Long distance relationships are more accurately endured than undergone, the hardship made more acute the greater the distance. The upside, however, to having one’s boyfriend move halfway around the world to Paris, is the opportunity to visit said boyfriend there. And thanks to the ease of continental travel, the opportunity to range near and far across the French countryside and beyond.
That is how I came to be in the Loire Valley one December a number of years ago. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the region is home to many Gothic and Renaissance chateaux of varying shades of magnificence and splendor. With the cities of Tours and Blois as our home base, we managed to see only a handful of these in a weekend. And of the half dozen or so that we visited, two were closed due to restoration and/or it being the off-season. Apparently, no one much visits dusty old castles in the middle of winter. Even so, the quiet and relative solitude in which we found ourselves was preferable to that of the noise and massing of the summer crowds.
Though each chateau identifiable as a unique structure with its own distinct features and historical overlay, there is yet a unifying character among them, in their muted palettes and conical forms illustrative of the French Renaissance style that make up much of the region’s architectural character. Though substantial and solid in construction, there is a certain softness common to them that lends a sort of ephemeral quality to their otherwise sturdy and formal appearance. The blue-grey of the pitched slate roofs meets the crumbly stone façade in pale hues of white sand and sun-washed yellow. The confluence is an edifice that is regal without pretention, grand without ostentation.
Chenonceau
The Château de Chenonceau is perhaps a more fantastical expression of this discreet grandeur. With its damsel-in-distress tower and arched bridge spanning the Cher River, it seems truly storybook-inspired. As the natural first stop on our tour (it is, after all, the most-visited chateau in France behind Versailles), the Chenonceau set the tone for our pilgrimage.
The castle also has the single distinction of being constructed, owned, and restored almost exclusively by powerful women throughout history, earning it the apt nickname of the Château des Dames. In the namesake garden of Catherine de Medicis, one can catch glimpses of the castle’s west façade – here a turreted wing framed by row of boxwood, there a corbelled balcony veiled by tree boughs – until, stepping into the open air, its full elegance is revealed.
Villandry
The soft tuffeau stone is ubiquitous among the chateaux of the Loire Valley. The creamy yellow limestone provides a pleasing contrast to the livid of the slate roofs, calling to mind piles of chalk dust that gather around the edges of a blackboard or the powdery crumble of crushed stones and shells.
The Renaissance-style Château de Villandry showcases this tonality against an intricate backdrop of formal gardens, complete with a hedge maze, neoclassical pavilion, and ornamental pond. In short, all the ingredients necessary for the setting of an illicit romance in a historically-suspect yet wildly lavish period piece.
While the gardens embody a strict, manicured beauty, the house, though precise and proportioned itself, feels somehow softer. There is a certain charm in the dormer-lined roof sloping steeply down to meet the milky façade and in the time-worn medieval keep, a vestige of times past.
Ussé
The next diversion on our journey was a bit of a dead end, as the chateau was closed to the public during December for the holidays (a fact that was vexingly not well-advertised). Still, the castle, surrounded by a high defensive wall with the Chinon forest as its backdrop and the Indre river at its front gates, afforded a fine photo opportunity.
Though smaller and unadorned by elaborate gardens, the Ussé’s elevated and fortified position and liberal use of conical roofs more readily conjures notions of castle than some of its grander and more elegant contemporaries. Indeed, the Château d’Ussé is said to have served as the site of inspiration for Charles Perrault’s fairytale, Sleeping Beauty.
Chambord
But the queen of castles in the valley is the French Renaissance-with-a-twist colossus that is the Château de Chambord. The surrounding lawns are oddly bare of ornamentation and stand in stark contrast to the chateau’s intricate architectural form. Devoid of any lavish landscaping or ornate outbuildings, the behemoth seems to grow up from the soil like some slumbering monolith. With little beyond a decorative moat to reflect back its image, the chateau commands her visitors’ undivided awe and attention.
Atop the rooftop terraces, the castle takes on a whole new guise. Adorned with a helter-skelter array of hundreds of chimneys, spires, columns, and gables decorated with geometric motifs, it is a sight both extraordinary and perplexing. Like so many stalagmites, the structures rise out of the roof, clustering in asymmetrical configurations to resemble the skyline of a medieval city or the embellished pieces on a fine chess board.
Though dressed in the same dreamy uniform of cream and slate, there is nothing gentle or subtle in the Chambord’s appearance. Can something of that great scale possess such delicate qualities as these? Impressive and striking though it is, the air that the Chambord exudes in not of the storybook-French-castle variety that pervades the region. Of course, that is part of its allure.
The chateaux of the Loire Valley, from my brief and breathless experience, are not the most beautiful castles that one might come across in one’s travels, though they do possess beauty in abundance. Neither are they the most impressive, ornate, or interesting of their kind. The quality that they embody, fully and unequivocally, is an understated elegance that is, yes, quintessentially French. There is a lovely harmony in their cohesive style, yet enough quirk among them to surprise and delight their curious pilgrims.