Chateau Chambord
Blois, France
September 2

This place is neat. A real highlight of our sojourn. The castle is so very medieval. It's a 4-tower keep around a central spiral staircase with an outside wall that's half-topped with more towers and apartments.

View from the back. A larger panorama is also available - 400k.

Francois the First started building this place in 1519 and had detailed plans that were carried out to the letter.

After Francois I died in 1547 his son, Henri II, continued construction through 1559 when he died. He decided to adorn the silhouette with turrets and chimneys intentionally to look like a King Arthurish castle. The family fell out of favor and ran out of money (though in which order we aren't sure) and it was left to the bats and pigeons until a brother of Louis XIII did the first "restoration" in the 1640s.

Louis XIV (remember him from Versailles?) moved in for a while in summers as a vacation home from Vincennes. Even an exiled king of Poland lived there for a while in the 1700s. After that it was never a royal residence again. The last owner, the Comte de Chambord, tried to become Henri V but chose the wrong side in a war and lived in exile there until he died in 1883.

France bought the big white elephant from the Chambord family in 1930 and it's been open for wandering but left largely unfurnished, very little art on the walls, fancy but wearing wood and stone floors. Wood doors from the 1500s and ceiling carvings still have Francois's "F" and salmander logos.

All in all, it's like seeing a really old stone castle that's pretty well preserved. There are 7 spiral staircases in all, a chapel, 3 floors each with a central cross and four suites in the big towers, and the rooftop which is open for wandering. Oh, and a gift shop.

The whole place is large enough to get lost in so here's a bunch of pictures without much explanation about where's what.

The central staircase is a double spiral. There's another entrance on the other side.
It rotates around a hollow interior shaft.

Shutter of Louis XIV.

Louis XIV's bathroom.

The chapel.

About 10 rooms have furniture and wall coverings. Mainly to show how it looked in the 1700s.

Way too much use of the same fabric.

The Comte de Chambord's two children were done up in plaster and as a clock.

He had this crown made for his coronation.
Want to buy a pre-owned low-mileage crown?

A back room contains 5 coaches from the 1800s and a couple of rooms of spare stone pieces that have been replaced over the years.

They've had a lot of problems with graffiti over the years and there are several notices asking that people don't carve their initials in the stone.

This was done by Heinrich Jung in 1941. Bad Nazi. No biscuit.