 days. Chambord was then deserted for almost a century. Until Louis XIV ordered the site's completion in 1685. The Sun King and his court give Chambord a new lease of life filled with hunts and lavish celebrations. But that regal stamp of approval soon becomes a liability. The French Revolution puts such symbols in the firing line, local villagers loot the site in 1789 and the castle narrowly avoids being torn down altogether. As the monarchy ends, the Second Empire begins and Chambord goes from hand to hand until the Nazis requisition the castle during the Second World War. As the conflict plays out, Chambord is left unscathed. That is, until the crash of a US bomber in 1944, just as the war comes to an end. Seven decades later, the threat is of a different nature. The castle and its grounds fall foul to massive floods. But through hell and high waters, Chambord the Magnificent stands to tell the tale. For more on what makes this chateau such an architectural treasure, I've come to meet Chambord's Deputy Director General, Frédéric Bouillot. Hello. Thank you for taking us around the castle. Could you tell us first about the architecture of this amazing chateau? The castle's architecture is exceptional because here, for the first time, a floor plan usually reserved for religious buildings is applied to a public edifice. And by that, I mean the so-called Greek cross layout. In other words, four branches of equal length that revolve around a central axis, formed by this double helix staircase. This design means you can walk up from two different entry points and never meet before reaching the top. And it's Leonardo da Vinci who suggested adapting it to a public edifice. But da Vinci himself didn't actually build this staircase. Of course, we know that Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2nd, 1519, so he wasn't around to supervise the building work that only began in September of that year. However, we also know that the architects who worked on Chambord, including the king himself, who designed a few of the chateau's architectural features, used and drew inspiration from da Vinci's sketches. And not only for this staircase. Well, let's take this amazing staircase to go up to the rooftop and get a bit more information about the castle from there. Shall we? So we've now made it all the way up that amazing staircase. Where are we now? This is the castle's apex. We're at the top of the lantern tower, the building's highest point. That's crowned by a giant lily, the symbol of the French monarchy. Obviously, if this were a religious building, it's where you'd expect to see a cross. Of course. Now, what makes this castle so recognisable is the multitude of chimneys that you can see around here. What was the architectural idea behind that? The idea of these vertical features that go up towards the sky originally appeared during the Middle Ages. But here it's given a Renaissance twist with typical decorative elements, such as carved stone figures, known as grotesque, but also this two-tone black and white motif that you find on many buildings in Italy, often religious, but not only. And while in Italy they're made of black and white marble, here in France we don't have marble, so the lighter parts are made of freestone and the darker parts are slate. Thank you very much. Thank you. At Chambord, the experience is as much about the castle as it is about the grounds. Originally little more than a swamp, the site's stunning gardens have only just been brought back to life under the supervision of Bruno Guillouin and his team. We were lucky to find a generous benefactor who financed the project to the tune of 3.5 million euros. The building work lasted from August 2016 to March the following year, so it was a huge project that was completed in record time. But it took 14 years of research to recreate the gardens as they were drawn up four centuries ago. The layout of these gardens is identical to the 18th century design imagined by King Louis XIV. We recreated it by working from sketches and plans from that time, and we even had archaeologists dig up the grounds to determine the exact pits where the trees were originally planted. The result is a vast and varied expanse. We have 600 trees in the grounds, 800 shrubs, 15,000 border plants, 200 rose bushes, almost 20,000 square meters of lawns. It's very diverse. All of which serves as a link between the castle and the game-rich forest beyond. While Chambord is no longer a hunting lodge, the grounds are still used for the sport, though just 15 times a year and on invitation only. For today's visitors, the hunt is purely photographic and educational. Surrounded by 32 kilometers of walls, Chambord is Europe's largest enclosed park, roughly the size of inner Paris. Driven by one of the site's six guides, visitors are taken through an area otherwise off-limits. A rare chance to spot a few wild animals, like this intrepid boar family. Oh look, a wild boar. There's the whole family behind. A detour by the trophy room offers a lesson on the site's star mammal, the red deer, a majestic beast that came close to extinction just a few decades ago. Deer almost disappeared from French forests, especially during the Second World War as a result of poaching. Today, an estimated 800 roam the grounds and preservation efforts have turned Chambord into a veritable deer provider for France and beyond. Between 4,000 and 5,000 deer were captured alive in Chambord over a period of years. They were then released into the wild, not only here in France but also in northern Italy, in Switzerland and in Germany. And the result was spectacular. In France alone, it's estimated that 80% of the country's deer originate from the Chambord gene pool. With its royal pedigree, this species at least is officially out of the woods. As you'd expect, the upkeep of such a regal edifice comes at a high price. But as it works towards gaining financial independence from the state, Chambord has more than one trick up its sleeve. The key to its success is to keep things local, first with clever ways of marketing its natural resources, but also now with its very own brand of wine. A new venture launched just in time for this 500th anniversary. Grapes hadn't grown on Chambord grounds for almost a century. But since 2015, a new vineyard has slowly been taking root under the watch of this woman. It was inevitable that Chambord would return to winemaking. It's part of its DNA. Originally, Chambord was made up of little farms and each had its own plot on which grapes were harvested for the farm's personal use. But here, the aim was to produce a wine worthy of such a prestigious domain and just in time for this 500th anniversary. A challenge Agnibigo has successfully risen to. The first bottles have finally reached the shelves of the Chateau Gift Shops. It's arrived. Today, we've finally reaped what we've sown. Ultimately, Chambord hopes to produce some 70,000 bottles of organic wine, a possible treasure trove for a chateau that costs a cool 16 million euros a year in upkeep. Currently, the site's takings cover 91% of that sum. In time, we want to become 100% self-sufficient. Today, we're just a few percentage points away from that goal and I'm certain this wine will make the difference. This shop is the site's second source of income after the ticket office. On offer, honey, sweets, arts and crafts, all locally sourced products to complement the more traditional tourist trinkets. And if that wasn't enough, the site's 5,440 hectares offer up yet more surprises, such as this brand-new vegetable garden where visitors can pick their own produce or learn about permaculture. You use the weight of your body to drive in the pitchfork. That will air and relieve the soil, so we're not disrupting the soil's microbiology and we avoid the noise and smell of machinery. A sustainable take on agriculture that puts the spotlight on local varieties of produce. That's Saulnier's mission statement and he's already planning ahead. There's a plot of land just next to the stables, so we're going to expand to five more hectares. That's ten times what we have now. And within the next four or five years, we hope to be selling half a million euros' worth of fruit and vegetables. The vegetable gardens make up one of nine projects launched to mark this 500th anniversary, enough to ensure Chambord's reputation continues to grow. With that, we leave this edition. Thank you for watching. Stay tuned to France 24.