I was sorry to leave Ambois, but our journey to other
places in France still waited on the open road.
So we woke up early to a simple breakfast and hit the pavement in our
car with a destination of Saumer. On the
way we would stop by the Chateau chenanceau, supposedly one of the inspirations for Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland. Looking at it from outside and in, it’s not
hard to see the similarity in some respects.
The castle is a beautiful one, with white walls and dark towers, but it
is more long than it is tall, spanning the length of a river that runs
underneath it.
Behind and on either side, the chateau is flanked by thick
forests and trees, with beautiful gardens and a farm on the grounds. The gardens are spectacular, with vegetables
and flowers arranged in neat plots and so carefully tended by loving
farmers. We spent quite a bit of time
wandering this section of the grounds alone, looking at the different colors
and shapes that seemed arranged like on an impressionist painting.
The inside of the castle was lovely but too crowded. Tour groups pack fifteen to twenty-five or
more people into rooms that probably can hold a maximum of four or five. Nevertheless, it was a very different
experience than Chambourd. That castle
had the influence of men, but this castle was built and influenced by the
tastes of three very different women.
As such, it is more refined, warm and welcoming. There are not huge empty rooms or the smell
of fire smoke, and there’s not a hunting trophy to be seen on any of the
walls.
The gardens and the initial chateau itself are the legacies
of Diane de Poitiers, mistress to Frances I.
Her rooms have a distinctly warm but medieval feel. Then there were lovely long hallways
decorated with artwork from Marie Medici, her rooms are distinctly
Italian. Finally is a single room, all
in black, with tapestries stitched with skulls and crossbones. This is the domain of Louise de Lorraine
whose husband, King Henry III, was assassinated, sending her into a life of
mourning.
I’ll talk about this last room first since it is the most
strange. I spent all of two seconds in
here, because there was such a crowd, but there was a very creepy vibe in
there. I honestly felt very
uncomfortable. If this was Sleepy Beauty castle, then this room would have been the spindle wheel room.
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| You can see how many people were packed into this room |
Moving on, I was quite taken by how charming the servants and public spaces were. The whole house is warm and light and there is a distinct feminine charm. Little touches like bells on the wall reminded me of Cinderella and I wondered if Disney got the idea for bells in the animated movie from this little detail. There were huge old tapestries on the walls, but even these seemed to add a charm rather than a stoic, dark feel like they had at the previous castles.
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| Small "servant's kitchen |
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| I don't know why but this reminded me of Cinderella. |
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| Bread Oven |
Some of the kitchens seem almost modern by comparison, and were very impressive, most of the rooms were large enough to feel grand and spacious while the decorations were warm and homey. I had the hardest time getting pictures because of the groups unfortunately
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| Another kitchen |
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| These were lovely tapestries |
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| This is the Medici Bedroom I beleive |
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| There were drawings all over the house of the building itself |
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| The first floor of the long hallway |
Next I should talk about the "Long Hallways." The long halls have the most interesting history, while the
upper floor is an art gallery from the time of Marie de Medici, the lower floor
spans the length of the river to the other shore. It is here on the wall that one will find a
plaque and a flower arrangement of red, white and blue. After World War I, certain lands were ceded
to Germany by France and the river became a boundary mark. As such, this section of wall, and the flower
arrangement marks the end of that boundary and the beginning of French
territory even into World War II.
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| The "Old Border" |
The story goes that German patrols went up and down this
river in that time, but that the French Resistance had a pathway to and from
Germany through the long hall provided by the museum curator. They’d enter through one door from Germany,
and exit through the other into France.
It was kind of cool to think about as I gazed down that long
corridor.
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| Second Floor of the Long hallway |
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| Something about the castle and paintings such as this one just reinforces its status as an inspiration for Sleeping Beauty Castle |
We left Chenanceau with a really good feeling about the
place. On the whole, it set the
benchmark for our desire to see any castle in France again, because all others
paled by comparison according to the descriptions. My grandfather used to have a saying, “ABC –
another bloody castle” when he was touring Europe. After a while you get tired of seeing castles
and crowds and that was us for the remainder of the trip from that point. There was more to the castle of course, a vast, beautiful farm and garden, but that is for next time!
