Fairy tale castles, towers, turrets, drawbridges and landscaped gardens - the Loire Valley has it all, making it perhaps the most romantic region in France. The entire Loire Valley has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tour of the valley is like taking a trip back in time …
At the beginning of July we spent one week in France, visiting the castles along the Loire and Bretagne. Each castle of the Loire Valley has its own unique style and appeal, therefore it is really difficult to select one as the "most beautiful" or "most impressive chateau". We also had to choose several favorites:
Chambord, the largest castle in the Loire Valley that served only as a hunting lodge for François I, with a fascinating double helix staircase:
Cheverny, an important estate for hunting with hounds, with carefully maintained lawns and remarkable trees such as the Family lindens, the giant redwoods and cedar trees from the Atlas Mountains, Lebanon and the Himalayas, which can closely be admired while taking a boat tour on the canals around the castle:
Chenonceau, built on the Pont de Diane over the river Cher, with its exquisite gardens and stone terraces, where visitors can take a romantic night walk and enjoy the shade and light scenes of the Chateau and the Gardens of Diane and Catherine while listening to the beautiful music of Corelli:
Villandry, a true Renaissance-inspired masterpiece with the most beautiful gardens of France. In the
Love garden each clump evokes one of the following four feelings of love: tender love with hearts and masks formed by edges of boxwood, passionate love with bleeding hearts, fickle love with clumps shaped like horns and fans, and tragic love with knife blades. The
Vegetable Garden is laid out over 9 completely different squares with a clever mix of 250,000 vegetable and flower plants that have only a decorative purpose today, but one of very high design.
Usse is a chateau of dreams ... which inspired Charles Perrault when writing "Sleeping Beauty".
Then we continued our way towards the Gulf of Saint Malo.
Saint Malo is a corsair city in Bretagne with a unique atmosphere and breathtaking coastal sceneries.
Mont-Saint-Michel is a rocky, cone-shaped islet not too far away from St Malo, connected by a causeway with the mainland. The islet, celebrated for its Benedictine abbey, has small houses and shops on its lowest level. The feel as you walk up the narrow "streets" towards the monastery is like taking a step back in time to pre-medieval times. A certain breathtaking experience.
