Château de Chaumont – Part 2

August 8, 2016December 13, 20161 Comment

The is the second post in my series of posts about Chateau de Chaumont. The first post focused on the outside of the chateau, and this post features photographs from the stables.

The stables at Chateau de Chaumont were designed by Paul-Ernest Sanson and were built in 1877. At the time, they were the most modern stables in all of Europe; to me, they even looked modern for today’s standards — they were also beautiful. The stables were divided into multiple sections — there were stalls for “half-blood” horses (carriage horses), saddle horses (full-blood horses), and ponies. There was also a small, indoor riding arena where horses could be worked on lunge lines. The Chateau de Chaumont website has a ton of information on the stables.

This is what the stables look like from the outside, as you approach them from the chateau.

The round “thing” to the right of the photograph below is the indoor arena.

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Château de Chaumont – Part 1

July 25, 2016December 13, 20162 Comments

After we finished up at Château de Chenonceau, we headed over to Château de Chaumont. At Château de Chaumont, we bought tickets for both the chateau and the International Garden Festival (which is adjacent to the chateau).

Château de Chaumont is located in Chaumont-sur-Loire, a small commune in France’s Loire Valley. According to Wikipedia, the chateau was founded in the 10th century by Odo I, Count of Blois. In 1560, the chateau was acquired by Catherine de Medici. When her husband, Henry II died, Catherine made her husband’s mistress, Diane de Portiers, give her Chateau de Chenonceau in exchange Chateau de Chaumont. In 1840 the French Ministry of Culture classified Chaumont as a historical monument. Marie-Charlotte Say purchased the chateau in 1875. She restored the chateau and planted gardens, and her husband commissioned the stables. The donated Chateau de Chaumont to the French government in 1938.

I’m planning on creating several posts with photographs from Chateau de Chaumont. This post will feature photographs from the outside of the chateau. A second post will feature photographs of the chateau’s beautiful stables. A third post will feature photographs from the International Garden Festival (that one may actually require two posts).

The buildings that we passed as we made our way to the chateau were lovely! This building, covered in beautiful, red and white roses, caught my eye.

The grounds around the chateau were beautifully landscaped. I was particularly excited to see these entirely white foxglove. I planted one foxglove in my garden a few years ago, and it did well that year, but it never came back.

The photograph below was taken just outside of the chateau — you can see part of the chateau on the left-side of the picture.

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Château de Chenonceau – Part 2

May 30, 2016June 21, 20162 Comments

Château de Chenonceau was the first chateau that we visited during our time in the Loire Valley. If you’re planning a trip to the Loire Valley and are trying to decide how many chateau to plan on seeing, I recommend planning to spend about half a day at each chateau. We could have easily spent longer than half a day at Chateau de Chenonceau (the inside is still furnished, and the grounds are lovely), but we really wanted to have ample time to see Château de Chaumont and the International Garden Festival that day, as well.

I took so many pictures during our time at Chateau de Chenonceau. I won’t be able to include all of them in one blog post, so I’m splitting it into three parts. This one will include pictures from the inside of the chateau. The first post includes photographs from the outside of the chateau, Diane’s garden, and Catherine’s garden; it also includes more information on the history of the chateau. The third post will focus on the grounds, and a fourth post will include photographs of some of the beautiful flower arrangements from inside of the chateau, as well as photographs of paintings of Chateau de Chenonceau.

Immediately when you enter the chateau, there is a small chapel on the left.

Chapel in Chateau de Chenonceau

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Amboise, France

February 7, 2016March 5, 2016Leave a comment

Amboise is a small town in central France through which the Loire River flows. We spent two nights at Chateau de Pray, just outside of Amboise, during the road-trip portion of our May 2015 trip to France. We chose to stay in Amboise because it was a centrally located neat the chateaus that we chose to see while visiting the Loire Valley (Chateau de Chenonceau, Chateau de Chambord, and Chateau de Chaumont). Amboise is home to both Chateau de Amboise and Château du Clos Lucé (once home to Leonardo da Vinci), though we did not have time to visit either of them. If we had had one more day in Amboise, these two would have been on the top of our to-do list.

We spent our days visiting chateaus. The chateaus all closed fairly early in the evenings, so that left our evenings open to wander around Amboise. Amboise was a charming city — so peaceful compared to Paris. One note of warning — the small roads are charming for walking on and looking at, but they were definitely not fun to drive on (at least not for these two Americans)! 🙂

Hot air balloon rides are a common attraction in the Loire Valley; however, we read that the wind is unreliable and hot air balloon rides are frequently cancelled (and rarely refunded). We opted not to risk losing money, but it looks like we would have been okay. Regardless, it was fun to see such a cute hot air balloon floating over Amboise.