Loire Valley - Chateau de Chambord

It was about a 25 minute drive to the Chateau de Chambord which is in the town of Chambord, France. Most of the chateaux close around 5pm so we were getting pretty close to closing time. We arrived at the parking lot at 4:20pm and when we got to the ticket booth it was 4:32pm. They would not sell us tickets into the chateau because they stop selling tickets 30 minutes before closing. WHAT!! So... I decided lets just walk around to the front and see where the entrance is and maybe we can try again. There were loads of people there and inside the chateau. You could see them all! I noticed everyone was pouring out of the gift shop so I asked if we could go inside it. He said yes so we all went into the gift shop. We are kinda in the castle…right? Then Joe suggested we go to the back of the store and see if then we can get into the castle. There were turnstiles there that only went one way - out! So we had to wait until someone came through the handicap/stroller door because again it would only swing one way - out! If you tried to get it to swing the other way an alarm went off. Hmmm. So after someone came through we all rushed through into the castle EXCEPT K. L had to go to the bathroom which was right there conveniently. K was crying hysterically because we just snuck into the castle. I sent Joe to get K while I took L to the bathroom. After the bathroom trip we were officially inside the chateau. Its not like it was empty and they were making people leave, there were loads of people in it. I did feel bad we snuck in BUT hey this might be our only chance to see this chateau in our lifetime. K again was crying, "this is wrong we should never have snuck in, this is a sin, etc." Now this made me feel even more guilty. I tried to explain to her that since we did not pay the entrance fee we would buy stuff in the gift shop. This seemed to have pleased K for little while but even when we started to walk around she was just uneasy and wanted to leave. I was so torn what to do but we decided we're in lets just go see as much as the castle as we could until they started to close it down for the night. 

Chateau de Chambord

This chateau is the granddaddy of the Loire chateaux. It is surrounded by Europe's largest forest park and defined by a 20-mile long wall. It has 440 rooms and a fireplace for every day of the year. Only 80 of the rooms are open to the public. In 1518, Francis I created this "weekend hunting retreat" by employing 1800 workmen for 15 years to built this chateau. He had many guests, like Charles V - the Holy Roman Emperor and most powerful man of that age. The architecture was modeled after an Italian church. Construction started on this castle around the time Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519, but there is a lot of controversy if this castle was inspired by his notebooks. They do think he visited the chateau during the construction at least once. Unfortunately this castle was hardly ever used, Francis I was on the road like any effective king. In the 1600's Louis XIV renovated Chambord, but he visited it only 6 times. During WWII art works from the Louvre were moved here to be protected. The castle was opened to the public
in 2007. Chateau Chambord was also the inspiration for the Beast's castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. 

The courtyard inside the chateau 

Double helix staircase - could this be a work of Leonardo da Vinci? 

ceiling in one of the second floor rooms

Interior courtyard view from the rooftop terrace

Very cool looking architecture

View from the back of the Chateau Chambord

ceramic stove to heat the rooms

Gallery of artwork

Louis XIV ceremonial bedroom

The Queens bedroom

This was the kings bedroom where all of his furniture could disassembled so it could travel with him. 

This is the front of the Chateau but I liked the back view better

the chapel next to the chateau

Entrance to the chapel 

the back view of the chateau

We did not get to see all the chateau, but I think we saw most of it. As we were leaving the chateau we did spend money in the gift shop and bought souvenirs for the children!!!  Just in case you were worried that we were not going to follow through!! Hopefully we have not scarred them for life that we snuck into a chateau in France. I think this goes down in the record books as something they will never forget. Ughhh.

Now the drive back to Paris….