11/09/2022
Sunday! Market day! Actually, everyday is a market day somewhere in France – you just have to check the schedules for the area that you are in. Which is great – you get a chance to get some fresh produce, a new outfit, maybe a pair of shoes, and quite a host of other items that you would never expect to buy at a market.
Today we started off with the market in Langeais. I always love watching the locals out and about buying their fresh produce. This is as direct from the farm as you can possibly get. To illustrate – the mushrooms still have their roots! We awkwardly managed to purchase a few things (very little English spoken here!), before we set off for our destinations for the day.
King Francis I of France reigned between 1515 and 1547. He quite fancied the arts, acquiring the Mona Lisa from Leonardo da Vinci. But he also liked building and restoring things. Châteaus. His Controller-General of War, Jean Le Breton, also quite fancied the idea of a Château, so he landed himself the Château de Villandry. Or at least, he acquired an ancient fortress, and built a new château around the 14th century keep (or tower). It changed hands a little since, including to Napoleon, who thought it would be a cool gift for his brother Joseph, and eventually, in 1906, Joachim Carvallo bought it, and set about restoring it, and building the most exquisite gardens around it. Laid out in symmetrical patterns, the colours are strikingly beautiful. And the gardens include vegetable gardens that provide equally striking patterns and colours.
Now, King Francis had this son. Well – actually, he had two sons. Francis, and Henry. These two boys started off life in the lap of luxury, but their father made some bad decisions, and traded them off to the king of Spain, where they were captive for about 4 years. And then King Francis went and married off Henry at the age of 14 to Catherine de Medici. She was also 14, and besides being rich, she wasn’t exactly the catch that a young prince would hope for. And besides, Henry had a crush on someone else. Well – he quite fancied women in general, but Diane de Poitiers, a lady about 20 years his senior – now she was the real love of his life. And so a classic love triangle followed, which would just have been some juicy stories of some prince. Except that Henry’s older brother suddenly died after a – well – a tennis game. Odd. But there it was. Henry ended up becoming King Henry II. Still loving the women. Even having a child with his lady Diane. And just to spoil her a little, he gave her Château de Chenonceau, a beautiful Château spanning the Cher river.
After exploring these two beautiful castles, we set off to Amboise. It also has a castle – it’s the one where our King Francis was raised, actually. It looks out over the Loire, so we could just take a few photo’s from the opposite banks of the river, before heading into the historic centre for an early supper.
There are, of course, many more castles in the area. We are happy with what we saw today. 😊
Oh – and for the record – our King Henry II accidentally died in a jousting ‘battle’. Hmmmm… And, of course, Catharine kicked Diane out of the Château de Chenonceau, moved in, made it more grand, and had some glorious parties. You go girl!
