Chenonceau and Chambord, or, why I want to be a princess

Quick belated post with some of my pictures from the two castles in the Loire valley that I went to last week, Chenonceau and Chambord. This was an AWESOME trip; these castles are amazingly beautiful, and we had great weather.

So, Chenonceau is where I want to live someday. I will make some truly ungodly amount of money doing something, and I will buy this castle from the french government. Really, I'd be willing to just rent one of the rooms.

Quick history is that it was inhabited by the movable French Court of the mid 16th Century, specifically by Henri II, his wife Catherine of Medici, and his mistress, Diane of Poitiers, who lived quite openly in the castle alongside Catherine and Henri. Catherine definitely got a raw deal - Diane's garden is bigger than hers, and even better, the monogram of Henry and Catherine have the H and C intersecting in such a way that they form a D for Diane. Klassy.

Anyway, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves - I honestly don't think I've ever been in a more beautiful building.



So that was Chenonceau. We next went to Chambord, the huge castle built by François I (father of Henri II and driving force of the french renaissance). We had an excellent guide at Chambord, although he had a great disdain for our lack of prior architechtural knowledge, and of our command of the french language. Chambord was never inhabited; its entire purpose was to demonstrate the power of the French monarchy, and it was the most ambitious architectural endevor of its time. It does a fairly decent job. Our guide took a shine to us, dispite his disdain, and took us into the back rooms of the castle in a sort of behind the scenes tour, and really, there's nothing better than that.

All in all, I prefered Chenonceau; there's just not as much history at Chambord, because no one ever lived there. There isn't any furniture in the castle, so it's become something of a museam, but I sort of feel like no one really knows what to do with the place; it's such a historical oddity. The outside looks just like the postcards, though.



This is the giant central staircase in Chambord - it's double helix shaped, with two seperate sets of stairs that twist around one another. It's open to the outside at the top; the only staircase that is its equal is in the Vatican. Incidentally, I want this in my house.