And finally, I get to see all the fairy tale French chateaus in person. I’ve been waiting a long time to see Chambord and Chenonceau particularly. The pictures here speak for themselves so I won’t spend a lot of time on the details. We spent a wonderful week in the town of Chinon in the west end of the Loire region. Chinon has a very large chateau overlooking the city and is most famous as the place that Joan of Arc came to meet with Charles VII about her visions, who then granted her permission to leave with the army to Orleans. And the rest, as they say, is history. There isn’t much left of the chateau at Chinon today, unfortunately.

We absolutely love our little hotel in Chinon. I found it thanks to a friend who sent me an article from Budget Travel about their favorite secret hotels in the Loire Valley. We chose the Hotel Diderot, an inn set in a 15th century building owned and run by Laurent Dutheil and his two sisters, Martine and Francoise. It is gorgeous from top to bottom, the breakfasts are out of this world, and the hosts could not have been more gracious.

Over the next several days we spent time at some of the more famous of the ~80 chateaus in the Loire Valley, including Chenonceau, Chambord, Amboise, and Villandry. You will probably recognize the pictures of Chenonceau and Chambord, as they are the most famous of the Loire Valley chateaus.

Villandry is known for its amazing gardens – the chateau and gardens have been owned and maintained by the same Spanish family for many generations now, and they are incredible. One of my favorite parts was the cardamom flavored ice cream sold from the cart out front. I loooove cardamom, I could bathe in it.

We were a bit disappointed in Chenonceau only because they are undertaking an external restoration and half of it was covered in scaffolding. How dare they ruin our pictures! The inside of the chateau is in amazing shape though. Chenonceau has a funny history. Given to the Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II, as a gift, it was then taken from her after Henry’s death by his wife, Catherine de Medici. Catherine then made this her favorite chateau, adding her own gardens and throwing lavish parties for the elite of France. France’s first fireworks were shown at Chenonceau. Chenonceau also played an important role during World War II as one side of the River Cher was Nazi territory and the other side was Vichy territory. Cheonceau’s grand gallery was used as a means to escape Nazi territory, as the door on the far side opened up to the Vichy territory.

Chambord was everything I imagined and more. It is the largest of the Loire Valley chateaus with over 400 rooms, 84 staircases, and 300 fireplaces, and is set in a park that is the size of the entire city of Paris. It does not disappoint and is a must-see if you are ever in the neighborhood.

We didn’t realize until we started reading up on the area but Leonardo DaVinci is buried at the former royal palace in Amboise. He spent the last 3 years of his life in the Loire Valley. At the invitation of King Francis 1st, he traveled by mule over the Alps from Italy with two of his apprentices in tow, carrying with him his 3 favorite paintings, one of which was the Mona Lisa. King Francis gave Leonardo the nearby Clos de Luce to live in (connected to the royal palace by an underground tunnel). Popular legend has it that King Francis was with Leonardo and holding his head in his arms when he died. Leonardo was then buried in the Chapel of St. Hubert at the royal palace. Unfortunately the chapel was mostly destroyed during the French Revolution. It was not until several years later when Napoleon III hired an engineer and architect to restore and rebuild parts of the original Chateau at Amboise that they discovered a sepulchre with a complete skeleton along with some of the letters of Leonardo’s name. After researching they determined that this was the body of Leonardo DaVinci and they put him in a proper sepulchre in the newly rebuilt chapel at the royal chateau. We were shocked to discover that not only was DaVinci not buried in Italy, but that his grave had been done such great disservice.