The castle that we decide to visit today is Chambord a huge castle (the largest in the Loire Valley) with a beautiful Renaissance exterior that was built as a “humble” hunting lodge. It sits inside a wooded park which is surrounded by an almost 30 km fence. We find easily the correct entrance and after parking move on through a mini tourist village to the castle. The first view of the castle is impressive and as we approach we notice more and more features – windows and turrets and a lot of embellishments.
After paying the entrance fee we go straight to the most well known feature supposedly designed by Da Vinci – a three story double helix stairway which means that there are two circular stairs around an axis that never meet which we promptly use to get lost.
After finding each other at the second floor we go through the exhibitions that are less impressive as many rooms are empty. One of the few that are somehow furnished is the King’s Room which is nicely renovated.
Other finished room include the “antler corridor” (our name) and the hunting room and a few other living rooms. However it seems you don’t come here for the interior as the exterior is the major attraction as we can see also from the interior courtyard.
We finish at the top from where there is a beautiful view of the surrounding area. Leaving the castle we get some ice cream and eat it in front of the castle. After finishing we get the car and drive to a different parking spot where we walk around the park and we find a bird tower, lots of acorns and mushrooms (no idea if edible or not).
Next we drive toward Blois, it is late so we know that we won’t be able to visit the castle but at least we might be able to see it from the outside. On the way we stop to take a picture of another castle on the Loire and of a balloon that is flying across the road.
