Châteaux of the Loire

(France)

There is no shortage of mysteries, secrets, legends and questions when touring one of the most beautiful places on the planet: the Loire Valley. And the first question is: how many are there, the second: why here? The first one is not easy to answer, the Association Châteaux de la Loire groups 83, experts consider 42, the Unesco qualified in 2000 as a World Heritage Site the sector between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes, which includes no less than 24 great châteaux, but also valued its ecosystem, the castles and historic towns and cities like Tours, Blois, Amboise, Orleans ... in the area. Some speak of hundreds of them, maybe even a thousand. Many, but never too many.

The second question has a better answer. Although Moors and Christians fought in these lands in the Battle of Poitiers, English and French in the Hundred Years' War, no large fortifications were built or, in any case, they did not last long. It was at the end of the 15th century that the area was populated with a new concept of castle, that of repose and distinction. The kings, and behind them the court, left Paris, where fires and epidemics followed one after the other, and settled along this great river, the largest in France, which facilitated communications and on whose banks they could find forests fertile for game, a better climate and wide open spaces. The forerunner of the area was Charles VIII who, after fighting in Italy, returned full of Renaissance architectural ideas and craftsmen to put them into practice. He set to work on his beloved Château d'Amboise, where he was born and where he died at the age of 27.

Intrigues and poisons in the most beautiful Loire château

The Queen's Apothecary in the Château de Chenonceau, unique in the Loire châteaux, with a collection of glass cabinets and boiseries from a Florentine palace, and a collection of 500 flasks, scales, mortars and ceramic vessels dating back to the 14th century, was the secret place where the intriguing Catherine de Medici, "the Black Queen", who was Queen of France as the wife of Henri de Valois, met with the no less mysterious Nostradamus to prepare ointments, remedies and poisons, who was Queen of France as the wife of Henry of Valois, met with the no less mysterious Nostradamus to prepare ointments, remedies and perhaps poisons such as the one that apparently killed her rival Joan of Albret, mother of Henry III of Navarre, inside gloves, and who, curiously, played a fundamental role in the development of Basque by ordering the first translation of the Bible into that language; She also allegedly poisoned her husband's brother, the first-born dauphin of the French monarch, who allowed him to ascend to the throne. This was not the only wickedness of this queen; she is also believed to have played a leading role in the so-called "Night of St. Bartholomew" that caused the death of some 8,000 Huguenots (as Calvinists were called in France).

The presence of Catherine de Medici, and also that of Katherine Briçonnet, who built it in 1513, Diane de Poitiers who embellished it and Madame Dupin who saved it from the rigours of the Revolution, makes Chenonceau known as the "Ladies' Castle". This omnipresent female imprint has preserved it from conflicts and wars, transforming it into a place of peace since time immemorial. It is surely the most beautiful and most photographed of the hundreds of buildings that line the Loire along its more than 1,000 kilometres of route, among fortresses, abbeys, royal palaces, castles and manor houses.

Leonardo da Vinci's mysterious staircase in Chambord

Although the Chambord castle is the largest and most spectacular in the Loire Valley, declared a World Heritage Site in 1981, with 426 rooms, 83 staircases, 282 fireplaces and a collection of 4,500 objects of art... and although the enclosed park in which it is located is the largest in Europe with 5,440 hectares, equivalent to the surface area of central Paris, with 32 kilometres of walls and more than 20 kilometres of paths that allow you to lose yourself in these enchanted forests. 440 hectares, equivalent to the surface area of central Paris, with 32 kilometres of walls and more than 20 kilometres of paths that allow you to lose yourself in these enchanted forests, home to more than eight hundred deer and fifteen hundred wild boars, among thousands of holm oaks and pines, the most visited and admired part of the castle is a curious and simple spiral staircase that connects the ground floor with the upper terraces, the centrepiece of the keep and, therefore, of the castle, which symbolises perpetual renewal.

