Amboise - Villandry

FRIDAY, 10 MAY 2013

I got up (fairly) early to do a bit of bird watching.  The inner city of Amboise is pretty good for birds, and I had some nice views of Blue and Long-tailed Tits.  After brekky, we wandered into town to the very helpful Tourist Information Centre.  They called a taxi for us to get to the car rental place (which, despite saying it’s in Amboise, is actually just outside the town and too far to walk.  Hmmm.)  No problem getting the car, and the map we’d purchased earlier was a necessity.  We headed for the Chateau de Villandry, the chateau on my list that’s furthest from Amboise.  Villandry has the most extensive gardens of all the Loire chateaux.  (115,000 flowers and vegetables are planted in the gardens each year; half of them are grown in Villandry’s glasshouses.)

Lots of the trees around this area have mistletoe in them.  It’s very unlike Australian mistletoe.

We found the Chateau without too many problems, and there was no queue to get in.

Even the barn looks impressive.

 The weather was very cold and looked as if it might rain any minute, so we went around the gardens first.  The veggie patch is the largest (properly called the Kitchen Garden), and is set up in a 3 x 3 pattern with pansies on each border.  It contains heaps of different veggies in contrasting colours to make geometric patterns.  There are 10 full-time gardeners employed here.

Next we went to the Labyrinthe (French spelling; Maze in English), which is quite small and set up in a very classical design.  The shrubs are hornbeam (I know - I’ve never heard of it either).

The Water Garden is just lawns and a pond, but there were two Mute Swans on it.  Bonus points if you can spot the second swan!

We then headed for the Belvedere, a viewing platform halfway up a hill.  The Love Gardens are hedges filled with tulips underplanted with different coloured forget-me-nots, and are designed on themes of tender love (hearts), passionate love (broken hearts), fickle love (fans and horns) and tragic love (blades).

The Love Gardens in front, the Kitchen Garden behind and the Keep (castle tower) on the right.

We then went into the woods, which is also part of Villandry’s gardens.  Lots of oak and pine, and generally a bright, light green.  There are views down onto the more formal gardens as well.

We then went through the Chateau, which was interesting – especially the wooden parquet floors (they squeaked a lot!)  It was built in 1536 and modernised in 1754.   We ended up on the Keep, with lovely views over the gardens.  The Kitchen Garden (notice the espaliered grapevines up the barn walls in the first photo):

The Kitchen Garden in the front and the Ornamental Garden in the middle.  The Water Garden is in the top left, and the Maze (not visible) is at the top right.

Continuing around anti-clockwise, the Love Gardens.

This shot is looking towards the front entrance...

...and on top of the keep, Phil is checking out the chimneys.  Overall I was a bit disappointed in the gardens.  There wasn’t nearly as much colour as I was expecting.  Most of the garden seemed to be box hedges, lime trees (that had been pruned within inches of their lives), lawn and gravel paths.  (The 1015 lime trees take four gardeners three months to prune!)

On the way back to Amboise, we stopped in the Forest of Amboise so I could check out the birds.  It was very still and quiet – hardly anything calling or moving.  There don’t seem to be very many birds in Europe.  The flowers were interesting, though – wild bluebells were growing on the side of the road.  Do you like our car?

A final walk around Amboise before tea.  This is the Tour de l’Horloge (clock tower), and the stained glass windows in Eglise St Florentin.

Tomorrow morning we leave Au Petit Troglo and move into La Porte Bleue, which is on the island in the middle of the Loire facing the Chateau d’Amboise.

MAMMAL WATCH - Water Vole (I think).

PS – The head of the second swan can just be seen above the left edge of the little circular water fountain