It's Raining Cats and Hunting Hounds

We have seen chateauxs (synonym for castles) built for royalty, and we have seen chateauxs built for strategic defense.  The chateaux that we were to see in the Loire Valley were were built simply for luxury.  We wisely chose to limit our chateaux exposure to 3, knowing that after that they start to lose some of their “wow” factors!

The three that we chose to see are known for very different reasons.  Villandry is known for it’s gardens, Cheverny is known for it’s interior and it’s hunting hounds, and Chenenonceau is known for it’s scandalous history.

We started at Villandry, built in 1530.  Although the chateau itself (especially the interior) is somewhat “unremarkable,” it was our first and therefore quite impressive.  We could not help but go into the chateau itself, and found that it really was “unremarkable.”  However, the view from the windows and terrace of the upper floors of the chateau were completely the opposite! 

French gardens are designed and manicured to have beautiful and intricate patterns with meaning and usefulness.  This is very different from an English garden, which would be designed with dense and lush plants to provide beauty and color.

The first gardens that we saw from the windows of the chateau were incredible patters symbolizing love.  Pure, passionate and firey love.  Even though we did have a brochure pointing out the different patterns, I think that anyone could identify them simply by looking at them.  They were amazing to see from above.  I think that if you were only to see them at ground level, you would miss the effect of the overall design.

Garden of Love

On the other side of the chateau, was the much larger but just as impressive vegetable, fruit and herb gardens.  Wow!  Again, there was no lack of thoughtful design here linked with the usefulness of all that is grown!  Apparently, they change the designs of this garden every year…just for fun.  We saw photos of years past, and agreed that the ones that we were seeing were amongst our favorites.

Chateau in the backround and the fruit, veggie and herb garden in front

By the time that we had gotten down, walked through some of the incredible forest surrounding this chateau, peeked into the greenhouses where they cultivate their seeds for the spring, walked around a lake complete with a bridge and swans, meandered through a grass tennis court (can you start to imagine how large this place is?) and then finally reached the vegetable, fruit and herb gardens it was pouring down rain.  The rain had finally caught up with us.  Bummer.  Although we still enjoyed the gardens very much, we all agreed that if it had not been raining, we would have liked to have spent a lot more time just meandering through these gardens. 

Makenna just felt moved to meditate!

After being seduced by the incredible gardens at Villandry, we headed over to the stately hunting palace of Cheverny decorated in 1604 (not Giverny where Monet lived…that is coming up in a few days).  We had chosen Cheverny to get a mouth watering taste of what life inside the castle would have looked like (actually the family still lives on one half of the top floor of the chateau) and perhaps even more importantly (to me) to see the 100 hunting hounds get fed.  Are any of you humming a tune by Peter, Paul and Mary right now?  I couldn’t wait…and I was not disappointed! 

As we walked onto the ground of the chateau, I turned my ear up and alas…I heard it!  The baying and yelping of 100 hunting hounds!  We got there just as their caretaker was moving them up to the roof of their kennel while he prepared the feast that would make Moose drool!  After rinsing the concrete down, he poured out about 50+ raw chicken carcasses, complete with the heads and gobble things!  Then, as if that would not be enough, he topped the feast with several bags of dog kibble.  Then the virtue of patience was put into practice.  The caretaker stood aside on the lower level, as the dogs on the upper level stood watch for 30 minutes waiting for their long awaited dinner.  Every now and again, they just couldn’t take it, and they would burst out barking.  He would then bark back at them in French and once again, they would silence.

The hunting hounds getting moved up to the roof while dinner is prepared!

"I am soooo hungry!"

"OK.  He left to get the food.  I see him.  I will let you know when he is on his way back.  Just wait right where you are!"

Finally, the time came and they knew it!  He sauntered over to the gate, let them out, and then made them wait until he gave them the final order to start.  Once he did, oh my word…it was a dog eat dog world!  The dogs literally walked on each other to reach the succulence that was waiting for them in the middle.  A few very smart dogs would grab a carcass (clearly the plat du jour au choix) and run away into a corner to attempt to devour it…the entire thing…as fast as they could.  One dog started to choke on the bones that we are told to be so careful not to let our dogs get, and the caretaker casually walked over and massaged it’s neck until it got it all down. 

