Loire Valley - Part 2

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My last full day in the Loire Valley.  I started off with an amazing breakfast at Les Hauts de Loire (have I mentioned the wonderful service ☺) and then drove to Amboise (25 minutes / 13 miles).  Note:  my woven camera strap started to unravel while I was at Amboise and completely fell apart while I was at Villandry -- so this is the last day of lots of photos).

Amboise is a charming town situated on the southern bank of the Loire.  It is the childhood home of Charles VIII and the final resting place of Leonardo da Vinci.  It was a stunningly gorgeous day -- so lots of people out & about -- made it rather difficult to find a place to park and to find some place to eat.  After walking around for awhile and checking out some of the tourist sites -- I drove out to Château Villandry (50 minutes / 25 miles).  I stopped in at a little cafe in the village for lunch and then spent the rest of the day at the château.  I had a dinner reservation for 7:30pm -- so I left the château around 5:30pm (about 1 hour drive / 50 miles back to the hotel).  Dinner was outside at the casual Bistrot at the Les Hauts -- lovely ambiance (and sunset!).

Although I loved the gardens at Château Chenonceau (especially the vegetable garden) -- they are dwarfed by the gardens at Villandry (although if you are keen on the interiors -- then Chenonceau is the better choice).  Click here for an excellent virtual tour and description of the amazing gardens at Château Villandry.

Amboise
  • The town was first mentioned in 504 as Ambatia, when on the isle of Saint-Jean (now Île d'Or), Clovis I, King of the Franks, met Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, to make a short-lived pact.  In the 11th century Fulk III, Count of Anjou, took the town from the Count of Blois and built a high, square stone keep, from which the present château emerged.  Thrusting up from a rock above the river, the château has a three-story facade flanked by two enormous squat towers.  It was a favorite residence of French monarchs from the mid-15th century to the 17th century.  Charles VIII, who was born and died there, brought artists from Italy to embellish the château.
  • Henry II and his wife, Catherine de' Medici, raised their children in the Château d'Amboise, along with Mary Stuart, the child Queen of Scotland who had been promised in marriage to the future French Francis II.
  • Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to make for Francis I a mechanical lion that could walk forward then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.  In 1516, he entered Francis' service and moved to the manor house Clos Lucé near the king's residence at Château d'Amboise.  He spent the last three years of his life there.  He was buried in the chapel of Saint-Florentin at the château.  However, following the chapel's destruction in 1803, the whereabouts of Leonardo's remains became subject to dispute.  
  • St Denis' Church 
    • Ever since ancient Romans erected a Temple of Mars here, this has been a place of worship.  According to legend, God sent a bolt of lightning that knocked down the statue of Mars, and Christians took over the spot.
    • The current Romanesque church dates from the 12th century.
    • The church had one of the best pamphlets (in English) explaining the interior.  I spent longer in the church than planned -- and I wished I had taken snaps of the pamphlet (because there is very little about the church on the internet).

Chateau Villandry
  • In the Middle Ages, a fortress named "Colombières" occupied the site of the present day château.  On July 4, 1189, Henry II, King of England, acknowledged his defeat to Philip Augustus in Colombières.  
  • The fortress and its domain were successively occupied by the Craon and Chabot families in the 14th century.
  • Finished in 1536, Villandry was the last great Renaissance château built on the Loire.  It's yet another pet project of a fabulously wealthy finance minister of François I - Jean le Breton.  While serving as ambassador to Italy, Jean picked up a love of Italian Renaissance gardens.  When he took over this property, he razed the 12th-century castle (keeping only the old tower), put up his own château, and installed a huge Italian-style garden.  The château was purchased in 1906 by the present owner's great-grandfather, and the garden -- a care reconstruction of the original -- is the result of three generations of passionate dedication.




Location: 41150 Onzain, France

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