“Châteaux-hopping” dans le Val de Loire
It was harder than I’d expected saying goodbye to my apartment in Dijon, not least because I spent the last week of my stay with either hay fever or a cold (thankfully not Covid, but no fun all the same). Now I’ll have to return to Dijon at some point just to try all the restaurants that I meant to try before I was too sick to function.
At any rate, I made it out of my apartment right on time and, with the help of a ride to the station from my generous host, took my final train to Paris to meet up with my dear friend Sabine. She took a 16-hour coach ride all the way from Austria to spend the weekend with me, and what a weekend it turned out to be.
The plan was simple: rent a car in Paris, drive to Amboise, and see as many chateaux as possible en route to our swanky hotel. Alas, the simplest plans are rarely the smoothest, and this was no exception. After getting turned around at Gare de Lyon, I was a good half an hour late meeting up with Sabine at her hotel, and a full hour late picking up the car. The nice man at the desk tried to warn us that charging an electric car would be “complicated,” but he was so friendly about it that we didn’t fully grasp just how serious the situation would be. We had some struggles getting Google Maps to work (did you know that one of the voice options is English but with a German accent? because we didn’t!) but otherwise made it out of Paris and onto the autoroute without much issue. And that’s when the real trouble began.
We had the foresight to stop with 100km of power left to recharge the car, but gave up after 30+ minutes with no success. The next charging station we could find was all the way in Orléans, but the app that was recommended to us apparently sent us to the Sephora headquarters of France. This was followed by two more nonexistent charging stations, a free station with no room for us, and another paid station that refused to take our money. At this point we had about 20km left on our charge and were ready to give up and spend our weekend in Orléans when I had the stroke of genius to look for a Sixt location nearby, where a lovely agent named Heloise switched our Fiat for a gas-powered VW T-Cross that absolutely saved our trip. It was pouring by the time we settled into our new car and headed back out on the road, but we were so relieved that we weren’t bothered at all.
It was 5:30 by the time we reached our hotel, Chateau de Pray, and I think I would’ve been equally thrilled for a two-star at that point but ours was a stunning four-star chateau rich with history. I could have kissed past-me for booking a table at the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant—we were the first to arrive, but watched plenty of walk-ins leave in disappointment as the dining room filled up around us. And I feel for those who couldn’t experience it, because that was easily one of the greatest meals of my life: pink champagne to start (we toasted to Heloise and our wonderful replacement car), followed by some delectable amuse bouche and homemade bread, a goat cheese tart with wild garlic and prosciutto that I could have eaten twelve of, local pork with spinach and parsley, mini waffles with clementine cream and almond milk ice cream, and an assortment of divine dessert bites that were icing on the cake. The local red wine that the sommelier recommended paired perfectly with our meal, and the view of the chateau made us feel like royalty. A frustrating day with a satisfying ending to say the least.
We had a lot to pack into our one full day together, so we made quick work of exploring the grounds of our hotel before heading into nearby Amboise for breakfast. It’s a charming little town and we couldn’t resist a quick wander before our reservations at Chenonceau, though we did decide to save a closer look at the royal chateau for the time being.
Chenonceau was the one chateau that I was dying to visit, but the masses of tourists put a damper on our time there. Beautiful, but would have been better without having to fight our way through each narrow stairway. Still, I loved seeing the many rooms laid out as they were centuries ago, and reveling in the history and drama emanating from every stone. Well worth a visit, if you can stand the crowds.
The next chateau we tried had no visible entrance, and the one after that wanted 20€ per person, so we made the spur-of-the-moment decision to head to Blois for lunch to regroup. We took the first parking spot we found, walked a few steps and…there it was, the most stunning chateau we could have accidentally stumbled upon.
It turns out that Le Château royal de Blois is a fascinating and uniquely historic castle, housing the first royal fine art collection in France among so many other interesting secrets. We spent a lovely afternoon there, thankful that the one thing we had hoped for from the day had miraculously come to fruition.
It was getting late by then, so we drove down to Villandry to end the day in the gardens of the last Renaissance chateau. Alas, the gardens are recreations of the originals because an owner in the 19th century tore the old ones out to build a park of all things, but the use of archeological surveys to faithfully rebuild as close to the originals as possible made it feel like we had stepped back in time all the same. The sun came out towards the end and it felt like such a fitting cap on a really fun day.
We checked out of our wonderful hotel on Monday with enough time to get a closer look at Le Château Royal d’Amboise, with sweeping views of the Loire and a real fire in the fireplace. We didn’t realize at the time that we passed right by Leonardo da Vinci’s tomb; if we had, I probably would have snapped a pic. It was a fun visit all the same, and I bought a very cute and comfortable t-shirt in the gift shop so I’m calling it a success.
Then it was time to head back to Paris, though we did try to stop at a few more chateaux en route (one of which was merely a town called Chateau, the other the private residence of a thankfully very understanding man). I dropped Sabine off at her bus station and then, through a strange combination of timing and last-minute logistics, ended up driving all around Paris for the afternoon. Not as terrifying as I’d feared, probably because I’m used to driving in LA. I had a light dinner and stopped by the Eiffel Tower before checking into my last Airbnb of the trip and dropping off the car, and thus our weekend of chateau-hopping came to an official end.
Now I’m settled back in Paris for the rest of my trip, and there are worse places to be than Paris in the springtime. The weather is warming, people are picnicking in droves, and cherry blossoms abound—but that’s an update for another day.
