The formal gardens at Château de Chenonceau

Yes, as well as being a pretty special chateau, Chenonceau has two formal gardens. And a remarkable history. It reflects the combined influence of five women who influenced this stunning chateau which stretches over the river Cher, not the Loire as you might imagine.

First it was Catherine Briçonnet, wife of the royal chamberlain who supervised the construction of the chateau. Later, Diane de Poitiers, Henri II's mistress, created the largest of the formal gardens and built a bridge over the Cher. After his death though his widow, Catherine de Médicis reclaimed the chateau and topped the bridge with a gallery - I'll share more of the inside of the chateau in a later post. She also added a formal garden to rival Diane's, it seems there was great rivalry between these women, even in gardens.

The final two women were Louise Dupin, who because of the respect people had for her was able to survive the 1789 Revolution, to be restored by Madame Pelouze in the 19th century. I'm very grateful that each of these women played their part in history, because the result is probably my favourite chateau so far. And that's quite a claim.

So onto the gardens. First up is the large formal garden created by Diane de Poitiers.

It's a sunken garden and there's a walkway around the garden which we headed around first. You can just about see espaliered roses spreading out across those walls. I don't have any photos of these close up so clearly at the time I saw those as just another rose, especially as roses were the flower of this holiday. I think I was much more interested in the squiggles in the grass. Yes, that's a technical term.

Fascinating aren't they. Not only there swirly pattern, but also what the plant was. I couldn't tell from the walkway so after admiring one of the many white pots dotted at equal distances on the edge of the higher level I was determined to head down there and find out more.

From the lower level it was much easier to see the individual plants, and while they had the grey of lavender it wasn't lavender. The yellow flowers, which you can just see on the right of the picture gave me a clue, but I still wasn't sure. So as I spied some gardeners happily gardening away, I went to find out. At my decision point language skills weren't considered, but as soon as I got their attention I realised that I might not understand their answer, so might be none the wiser.

Thankfully though they understood my pigeon French, or enough of it anyway. And their answer confirmed my suspicions. It is Santolina - or Santalene. Yay. In fact double yay. Yay for identifying the plant, and a bigger yay for asking, being understood and understanding the response. 

Santolina is a plant I wish I grew already, and now I definitely want some. I'm not sure I'll manage the swirly shapes, but it'd be great to have some.  Satisfied with knowing the plant I could go back to admiring the stonework. And this is quite something.

I think Diane de Poitiers did well with with her garden. I certainly enjoyed it. As we headed back towards the chateau this normal sized house caught my eye. It looked tiny though after all these chateaux. The greenery surrounding and almost covering it, looks like wisteria and I bet it's stunning when it's in flower.

And well there's always time to peer over a wall and snap some reflective shots isn't there?  Next up we went into the chateau, but I couldn't help taking a peek over to Catherine de Medicis' garden. It's smaller than Diane's garden, squarer and of a simpler design. No swirly bits here, but looked equally charming.

On reflection I think we should have gone into this garden before visiting the chateau, as somehow the simplicity of the garden was lost on me after the wow of the chateau's interiors. I remember thinking it wasn't as special, but now I'm not sure if that's because I was in sensory overload mode. 

The planting is felt different, with more symmetry and probably more like gardens we're used to.  And this time there was lavender.

There was also a large central pond, with some equally large fish in. It's a much smaller garden and I wondered why that was. If, as she was she was rivals with Diane, surely she'd want to outdo her in everything? Maybe she did, or maybe she thought less was more, who knows, but it's an interesting conundrum isn't it?

So there you go, the two formal, but two quite different gardens of Chenonceau. There is a third garden, and that's a much more practical one and we'll come back to that at a later date too. 

I left thinking that these five women all must have been pretty special, and all very determined. And isn't that great?

Log piles, great views and a bit of a wrong turn

After our wet and windy cycle to Amboise the next day it was still wet, but thankfully not raining and there was no rest for us. We only had two nights in Amboise and the plan was to cycle to the Château de Chenonceau, we'd seen a sign the day before so roughly knew our route. And if you remember I said that it was all downhill into the centre of Amboise, so our route out of the town was all uphill. And it was hard going.

I managed to cycle enough uphill to get approving glances from the locals out for a chat, as you do. Well I think it was approving glances, maybe it was the usual madness of the English look. Who knows! We retraced our route which was thankfully less wet and windy than the day before. 

We turned right and followed the Loire a Velo signs towards Chenonceau eagerly anticipating what the new part of the route would bring. It wasn't long before I spied a log pile in the distance. And it's amazing what can make me pedal harder but, sadly, a photogenic log pile is one of them. And this reminded me of our trip cycling in Bavaria, but as I found out bigger!

I told you they were bigger!

Having left the bike I was patrolling up and down in awe of the log pile, when I spotted a lone foxglove. I told you they were photogenic didn't I?

As I was heading back to where I'd left MOH and the bikes I realised the field behind me - although log pile free - was equally as pretty.

Before long we were back on our bikes, we'd passed through a small village and got slightly confused with the signs. We headed off confidently, but after four or so kilometres and no more signs MOH agreed we might have gone wrong. So back we went. That was eight kilometres we weren't expecting.

