Our first destination in the Loire valley was the Château de Chambord, constructed by the king of France, Francis I. (1494 – 1547) as a hunting lodge! Its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures.
The layout is reminiscent of a typical castle with a keep, corner towers, and defended by a moat.
The central keep has four immense bastion towers at the corners. Inside, the layout is an early example of the French and Italian style of grouping rooms into self-contained suites, a departure from the medieval style of corridor rooms.
The King spent in total barely seven weeks of short hunting visits at Chambord. As the château had been constructed with the purpose of short stays, it was not practical to live in on a longer-term basis. The massive rooms, open windows and high ceilings meant heating was impractical. As there was no village or estate around, there was no immediate source of food other than game. This meant that all food had to be brought with the group, typically numbering up to 2,000 people at a time. As a result, the château was completely unfurnished during this period. All furniture, wall coverings, eating implements and so forth were brought specifically for each hunting trip, a major logistical exercise. It is for this reason that much furniture from the era was built to be disassembled to facilitate transportation.
One of the architectural highlights is the spectacular open double-spiral staircase that is the centrepiece of the château. The two spirals ascend the three floors without ever meeting, illuminated from above by a sort of lighthouse at the highest point of the château. There are suggestions that Leonardo da Vinci may have designed the staircase.
After the death of Francis I the castle was abandoned for decades, but later owners restored and improved the castle, like Gaston d’Orléans, Louis XIV, Stanislas Leszczynski, the exiled king of Poland, Maurice de Saxe, marshal of France and finally the Comte de Chambord.
We found it fascinating that after the Comte de Chambord was forced into exile in 1830, he managed Chambord from his Austrian residence in Frohsdorf near Wiener Neustadt, with the hope to reside in Chambord on his return to France under the name of “Henri V”.
For us, the most captivating part of Chambord was the unsymmetrical roof with its many windows, lanterns and chimneys.
Chambord is the biggest castle of the Loire valley and was our first – very impressive and a true statement of power and grandeur.
The camper parking next to the castle allows overnight parking, but it was so hot that we left again, looking for a place to go swimming.