Day 79: Villandry to Saumur

October 8, 2015

Our hotel, le Cheval Rouge, was ideally situated just at the beginning of the driveway of Villandry chateau. The bike parking was great, so we just loaded all our stuff onto the bikes and left it at the hotel while we strolled to the chateau.

The Villandry gardens with the village in the background

The chateau really has two aspects, the building itself and the formal gardens. All chateaux have gardens, but Villandry really is something else. We started with a look at the gardens, while waiting for a guided tour of the building to begin. It was a bit of a problem because though we had a nice pamphlet showing everything, it took time for the garden layout to sink in. It turned out that the first twenty minutes of the guided tour explained the garden layout, using a large scale model.

Before we dive in to the gardens, let's think about where this chateau came from and who developed it. The main building is from 1536, which is late in the Loire chateau building, renaissance period. The original builder was Jean le Breton, the finance Minister under Francois I. Le Breton had also had a hand in the building of Chambord. His descendants owned Villandry until 1754 It wasn't until the 19th century that a turning point came, when the traditional gardens were turned into an English style park.

The modern and most famous history of Villandry started in 1906, when the property was bought by Joachim Carvallo, a successful research doctor. His wife was Ann Coleman, also a medical specialist. Ann had another attribute, money, since she was part of the family that we know for the Coleman stove. Ann sunk her money into Carvallo and into Villandry.

The couple discovered that under the English park was the former French garden. Unfortunately they could not find any original plans, so they relied on archaeological studies and also plans in a 16th century book, "The Most excellent Buildings in France".

The gardens that were created are strictly in the formal, geometric style. There are six major sections, but I am only going to mention two. The first is a series of boxwood type patterns, with main sections named for different types of love. For example, there is "Flighty Love" where the shapes are butterfly wings and fans.

The second major section, and biggest in terms of surface area, is the vegetable garden. But this is misleading. The garden is just as formal as everything else, only vegetable plants are used to create colour schemes. There are a dozen plots, each one completely symmetrical within itself, and based on the colours of the plants.

One thing about the vegetable gardens that is hard to absorb at first is that fact that they are not there to be eaten, but only for the colour. according to Dodie, Benedictine gardens may also have been orderly and symmetrical, but were also intended to produce food. In this case there is also a modern twist. Because the business here today is tourism, the chateau license prohibits them from selling food or converting the produce in any way. They get around this by simply declining to prevent people from carrying off plants and produce that they may place over to the side. One weekend of the year, they even provide free bags - but do not specify what you should do with them.

So with that background, here are some views of the gardens - but only the two main sections that I am talking about:

The boxwood shrubs if set end to end would cover 52 km. It takes four gardeners three months to prune them

Kale is used a lot in the vegetable garden

The gardens are really meant for viewing from above. we got kicked out when we tried to walk in the vegetable garden.

The plan for one of the vegetable garden sections

The chateau building itself differs from some of the others we have seen in that it is completely furnished. The furnishings tend to be from the 17th and 18th century, and a lot of the things - notably paintings, were brought in by Carvallo and Coleman. In addition, there are numerous parquetry floors that were salvaged from other chateaux, whose crass owners were selling off the interiors.

The tour of the interior was given by a well dressed man who had a very strong knowledge of both the grounds and the interior fittings. The language was French, and the man seemed to speak very rapidly. Dodie and I both found that it took about ten minutes until switches clicked in our heads and we began to understand his speech patterns. As the hour and a half tour proceeded, we both found our brains overheating from having to listen so closely, and periodically we shut down and had no idea what he was saying.

Still we did get a pretty good sense of the whole thing. Again, picking on just two things to mention - there was a complete dining table setting. Gorgeous. There was also a ceiling that Carvallo had somehow sourced in Spain (his native country) and which had come in thousands of wooden pieces. The ceiling blends Moorish influence with Christian, the latter being symbolised by four Coquilles St Jacques in the four corners.

As an aside, Ann Coleman was a Protestant but converted to Roman Catholicism. Still she did not get much of a funeral when she died here in 1940.

Here are some views from inside Villandry:

Place setting - again reminds me of Downton Abbey

A closer look at the coquilles in the corners

Of course, the chateau has a gift shop, but in this case also a garden shop. Here are some shots, focussing on rabbit stuff, a favourite of Jeremy and Melissa:

We spent a long time at Villandry, and did not set off for Saumur until 1 p.m. This was a bit of a problem, because there is also lots to see between Villandry and Saumur! I think I will leave the account of that to photos and captions, just below, until we reach Candes St Martin:

Back in town. Look at these baguettes. The heel is always a good part, so these have double ends.

Oh, oh, this time the car seems set to get the bike

These wimpy cyclists not only have their luggage carried, but a lunch is put on for them mid way.

The sag wagon. It would be more noble for these cyclists to be on e-bikes, we think.

distant view of Usse, the Sleeping Beauty castle.

We had many nice forest paths today, like this one.

We tried to send postcards to the kids, but found this sign in the post office window at Avoine. A postal worker in a postal truck that pulled up outside denied any knowledge of the problem, referring vaguely to some kind of strike.

Candes St Martin is a beautiful village where the road narrows and the buildings are white. But its main feature is the rather discreet St Martin church. This is the spot where St Martin, Archbishop of Tours died in 397 a.d. The church that stands there now is not that old, having been built in the 12th century, but surely on the ruins of former churches. The church seems very old indeed, because of a lot of weathering. However, there is also the fact that the heads are knocked off the majority of the statues on the outside. We are guessing that this damage was done during the French Revolution.

View from the church to nearby buildings

The run into Saumur should not be a run at all, because you pass through a unique strip where so many buildings are set back into the tuffeau cliff, and where there are many caves, many used for wine storage. Thinking of wine storage, one of the enterprises on the hill is Gratien Meyer. They have 5 million bottles of wine aging in tunnels dug into the tuffeau in the middle ages.

From candes to Saumur - houses set into the cliff, wines caves, nice path, and a brief stint on the D road.

The GPS and Dodie found our hotel in Saumur with not much trouble. That is remarkable, since we ourselves and other cyclists normally report getting lost around here. There is a chateau at Saumur, but we are probably chateau-ed out by now. So tomorrow we will look around town and head out, no doubt well before noon. There is a mushroom/escargot cave and restaurant a few kms outside of town, but we think they are now mostly closed for the season. We may try to find another cave based mushroom visit. Once again, everything is going by so fast. We will have to plan to return to this region, again and again.

Our street in Saumur. Our 56 euro room at Hotel Le Volney was not the cheapest double in this hotel - it turned out to be just the one that Booking was selling, We could actually have got away with 42 euros for a lesser room.

Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 3,836 km (2,382 miles)

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