By now, despite having a large breakfast I was starting to fade. So it was time for a stop. Back in the village where we went wrong. I was hoping for some of our packed lunch, but MOH whipped out some gel bars and gels. 

Ah well, they did the job and I amused myself at why there was a picnic bench and some bike racks in a random field in the French countryside. But I was oh so glad there was. The bench, like the bike racks were concrete and the lichen patterns were fantastic.

After a much needed break, and a much longer cycle than we'd expected - it was 23 or so miles there - Chenonceau was in our sights. I'll admit I wasn't looking forward to the journey back. As we parked and secured our bikes, the rain that had been threatening throughout our cycle made its presence known so it was a quick scramble to don our waterproofs and for me to cover my saddle with a plastic bag!

And then we headed into Chenonceau, only to be refused entry because we had a picnic. We could either leave it in a locker or go out and eat it, so that's what we did. I understand why they wouldn't want the place littered but it seemed a bit OTT to me. Later on we discovered the prices inside the chateau grounds were way higher than those by the entry points, and that just felt a little too mercenary. 

Before I finish this post I'll leave you with our first glimpse of Cháteau de Chenonceau, which from this angle doesn't look quite as special as I'd expected, but don't worry more was to be revealed. I'll also tell you that our cycle back was a lot shorter than getting there, at closer to fifteen miles. It turned out we'd been on a circular route and had gone the scenic way first, which I think on reflection was the right way round!

More soon on the gardens at Chenonceau - there are three - and of some more usual shots and a look at the sumptuous interiors. It really was a great chateau to visit, and I'm glad I'd arranged the trip to include this one.

Have you been, did it live up to your expectations?

A wet and windy cycle to Amboise

After spending a good few days in Blois looking around the Chateaux de Blois, de Chambord (twice) and de Cheverny and much more beside, it was time to pack up our panniers and head back along the Loire à Velo and onto Amboise. But with the car in the car park at Blois, it made sense to leave the clothes we knew we wouldn't need, as sadly the weather had changed.

So leaving flip flops, vest tops, some clean clothes for the last day or so of our trip along with the wine we bought at Chambord, we left Blois in our waterproofs. And typically this was our longest cycle. I wasn't looking forward to the next 43km.

After a good breakfast - well a girl needs fuel - we cycled over the river and turned right cycling along the banks of the Loire until we reached this.

Yes, that was the path. It looks quite wet, doesn't it?  While we were contemplating our next move, I was distracted momentarily by the poppies. Realising that wasn't going to help us progress we turned back to the path, and the map to see what our next move should be. In the distance we could see people approaching from the other direction, getting so far, turning back and heading along what looked to be the road on our map we'd identified. We had a plan, so we were off again.

After about 20km we were approaching Chaumont-sur-Loire, which our guide book told us was "well worth the effort required to climb the outcrop on which it is perched" and originally it had been on my list of chateaus to visit. But as it coincided with a long cycle we'd decided against it, and with the weather on the day we were cycling past I was pleased. And it was up the top of a hill, so while it looked pretty with blue skies in the book, our reality was much greyer.

I was keen though to try and get some decent photos, so I parked my bike under a tree - I didn't want a wet saddle - and went off in search of some photos. It wasn't long though before I was back and keen to get going again, it was just too misty and bleurgh to capture the postcard shots.

The path was directing us back down towards the river. I didn't like the look of the path down, and hesitated. That's before we realised that too was flooded. So we stayed on the quiet road and cycled parallel to the path instead.

It was slow going that day. And actually the rain wasn't that bad, it was warm - or warm enough at this stage of the ride and there was plenty still to see. Another stop had me wondering about this forest. It had clearly been planted, as each tree was equal distance apart. I was fascinated because whichever angle I stood, there were lines...

But there was still more cycling to be done. The guidebook warned us that the next section would be "almost completely deserted" and "exposed to the wind and the sun."  Sadly there was no sun, but it was right on the rest of it. This section was wet and windy, and now I just wanted to be in Amboise. There were hills too, mostly but not always up. 

But we got there and arrived in Amboise above the town, so the good news was that it was all downhill from here.  For most of that I had my brakes on though as there were a few sharp bends. The Loire à Velo path led us into the car park in the town and we opted to head towards the pretty town centre. 

Having seen the main street and the Chateau d'Amboise it was time to locate our hotel. There was a handy hotel locator map outside the chateau, and it was then we realised we still had some cycling to do. Out of town, uphill. Up three of them to be precise, but by the end of our stay in Amboise I was mostly cycling up them. Slowly, but cycling nonetheless.

We walked back into the town that evening, and it took us twenty minutes, so we were quite a way out of town. But it was a pretty town - just look at the charm of those gates and that wall -  and well worth that walk, even in the rain. And I even spotted a passionflower. I really must get one for my garden, they are the strangest looking flowers, but still beautiful. 

So after our five hours on the road, with a moving time of just under four hours, I was pleased to be in the warm and dry. And pleased to have secured the ok from MOH to introduce some tactical pannier packing for our next "with luggage" cycle. But first I needed to recover as next up was our trip to Chenonceau. And yes, another chateau. But more on that next time.