Girlfriends' French Adventure: Chateau de Chaumont sur Loire

The Chateau de Chaumont sur Loire was recommended to us by Veronica, our landlady in Amboise. It's unique among Loire Valley chateaux in that it has 30 exhibition gardens that change each year. This year's entries included a garden on carnivorous plants (think Venus Flytrap), a garden dedicated to hundreds of different types of geraniums, a "dyers" garden (plants/roots used in natural dyes), and a black garden, to name a few. As we were wandering through the various gardens, we felt like we were viewing the display gardens at a Home & Garden Show. It was enjoyable, but a little incongruous given the setting of the medieval chateau, since some of the garden designs were very modern.

Parts of the interior of the chateau were even stranger. There were approximately 12 rooms furnished in period style, which were quite nice, but after viewing these rooms we were then directed to a modern art exhibit housed in the unrestored section of the castle. There were cobwebs everywhere and we felt like we were the first people to have come through there in a long time. Most of the wallpaper in these rooms had peeled off, although there was a bit left in each room. The modern art exhibit contained renderings of what this wallpaper might have looked like, water-stained and all. They had also added a modern art exhibit within the chateau's chapel and in the basement there was some sort of wooden structure that none of us could figure out the signiicance of. All in all, somewhat bizarre. It was an interesting visit, but this wasn't one of my favorite Loire Valley chateaux.

For our last night in Amboise, we had a wonderful three-course dinner at a small restaurant recommended by both Veronica and Rick Steves. It was a lovely way to end our stay in Amboise. Tomorrow we head back to Paris and then home on Monday. This vacation is ending much too soon.