Chateau de Chenonceau
Chateau de Chenonceau sits peacefully on the Cher River. The gardens are very traditional French style - plenty of small meticulously shaped shrubs - and do give a lovely backdrop to the chateau. One highlight of our visit was taking a boat along the Cher, although we missed the light show (summer only) which people tell us is very impressive.
Château de Chenonceau, near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France, was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher.
The original manor was torched by Royal troops in 1411 to punish owner Jean Marques for an act of sedition. He rebuilt a castle and fortified mill on the site in the 1430s. Subsequently, his deeply indebted heir Pierre Marques sold the castle to Thomas Bohier, Chamberlain for King Charles VIII of France in 1513. Bohier destroyed the existing castle and built an entirely new residence between 1515 and 1521; the work was sometimes overseen by his wife Catherine Briçonnet, who delighted in hosting French nobility, including King François I on two occasions.
Eventually, the château was seized from Bohier's son by François I for unpaid debts to the Crown, and after François' death in 1547, King Henri II offered the château as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers who became fervently attached to the château and its view along the river. She would have the arched bridge constructed, joining the château to its opposite bank. She then oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens along with a variety of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces, the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles.
Diane de Poitiers was the unquestioned mistress of the castle, but ownership remained with the crown until 1555, when years of delicate legal maneuvers finally yielded possession to her. However, after King Henri died in 1559, his strong-willed widow and regent Catherine de' Medici had Diane expelled. Because the estate no longer belonged to the crown, she could not seize it outright, but forced Diane to exchange it for the Château Chaumont. Queen Catherine then made Chenonceau her own favorite residence, adding her own series of gardens.
As Regent of France, Catherine would spend a fortune on the château and on spectacular nighttime parties. In 1560, the first ever fireworks display seen in France took place during the celebrations marking the ascension to the throne of Catherine's son François II. The grand gallery, which extended along the existing bridge to cross the entire river, was dedicated in 1577.
On Catherine's death in 1589 the château went to her daughter-in-law, Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont, wife of King Henri III. At Chenonceau Louise was told of her husband's assassination and she fell into a state of depression, spending the remainder of her days wandering aimlessly along the château's vast corridors dressed in mourning clothes amidst somber black tapestries stitched with skull and crossbones.
Another mistress took over in 1624, when Gabrielle d'Estrées, the favourite of King Henri IV, inhabited the castle. After that, it was owned by Louise's heir César of Vendôme and his wife, Françoise of Lorraine, Duchess of Vendôme, and passed quietly down the Valois line of inheritance, alternately inhabited and abandoned for more than a hundred years.
At last Château de Chenonceau was bought by the Duke of Bourbon in 1720. Little by little, he sold off all of the castle's contents. Many of the fine statues ended up at Versailles. The estate itself was finally sold to a squire named Claude Dupin.
Claude's wife (daughter of financier Samuel Bernard and grandmother of George Sand), Madame Louise Dupin, brought life back to the castle by entertaining the leaders of The Enlightenment: Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Pierre de Marivaux, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She saved the château from destruction during the French Revolution, preserving it from being destroyed by the Revolutionary Guard because it was essential to travel and commerce being the only bridge across the river for many miles. She is said to be the one who changed the spelling of the Château (from Chenonceaux to Chenonceau) to please the villagers during the French Revolution. She dropped the "x" at the end of the Château's name to differentiate what was a symbol of royalty from the Republic. Although no official sources have been found to support this legend, the Château has been since referred to and accepted as Chenonceau.
In 1864, Daniel Wilson, a Scotsman who had made a fortune installing gaslights throughout Paris, bought the château for his daughter. In the tradition of Catherine de' Medici, she would spend a fortune on elaborate parties to such an extent that her finances were depleted and the château was seized and sold to an American.
In 1913, the Menier family, famous for their chocolates, bought the château and still own it to this day.
During World War I the gallery was used as a hospital ward; during the Second War it was a means of escaping from the Nazi occupied zone on one side of the River Cher to the "free" Vichy zone on the opposite bank.
In 1951, the Menier family entrusted the château's restoration to Bernard Voisin, who brought the dilapidated structure and the gardens (ravaged in the Cher River flood in 1940) back to a reflection of its former glory.
An architectural mixture of late Gothic and early Renaissance, Château de Chenonceau and its gardens are open to the public. Other than the Royal Palace of Versailles, Chenonceau is the most visited château in France.
Gardens
As you leave the Château, you will discover the gardens which surround it.
On the right, Diane de Poitiers' garden, the entrance to which is overlooked by the Steward's house: La Chancellerie, built in the 16th century. In the centre of the garden, there is a fountain described by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau in his book entitled Les plus Excellents Bâtiments de France (The most Excellent Buildings in France - 1576).
This garden is protected from flooding by the Cher by elevated terraces from which there are beautiful views over the borders and over the Château. On the left, The more intimate garden of Catherine de' Medici, with a central pool and from which we discover the West façade.
The Gardens' floral decoration changes in the spring and in the summer needs 130,000 bedding plants grown on the Estate to be planted. Lining the Court of Honour, the domes buildin, from the 16th century, formerly housed the Royal Stables and the silk worm farm introduced into France by Catherine de' Medici. Also, the 16th century farm and the 70 hectare park can also be visited.
Alongside the Grand Avenue of Plane trees, in the centre of the arbour and facing the caryatides, a maze with two thousand yews has been planted in the spirit of Catherine de' Medici's time, according to an Italian plan dating from 1720.
(See more pictures and detail of Chateau Chenonceau in our French Castles section.)
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Places to visit near Chateau de Chenonceau, France
Explore places of interest within about 70 kilometres on a map at places near Chateau de Chenonceau.
Some places to visit within 30 km: 
13 km: Chateau d'Amboise (castle) 25 km: Loches (Castle and town) 24 km: Montresor (Most beautiful village)
See also Chateau de Chenonceau (version Francais)
