CHÂTEAUX 2022 THE GUIDE


siege by the invading English. For visitors, this Breton château offers an intriguing glimpse into what life was really like in the Middle Ages. Open most of the year, except for January. château-fougeres.com/fr


Château de Joux (Doubs)


Standing sentry high above the valley, surrounded by jutting cliffs and forests, this brooding fortress in the Jura Mountains looks like a backdrop from The Lord of the Rings. A century in the making, it was built to defend important trade routes through the valley, although it wasn’t always a stronghold. During the 18th and 19th centuries it served as a bleak state prison, its most famous inhabitant the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, who met his end behind bars here. www.chateaudejoux.com


Château de Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne)


There are no fewer than 1,500 rooms in this opulent château, just 34 miles from Paris, most of them adorned with beautiful paintings, tapestries, frescoes, carvings, fi replaces and furniture. At one time even Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa hung here. The human residents who have called it home over the centuries are even more impressive, including kings, queens, emperors, and World War II generals. Beyond the château walls the 130 hectares of parkland and gardens – partly designed by André Le Nôtre – are suitably resplendent. Open all year round. www.chateaudefontainebleau.fr/en


Château de la Hunaudaye (Côtes-d’Armor)


This medieval fortress sits in a tranquil corner of northern Brittany. As with most castles built in the Middle Ages, it was created to defend – in this case, the eastern border of the Penthièvre territory. Sadly, the château was reduced to rubble


The Château de Guédelon in the Yonne department is a fascinating experiment in 13th-century building techniques


in a civil war, before a heroic revival in the late 1300s, which saw the introduction of its trademark circular towers. Eventually, at the tail end of the 15th century, it became a symbol of the Tournemine family’s new-found power and status, cementing itself as a prestigious regional landmark. www.la-hunaudaye.com


Château de l’Islette (Indre-et-Loire)


“Through the trees in the distance, I see the tortuous course of the Indre, and an ancient château, fl anked by towers,” wrote the playwright Pierre Beaumarchais in 1769 of this château which overlooks the River Indre. Indeed, the fi rst thing you’ll notice is the castle’s captivating beauty: the glowing white limestone, the fl ower- bedecked walkways, and refl ections dancing on the surface of the moat. But there’s more than meets the eye in this leafy Loire Valley oasis, as it also once hosted legendary sculptors Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, who conducted their tempestuous love affair here in the late 1800s. Open every day from May 1 to September 30,


and all year round for groups with reservations. www.chateaudelislette.fr/en


Château de Terre Neuve (Vendée)


Built around 1590, for Nicolas Rapin, High Provost of the Constables of France, this Renaissance château was owned in the 19th century by the Marquis Octave de Rochebrune, who was celebrated for his etchings. In fact he produced just shy of 500 of them while living at Terre Neuve. His artistic fl air must have been catching since, during the Second World War, the famous French author Georges Simenon lived here, penning several works. The château also reveals superb examples of sculpted stone panelled ceilings and monumental fi replaces. The château is open from April 9 to November 6, but with varying hours, so check on the website for details. château-terreneuve.com


Château de Guédelon (Yonne)


This château is entirely different from all the others featured here in that it hasn’t


actually been built yet. Deep in a Burgundy forest, just over 100 miles south of Paris, it’s an architectural and archaeological experiment in which the builders are constructing a genuine 13th-century castle using only medieval tools and methods. No modern cranes or lorries or electric tools on this building site. As far as possible, all the craftsmen and women here both work and look exactly as their ancestors would have 800 years ago. Dressed in woollen smocks, there are quarrymen hewing rocks out of the ground; stonemasons tapping away with their chisels; carpenters hand-sawing trees cut from the local forest by lumberjacks; blacksmiths forging the iron tools; tilers digging clay from the ground nearby and fi ring it in ovens; and carthorses transporting all these materials around the site. The whole project aims to rediscover the secrets of medieval architecture and to teach modern builders how to work with traditional tools and materials. Visitors are encouraged to engage with the builders while they toil away, rather like an interactive


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IMAGE © WWW.GUEDELON.FR


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