The Loire Valley Chateaux Tour

The girls had a 5-day Easter weekend for which we had not made hard and fast plans, so we took the opportunity to drive south into France to see some fancy houses. I will stop short of using the literal translation of chateau, since to me a castle is more of a military installation than a grand house with some towers. That being said, they were incredible!

When I began looking at the route, I saw that we would be passing some other areas of interest (to me at least), so the "trip" began well before we reached the Belgian border with a stop at Slot Loevestein, "The Most Famous Castle in the Netherlands." As it turned out, the castle itself was closed that day but we were able to walk around the grounds and the kids got to try out some of the activities (firing a cannon, making gunpowder, etc... All simulated of course).

We also passed close by the American Cemetery in the Somme, so we made a brief stop there before continuing on to Reims for the night. For those that aren't familiar with the Battle of the Somme, it took place during World War I (1916, before the U.S. got involved). It was one of the worst battles of the war (in all of history as a matter of fact), resulting in over a million (French, English, and German) casualties over more than 4 months of fighting.

One thousand, eight hundred forty-four American soldiers are buried in the cemetery, including 138 unknown markers and excluding 333 names of those MIA that are inscribed on the chapel walls. The vast majority of these soldiers died during the last 6 months of the war (May 28 to November 11, 1918).

The flag was at half-mast as a result of the terrorist attack in Brussels

Taittinger & Reims
We spent our first night in the city of Reims, which is about half-way between Paris and the Luxembourg border. More importantly, it is considered the capital of the Champagne region! We toured the grounds and under-grounds of the Taittinger, which was quite fascinating. The caves beneath the buildings date to the 4th century Roman era, when they were chalk mines. The soft rock was carved out block by block and used to build the local Roman cities. Many centuries later, they served as the cellars for the Abbey of Saint Nicaise, which was stunning. At least based on the scale model located in the Taittinger lobby. The abbey itself was destroyed by the French during the Revolution. Vive la France!

The staircase leading from the reception area to the caverns.

An old stairway leading to the Abbey. Well, to a wall where the abbey used to be.

The caves/ caverns served as a shelter during the first World War.
With hundreds of residents living in the caves (possibly thousands - it seems like the guide said thousands or more but it's just hard to believe), there were bound to be a few artists (or vandals depending on your viewpoint).
The walls are soft enough to easily scratch with your fingernail, so it is quite a tantalizing canvas.

They actually DO use the caves to store champagne, and a lot of it. There were multiple cubbies like this, and we saw only a small percentage of the cave network. 

Some of the bottles are stored in these racks, where they are easily accessible for turning. This is done many times over the course of months to encourage the sediment to settle to the cork-end of the bottle. They eventually pop the cork to allow the sediment to blow out, top it off with some fresh wine, and put a new cork in!

Eliza chatting up the staff, hoping for something shiny to be given away.

The outside of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Reims. Not as grand as Paris', but quite beautiful.
French kings were coronated here for many centuries.

We immediately recognized the work of Chagall, installed in 1974.
Taken on Good Friday!

Chambord
We passed by Chambord later that day but did not make it in time to see the inside.

This view was enough to make us forget about the Dutch castle and look forward to the next morning!

This place was so over the top that I won't even begin to describe the history, or how I feel about monarchic waste. Suffice to say I was in awe and I would never want to live there - especially if I had to pay any of the bills! As it turns out, the king that ordered it built (Francis I) agreed with me (despite having the peasants to pay the bills). After nearly 3 decades of construction, he spent a total of about 40 days there - all short hunting trips!

From the other side, in a little worse weather. Eliza didn't mind as much as her mother.

The double-helix staircase - pretty cool.

The center of the stairway, looking up. (Photo by Holli, as are some of the others)

Same stairwell, looking down from the top.
Some sort of strange light effect in play caused all of the pictures to be striped - maybe an LED?

A ceiling detail, which was duplicated throughout the ceiling.

The exterior was more impressive to me.

The girls really enjoyed this one!

Need the super-zoom to see them!

Cheverny
was our next stop. This one - like all of the chateaux other than Chambord - I had never previously heard of. It was relatively unimpressive compared to the first stop (perhaps we should have saved that one for last?), but as Holli pointed out the inside WAS beautiful. The interesting things to me, however, were mostly outside.

The Chateau itself, along with three beautiful ornaments.

That rack on the wall was HUGE! And the spot where it is mounted represents the height of the monster's head - well above the 5'6" suit of armor that's on a 1' tall pedestal.

As big as that beast was, it doesn't compare to this young Giant Sequoia! I initially mistook it for a redwood, but a sign corrected me and let me know it was planted in 1870. Jon Mansfield and I had a nice discussion about it after I immediately sent him a pic - we first encountered these during the AIChE National Convention in San Francisco back in 1994.

The hounds here are apparently famous. I was impressed by their size - and friendliness.

We worked up an appetite and had a bite at the local Pinocchio's Pizza.

Chenonceau
This place was amazing, and probably the only one of the places that we visited that I would love to own. It has a great history, spans a river, and is a rainbow-magnet.

Yes. It's real. And it's mine (the photo). ;)

From the entry walk

From the same side as the rainbow picture - how cool is this?

And yes I'm going to bore you with yet another exterior shot from the other side.
Groceries can be delivered directly to the kitchen by boat via the channel directly beneath the main structure.

Last one.

This was taken from the window above our heads in the previous picture (we were standing where the people are).

The ceiling of one of the hallways.

A fireplace at one end of the bridge-section of the chateau. They like big fireplaces. And big logs.

Villandry
This one was very cool as well. Incredible gardens and good history.

That contraption on the wall to the left of the stove - can you guess what it is?

I loved this old church just outside of the property walls.

Etc...
A couple of other pics of interest from places we didn't actually visit (just walked/ drove by).

Chateau d'Amboise (Holli got this from a moving car!)

The Mairie de Tours (City Hall of Tours, France), lit in the colors of the Belgian flag

Although strictly speaking this is cheating (since it is a screenshot from Google Maps), I feel compelled to include it since we passed by there and I grabbed a screenshot of the map on my phone. Taking an actual picture of this would have required a U-turn on the highway and the family was NOT in the mood. A little bit of high-tech detective work and I was able to locate and identify it!

It looks the same on the other side of the road - as if it was continuous (something like a pipe-rack), but they had to cut it away to put the highway through. Guesses?

This is part of the rather extensive leftovers of a French experiment from the 60's through the 70's called the Aérotrain. It was supposed to be a high-speed, low friction (since it rode on a cushion of air) means of public transport among larger cities.

This was way off the main blog topic, so I'll leave the details to the linked website (in French, use Chrome to open it and it will translate for you). It was just one of those mysteries that I see on the road from time to time that I was glad to have tracked down!

Au revoir-