The Chateaux of Villandry and Azay-le-Rideux

Leaving Les Bouchettes just afternoon, I took the train from Saumur to Langeais, a village on the Loire.  Here I checked into my hotel and rented a bicycle to take a tour of the surrounding area and see two Châteaux.  The hostess at the hotel was a bit skeptical that I wanted to continue my biking plans, as it was lightly raining, but I was determined to stick with the plan, and I am glad that I did.

The rain slackened off as I set out, striking the bike trail along the southern bank of the Loire.  The river was very pretty and the fifteen kilometer route to Villandry was well marked.  The Château Villandry was first built 1536 by Jean Le Breton, the Minister of Finance for François 1^er, who destroyed an older military fortress of some historical significance.  It was in the old fortress that on 4 July 1189, “la Paix de Colombiers” was signed between Henry II Plantegenet, king of England, was forced to admit defeat before Philippe August, King of France.

The Marquis de Castellane purchased the castle in 1754 and had most of it razed in order to reconstruct it in the more luxurious 18^th Century style.  In 1906, it was purchased by a Spaniard named Joachim Carvallo, whose great-grandson currently owns the place, and he created the 16^th-Century gardens style gardens that go very well with the architecture of the château, but these gardens have really stolen the show.  There are several divisions of the massive complex of gardens.  The ornamental gardens immediately next to the château are divided into four squares representing four types of “love”, earning it the name “the love garden.”  The four types are “Tender Love”, “Passionate Love”, “Fickle Love”, and “Tragic Love”, each using flowers and mini-hedges to create shapes and evoke sentiments.  Next to that is another garden of equal size showing off a Maltese cross, a Languedoc cross,  a Basque cross, and several fleurs de lys (symbols of the French monarchy).  Next is the water garden, which consists of several fountains and a large pond surrounded by lime trees which feeds the water of the moat.  Next is a sun garden with several bushes and flowers which leads the visitor to the hedge maze.  Unlike the Greek style “Labyrinthian mazes” designed with dead-ends and designed to be a genuine puzzle, the maze here is a “Christian style maze” designed to offer many different routes to the structure in the middle, apparently designed to “raise the humanity and spirituality” of the visitor.  There are also a Middle Ages herb garden and a Renaissance style vegetable garden.

The grounds keeping at Villandry is very environmentally conscious: they use natural fertilizers to cut out chemicals and use natural insect/arachnid predators indigenous to the region to eliminate pest insects such as mites.  I was pleased with my visit.  While I was wandering the gardens, the sun came out and cleared away the residual cloud cover.

I then biked about 20 kilometers south and inland to Château d’Azay-le-Rideu, billed in the pamphlet as “a joy of the Renaissance architecture.”  Gilles Berthelot acquired a fortress in 1510 and immediately set out renovating it the new Italian style craze that had been sweeping Renaissance France during François 1^er’s reign.  His father was the superintendent of finances for François 1^er and Bertholet sunk huge amounts of money into renovating the château further in the Italian style, but his father was implicated in embezzlement and was executed, requiring Bertholet to flee France.  The king gave the château to Antoine Raffin.  His descendants occupied it until the 18^th century.  During 1791, during the French Revolution, Marquis Charles de Biencourt bought the property.  He and his descendents added a very beautiful Romantic park.  The last marquis was ruined financially and forced to sell the château, which was bought by the French government and turned into a heritage site open to the public. 

It is incredibely beautiful, the nearby river flows into a beautiful moat and fish pond surrounding the castle, which forms an “L” shape that was perfectly illuminated by the afternoon sun.  There were very intricately detailed portals giving access to the interior.  I really enjoyed it.

On the bicycle ride home, I managed to get lost for a while, probably adding 10 kilometers or more to my route, but it was alright.  The sun was shining and the temperature was warm.  The countryside was absolutely enchanting; the perfect facsimile of a medieval fairy-tale forest with dark woods, singing birds, and mysterious doors in cliff faces that screamed to be explored.  But, I found my way back to Langeais at last, my legs cursing me and threatening to quit my body.  But, the hostess of the hotel offered me a Coke and things weren’t quite as bad (save for the climb up the stairs to my room). 

Well, that’s all for this entry, I’m off to find some place to eat.  Hopefully I’ll have internet access in Blois tomorrow night in order to post my backlog of posts.  I guess you will find out when you read this… maybe I should stop writing in real time.  It is fun, though…