Chateau de Chenonceau Fall 2018

Gentle Friends, this is a very photo heavy Post.... so here goes.......the very first full day after arriving we hit the ground running and headed east towards my very favorite of all the chateaux in the Loire..... Chenonceau!!  It's a very famous place and not too big and not too small, it spans the Cher river.  When you arrive and after getting your tickets...

... you walk in from the entrance and down a tree-lined promenade surrounded by forest.  To the right are a farm and other building hidden in the trees. The farm provided produce for the chateau and now provides cut flowers for the rooms open to the public.... those snaps are at the end...

... once you get to the end of the promenade, you pass between two sphinx, you the enter the forecourt or as it was called in the past, the Court of Honor.  The current Chateau was built on the foundations of the old fortified mill and castle between 1514-22...

... as you continue on towards the chateau, you see the two main gardens one of the right and one on the left...each different but lovely.  As you face the castle, the smaller on the right is called the Catherine de Medici garden where I headed to get some snaps.... the larger garden on the left is the Diane de Poitiers garden...

... looking upriver towards the bridge that spans the river.... built 1556-59...

... looking from the larger Diane de Poitiers gardens...

... when Diane de Poitiers received the gift of Chanencau in 1547, she only found a modest garden and a rustic confined space in front which was unsuitable for the creation of a courtyard.  This was when she decided with some major renovations that were carried out over a 5 year period that led to the creation of the sumptuous beds currently know as the Diane de Poitiers Garden.  It is situated upstream and is protected from the river flooding by the raised terraces and walls...

... The "Chateau des Dames" or Chenonceau was built by Katherine Briconnet, and successively embellished by Diane de Poitiers after the death of Henry II the chateau was taken by Catherine de Medici and she went to work on renovations and redecorations.  Chenonceau was protected from the hardship of the French Revolution by Madame Dupin.  The iron, but very feminine, fist in the velvet glove has always preserved Chenonceau during times of conflict and war in order to make it a place of peace.  The current chateau was designed by the French Renaissance architect Philbert de L'Orme.  It's an ornamental mixture of late Gothic and early Renaissance.....

... looking back over the Marie de Medicis garden...

... looking into the front hall...

... a better shot of the hall and the rib vaulting...

... the original floor tiles are worn from centuries of feet walking on them...

... on the left as you enter the Chapel, which was saved by Madame Dupin, who had turned it into a wood storage space...

... the original windows in this room were destroyed by a bombing in 1944, the modern stained glass windows were made by the master glassworker Max Ingrand in 1954...

... the bedroom of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II, is dominated by the fireplace by Jean Goujon, a French sculpture of the Foutainbleau School, which bears the initials of Henry II and Catherine de Medicis: interlaced H's and C's that could be considered as forming the "D" of Diane...

... these initials are everywhere in the Chateau...

looking down the long gallery over the Cher...

... the door at the far end the leads out into the forest...

... then I headed down into the piers under the "bridge" where the domestic areas are...

.... it was always hard to get snaps of without other visitors...

...this really shows the curvature of the ceiling and how the spaces are fit into the piers... 

this is the kitchen...

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Back into the main body of the Chateau, and into the 16thCentury Italian cabinet and it's most famous painting...

which was down from the wall and being restored and worked on... The Three Graces (Les Trois Graces) by Jean-Baptiste van Loo, and represents the Mesdemoiselles from Nesle, three sisters who were successive favorites of King Louis XV: Madame de Chateauroux, Vintimille and Mailly.

... it's a super painting and was great to see from another angle.....

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In the Salon of Louis XIV, on the Renaissance chimney, the Salamander and the Stoat remind us of Francis I and of Queen Claude of France...

... in memory of the visit, he made to Chenonceau on July 14, 1650, Louis XIV offered his Uncle, the Duc de Vendome, his portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud, with an extraordinary frame bt Lepautre, made up of only four huge pieces of wood.  

Bedroom of the Duc de Vendome who was the son of Henry IV and Gabrielle d'Estrees, who became the owner of Chenonceau in 1624.  The four poster bed and the furniture in this room are from the 16th century.  The renaissance chimney was painted in the 19th century with Thomas Bohier's coat-of-arms.

The Catherine de Medici bedroom has a super collection of 16th century sculpted furniture and the walls are hung with a series of 16th-century Flemish tapestries retracing Sampson's life.

... looking down from the front balcony you get a great view of the 15tcenturyey tower, gardens, and moat...

... this is the last of the main bedrooms upstairs ...... what a super tiled floor!!

... the staircase is a carved marble masterpiece and was installed under Catherine de Medicis...

... after going through the house we headed towards the farm... and saw the swans...

... then walked through the vegetable and flower gardens, which were really dry.  There has been a very bad drought in the Loire Valley most of the Summer this year...

There you go sports fans, a lovely Chateau to enjoy!!

 Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar