Le Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire

Cadogan again, in the words of author Philippe Barbour: “The Château de Chaumont boasts one of the best locations of all the châteaux along the Loire, looking dramatically down onto the river. You can best appreciate the place, standing proudly on its hillside, from the north bank... [there's] a medieval chivalric feel to [Chaumont], even if in fact it's another of those transitional Loire châteaux, built in the period when Italian Renaissance features were merging with French late Gothic forms. Construction began at the start of the 1470s...”

This was the château that the queen Catherine de Médicis gave to Diane de Poitiers, her husband's long time favorite, in exchange for the Château de Chnonceau. Her husband the king had died in a jousting tournament in Paris in 1559, at the age of 40. Catherine was the same age — she outlived her husband by 30 years — and Diane was 20 years older than they were. Catherine wanted Chenonceau, and she had the power as ex-queen and the queen mother to take it. According to one legend, the astrologer Nostradamus (or maybe it was another astrologer, Ruggieri) accompanied Catherine to Chaumont one day and shared his vision that her sons would die early and their Valois dynasty would end. Henri de Navarre, of the Bourbon line, would be crowned king as Henri IV. It all came true. Neither Catherine nor Diane ever actually spent much time at Chaumont.

In my slideshow, there are photos from my first visit (I believe) to Chaumont in October 2000, including a picture of a Renaissance-era tile floor and views out over the river and valley. Other photos of the château from the grounds or from the opposite bank of the Loire date back to 2007, 2009, and 2018. You used to be able to enter the grounds at Chaumont without paying an admission fee, but that era ended a decade ago. Now you can only enter the grounds after you buy a ticket, so you can't just stop by for a few minutes and snap a few pictures. Once when I was there, hot-air balloons were lifting off just down the hill and flying over at low altitude. That was pretty exciting. If I can find photos, I'll include a link to them.

Le Château du Moulin, en Sologne

Again, I quote from the Cadogan guidebook for the Loire Valley: "The Château du Moulin, lost in the Sologne woods 12 kilometres [7 miles] west of Romorantin-Lanthenay,is the romantic star of the brick châteaux of the Sologne. It's a dreamy place, hidden in the countryside, reached by an alley of oaks you have to walk down, and surrounded by trees dipping their branches into the moat. Swans swim elegantly in its waters. The buildings that remain are fragmnts of a more solid ensemble..."

The Château du Moulin, built in the 1480s (as was the Château de Fougères-sur-Bievre) is about 15 miles east of Saint-Aignan in the Sologne, a "natural region" of sandy soil, ponds, lakes, and pine and birch forests. It's flat and the soil is clay and sand, so bricks were the main building material for houses and châteaux. The Michelin guidebook says that Le Moulin was originally protected by high walls and turrets. Those were torn down in later centuries to make the place airier and more pleasant to live in.

The woman who owned the Château du Moulin lived there until recently (maybe she still does). I remember getting a glimpse of her when we toured the inside of the château in October 2000. We were the on last guided tour of the day, and I think we caught her off guard when we entered a room that was part of her apartments. The pictures in my slideshow here are some that I took in 2004 when, if memory serves, CHM and I visited Le Moulin, which is just 15 miles northeast of Saint-Aignan.

And guess what I just learned — the Château du Moulin is now closed to the public and has been on the market since last January. You can buy it for a couple or three million euros. It's described as having 30 rooms, including 20 bedrooms, and 100 acres (39 hectares) of land. Here's a link.

And here's a video I found on YouTube:

The Château de Fougères-sur-Bièvre, a Loire Valley anachronism

Twenty years ago, after our arrival in the Loire Valley and our visit to Chenonceau on our first day in the car, we stopped in Montrichard and had lunch. Less than two years later, we would be back in Montrichard working with a real estate agent to find a house in the area that we might want to buy and live in. Anyway, in October 2000, our next stop would be in the village of Fougères-sur-Bièvre. We wanted to see a château there that CHM had told us about. Here's what the Cadogan guidebook for the Loire Valley says about it:

"The Château de Fougères-sur-Bièvre [12 miles north of Saint-Aignan, 10 miles south of Blois] is a bit of an odd man out in this area [the Loire Valley]. Most of the other châteaux open to the public around these parts are characterized by openness, generally constructed of sparkling clean-cut blocks of white stone, the towers roomy and decorative. Fougères looks defensively medieval, with its massed turrets, its small irregular stones, and its inner courtyard paranoically enclosed on all four sides. Despite the stern exterior, the château you see was built in the last quarter of the 15th century."

In other words, this château was an anachronism when it was built. Châteaux built toward the end of the 15th century and into the 16th were no longer fortresses. They were built as comfortable residences — but not Fougères. By the way, Fougères-sur-Bièvre is just 12 miles north of Saint-Aignan, the same distance east of Amboise, and about 10 miles south of Blois.

In later centuries, the original moat at Fougères was filled in. The château was used as a poor house in the early years of the 20th century. In 1932 it was acquired by the French government. During World War II, some of France’s greatest art collections were stored at Fougères for safe-keeping. Over the years, the interior has been stripped of its furnishings and decoration, making it a place where you can see how such medieval châteaux-forts were put together. Thanks to CHM for telling us of its existence more than 20 years ago.

Chenonceau en octobre 2000, etc.

Those reading this blog are probably tired of Chenonceau castle by now. I still have a lot of photos.
Here's one, for example, that my sister, Joanna, took in September 2007 when she visited.
The two people on the right are our friend Janice, who came to France with J., and me.

Below is a photo of a painting that I took inside the château in March 2006.

And here's a slideshow of photos that I took at Chenonceau in October 2000. That's where this series of posts began.

I was going to post the slideshow days ago, but then I kept finding more and better photos from subsequent years.

Finally, I scanned through all my photos of the Château de Chenonceau to find one that sort of shows

the unfinished end of the gallery that spans the Cher river. I took this one in September 2012.