 Curious, yes; simple, not so much, as its peculiar double helix design, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, allows people to go up and down at the same time, seeing each other but without crossing each other. The "trick" consists of two spiral staircases of almost 300 steps in total, which intertwine around a central gap, but without crossing each other. 

In fact, it is the highlight of the interior of the château, inspired by the Italian Renaissance, with classical mouldings, pilasters with capitals, lacework and rosettes... as well as the ubiquitous salamander, the emblem of Francis I, which appears more than 300 times on the sculpted vaults and walls, but with almost no furniture and only a few paintings and tapestries, largely because it was devastated during the Revolution. It is also surprising that this impressive château was created as a hunting lodge for the presumptuous and extravagant François I, eternal rival of Henry VIII of England and Charles I of Spain, who preferred to live in the more "modest" châteaux of Blois and Amboise. 

But it was not all hunting. Years later, in the time of Louis XIV, who had a passion for comedy, he had an area fitted out for a small theatre. It was in this theatre that Molière premiered some of his most important plays, such as The Gentleman.

Château d'Amboise, Leonardo da Vinci's resting place, or was it?

As in the previous case, the most visited part of the Château d'Amboise - which Napoleon's friend Pierre-Roger Ducos, who received it as a gift, demolished three quarters of it, but did not manage to take away its spectacular profile overlooking the Loire - is the small flamboyant Gothic chapel built in 1493 in honour of Saint-Hubert, patron saint of hunters, a few steps from the palatial massif. It is very beautiful and its stained-glass windows project a play of colours onto the floor. And on the floor there is a simple tomb with a name engraved on the marble slab: Leonardo da Vinci. Once again the Italian genius who seems to have left his mark on the châteaux of the Loire, even though he only lived here for the last three years of his life.

And here he died, in fact in the neighbouring, coquettish chateau of Clos Lucé, which Francis I gave to Leonardo to work and enjoy for the rest of his life. He was buried in the abbey of Saint Florentin, an 11th-century Romanesque building in what are now the manicured gardens of the château, which the aforementioned Ducos also demolished, along with eight unmarked tombs there, including, it seems, Leonardo's. A skeleton was found, some of which are said to have been found in the abbey. A skeleton was found that some details indicated could be Leonardo's, a skull with eight teeth and some bones that Napoleon III considered valid and were buried in the chapel of Saint-Hubert which, by the way, cannot be visited now because it is under construction and will be closed until mid-2024. 

A disappointment for visitors. However, in the nearby Clos Lucé you can visit the rooms where the master lived on a daily basis, with replicas of the paintings he travelled to France with, including the famous Mona Lisa, and where he breathed his last. You can also discover his inventions, reproductions of which are exhibited in the gardens. The newly renovated workshops recreate the working atmosphere in which Leonardo worked in order to bring his ingenious reflections to fruition.

Time to search for the great treasure of the château of Sully-sur-Loire

Perhaps today's visitor to the spectacular château of Sully-sur-Loire will be luckier than the Marquise de Bausset-Roquefort, the last owner of the château who, convinced that the castle was hiding a rich treasure, turned the whole castle upside down and had each and every one of its walls examined, even calling in divers to probe the moats, as well as a dowser, a magnetiser and even a clairvoyant. Of course, without success, but the legend is still there and there are still those who look through the cracks in the walls to see if there is anything glowing.

In any case, a visit to this château, the first of the collection along the Loire, surrounded by moats full of water in which its towers and façades are reflected and permanently crossed by beautiful swans, is very interesting. 

In its rooms with enormous fireplaces, tapestries, paintings and period furniture, echoes of Joan of Arc seem to resound. She came to meet King Charles VII, but the Maid of Orleans, a nearby city, was not made for idleness, so she decided to leave the castle without notifying the king and go to drive the English out of France. The Spanish Anne of Austria and her son Louis XIV and Cardinal Mazarin were also refugees here during the Fronde des Princes in March 1652.