The table is now set before you!

Let the feast begin!

Within 10 minutes, there was not one kibble left on the ground.  We laughed so hard!  It was quite a sight.  Perhaps not one that you might think of seeing when you think of the chateau in the Loire Valley, but one I am glad that I did not miss.

By now the rain had picked up again, and we headed into the chateau itself.  Wow.  The interior was amazing.  We all agreed that we could get comfortable and live there right now.  In fact, Makenna has made big plans for just this.

The children's room

The tea room (We would have loved to sat here and had tea right then!)

ATTENTION:  Makenna is officially off of the market.

We found a family tree with a boy that was born in 1995.  She has taken a picture of his name, and plans to marry him so that she can in fact live in this chateau.  She is not fond of the idea of hunting with the hunting hounds for wild boar and deer, as they currently do, but would like to see them out playing in the yard more.  The décor, she plans to keep as she is quite fond of it.  All of her plans of how to make this happen are forming now. 

To tone it down a little bit, and put a little perspective on life we chose to stay at a farm that night.  What a wonderful place!  A farmhouse out in the country with a very kind family to host us.  They had sheep, chickens, geese (all of which they eat) a dog named Yuki, and a donkey named Anna that LOVES kids!  The Browns were in heaven.  We spent the next morning walking in the country and then returning to hang with all of the animals.  It was a nice break in our chateau viewing!

Anna would walk along side of the kids for as long as she could in her pasture, and would cry when they walked away!

Martin, Jeff and Soren.  Martin just adored Soren and treated him as if he were his grandson!

This is the farmhouse that has been in their family for over a century!

Our next to last chateau was “the toast of the Loire Valley.”  Chenenonceaux, built in the 16^th century was actually built as the first great pleasure palace, as opposed to being built for defense.  It is known as the “chateau of the ladies.”  In 1547, King Henry II gave this chateau to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  After he died, his wife kicked her out, added 2 stories on top of the bridge that Diane had built to connect the chateau with the forest for hunting and replaced all pictures of her with severe pictures of herself.  Humph.  Catherine had plans to build a matching chateau on the other side of the river, but died before that project could get underway.

Here, there were a couple of things that really stood out.  There were 2 gardens.  Both beautiful, but very different.  One was Diane’s and was on one side of the chateau, and one was Catherine’s and was on the other side of the Chateau.  I don’t know about you, but if it were me, Diane’s garden would have been ripped out and replaced faster that you could say “cheetah!”  However, for reasons unknown to me it was not, and so we were able to enjoy them both!

The mistress Diane's garden

The wife Catherine's garden

The kitchen, which was state of the art for it’s time, was one of our favorite things in the castle.  It was built at the very bottom and near the river so that water could be readily accessible for inevitable fires.  Because they were cooking for an entire castle, there were several huge wood burning stoves and fireplaces with spits and other cooking tools, which ended up heating up the castle above.  Genius.

Soren in the window of the kitchen down by the water

To conclude our day, we took the kids to just one more chateau.  They were really very good sports when we told them that we thought we would squeeze just one more in.  We pulled up to the Chateau Arpentis, and we surprised them by telling them that this would be our last one of the day, and the one that we would sleep in that night!  They were so excited!  “Look at us and don’t smile and tell us the truth!”  What?  They did not believe me? 

Ahhhh.  What a treat!  The chateau was built in the 15^th century amongst a lake and a forest.  There were large green lawns (I now know that it is not hard to keep these lawns green…it’s all of the darn rain!) and a big rectangular pool with a wood deck around it.  If only it was not raining and cold.  Well, we were still able to relax and enjoy the chateau!  We explored the grounds, soaked in the large tub, and slept like babies.  The next morning we stuffed ourselves with hot drinking chocolate, coffee and an assortment of the best warm French pastries that we had had!  After breakfast, the kids and Jeff took a swim…in the rain, before we left.  They couldn’t help it!  Even thought the sun was not out, (and it would have been so much better if it had) they enjoyed the swim!

Chateau des Arpentis

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So, it is official.  We all agree that we can find comfortable living in either a chateau or a farm, but think that given a choice we could probably handle the chateau life quite nicely.