CHAMBORG - Loire Valley France

Chambourg, this hunting castle built by Loius XIV is a love hate affair. It was used largely only 8 days a year for hunting where the King will arrive with his entourage of up to 200 men and 300 dogs of the beagle and bloodhound varieties, to empty the whole forest of almost 23 square kilometers of deers. While this is going on, others chopped down fire wood to fire up its 14 fire places to warm the cold castle up and others cook. This is while the whole country was living in poverty and in exile after the ancestorial kings of England forgotten their ties in the 12th Century where Richard the Lionheart was born of a French queen.

This is one castle designed during the Renaissance Period and with nice touches from the famed Italian multi talented man, Leonardo Da Vinci.

This is my favourite and I have longed for years to go there. Finally, with one of my trips to Paris, I have an opportunity, with 2 days free time to skip the Friday flight and to save a thousand dollars in ticket difference....yes...SIA charges up to 1100 dollars difference on the same flight if you fly a different day! So I joined a tour to the Liore Valley to visit 3 great castles out of the 66 there. Chamborg was the one that I really had read up about and was really looking forward to it. So I signed up for the tour for about 250 Euros and the bus was there to pick me up at Galleries Lafayette at 7 in the morning. It was a long ride, 2 hours out of the crazy traffic of Paris, then another hour later, we reached Tours, then hit to Chamborg just about lunch time.

The van had 8 tourists, was parked quite a distance a way, and the suspense builds as I was walking pass the shops and finally, the majestic piece of architecture looms in the distance! Being a photo bug, I got my spanking new EOS then and snapped away. Got 2 batts fully charged just to make sure. However, the fog was a great dampener of my spirits. No matter, shoot away!

Once out of the woods and hedge grows, the view opens up. I was aggaged, being a Chateau and Schloss freak......I snapped this shot with the two mounties who weren't happy that some ching chong took a shot of them, waved me over and warned me with a stern tone of whatever it was....don't give a hoot....Been to France 16 times, still don't give a hoot about their forsaken lingua.

Then I gave the innocent shrug, which works most of the time, gestured for them to take a picture back for revenge.....this was how this photo was taken, by the mountie! Not a bad composition, I must say. The photo was grossly under exposed as the chap did not understand compensation exposures, so, I have to do a lot of touching up. Plus, with all the excitement, I left my tunic folded and my white shirt below was showing.....so, after some touching up....wallah....here it looked the final pic.

The whole tour went into the castle by the right hand side, while the photo bug went left 200m outfield to have this shot taken. I then ran back to try to catch up with the tour and ticket into the chateau. Then the whole lot of explanation by the guide, who was himself quite a chateau and schloss lover himself, was most informative. He pours out volumes of history of the castle and the few designers, the years, the activities, what happened in WW1 and 2 where it was used as a storage and look out, where the Nazis preserved it for the love of its sheer beauty.

While running to try to catch up with the tour group, which you can see from the right corner of this picture, I stopped for 5 seconds for this shot, then ran like a mad goose again, panting as I go in the cold!

Then, I cannot resist, I took another shot a I got closer to the castle. This one showed that the windows and the whole structure was designed mainly for elegance and can never hold up to any attacks at all givens its large and easily assessible windows and wooden doors. Despite its non performance as a protection hole, its still easily one of the most loved. At least by me.

At the western gate, I took the shot of this corner tower. The main building has 4 large corner towers, about 15m diameter rooms inside. The two sides are long and large rows of administrative buildings.

This view shows the little protection provided by a deep Fjord surrounding the whole structure. However, bearing in mind, when this was built, firearms were already the order of the day, won't make a difference anyway compared with Medieval designs.

Once inside the side walls which contained the administration rooms, there we can find the rear of the main block with a large courtyard. There are two spiral staircases designed by Leonardo Da Vinci here. I was told that the guy going up the stair well and the chap coming down will never meet so as to facilitate fast movement of troops during insurgency periods. I tried it out, marked it with a plastic bag tied to one of the railings....its true, on my way down, I do not see it! Uncannily clever!

This is the rear view of the front facade block. It has the round about gravel layout for carriages to move and alight their party attending passengers.

Climbing up to the top of this block, there was an alleyway on the top floor before the steeples started, here was the balcony, I can imagine, where the king plus his yes men would have stood to behold the actions below.

Here is how it looked like close up on whose coming to the party from the alley way on top.

The rear of the front facade block also had an alleyway balcony where the king can see who is alighting in the courtyard round about below.

The front Balcony of the front facade block where there are 4 semi circular blocks of rooms holding up huge dinning and dance halls.

One of the corner room blocks that did not blend it nor seemed connected to the rest of the castle. Looked more like a chapel or something. It was off limits, so the tour did not visit it. I can imagine, this incest committing royal family of genetically degenerated people, having the last thing on their mind was the fear of God.

This was one of the two stair wells that Da Vinci designed, which I tried. The view in between the spiral is this skylight that light up part of the whole stairwell so that soldiers have a clear view of where they are heading. Seen here on the ground floor, in this photo below which I took a shot of it upwards.

This Chateau also has a high number of fireplaces, which I think if I did not remember wrongly, something like 14 places for the King and some others for the rest of the crew. The castle is normally bear and used 8 days of the year only for hunting. The entourage will bring along everything, including furniture! The rest of the time, the castle is empty! Here is one of those fireplaces used by the king.

Another fireplace and room used by the king.

This is the Armoury Room where armour and weapons are brought here and stored during the week long hunting trip and emptied out when the King returns to Amboise.

This is the King's chambers, during the hunt, which is normally near winter, they people will heat up hot pans in the fireplace and put such plates below the bed to heat it up so that the deformed kid can sleep. However, can you imagine that when the hunt ends, all this carpet, upholstery the bed and frames are packed and shipped back to the palace at Amboise about 100km west of this place. No wonder the farmers wanted to chop of his head!

The Queen gets a piece of the action too. They bring the mirror the consoles, the beds etc, but she does not get to have a nice carpet from Persia though.

Guest room where the deers are served after the hunt as venison, the anters are hung in the trophy room and the meat are salted in barrels as jerkies to be brought back to Amboise.