“Impressions de Bricker” France Report – Part 5
Our next stop was Château de Chenonceau. On our way to Cheverny, we realized we’d only have one stop after it, so I did some research on the fly, and we came to the conclusion that Château de Chenonceau would be our best bet because it was open latest and was facing the correct direction for sunset photos, should the sky light up. These might seem like silly reasons to choose it, but both factors were important to us.
On the way to Château de Chenonceau, we saw some hot air balloons firing up alongside the road. I had half-joked with Sarah that we should take a hot air balloon flight over one of these castles to re-create another Impressions de France moment. At that time, I knew it was possible, but didn’t realize just how much of a “thing” hot air balloon flights are in France (if you want to fly over something in a hot air balloon, there’s an outfit in France that does it!).
Well, it turned out that those hot air balloons were gearing up for flights over Château de Chenonceau. This turned into the second ‘magical moment’ of the trip, following seeing high tide at Mont Saint Michel. While in the gardens taking photos, we saw hot air balloons slowly rising from behind Château de Chenonceau. Words don’t do justice to how incredible this was to witness, but it was truly a sight to behold.
I think part of this is because seeing the hot air balloons rising above Château de Chaumont in Impressions de France has a particular resonance for me. If you don’t recall, during this scene, the narrator quotes French poet , saying “dreaming of faraway places yet unseen, we say in the words of our great poet Baudelaire…’leave for the sake of leaving and without knowing why, they always say we must go.'”
I have always liked this quote for its spirit of wanderlust, but a couple of years ago, it gained heightened significance. It was watching Impressions de France in August 2014, as I grappled with the idea of risking everything and moving to California–a place we loved (see above characterization of it as a “country”)–or playing it safe and maintaining the status quo with life in Indiana. It would be overwrought to say that my mind was made by listening to that quote, but it did play a part.
After watching the film, I Googled Baudelaire. I found the entire poem (The Voyage), and read his further works. Then I read up on Baudelaire, himself. It turned out that he graduated with a law degree, but wasn’t particularly keen on practicing. He traveled extensively and began to write about his adventures as a vagabond.
His words spoke to me and his personal journey held some parallels (although he also contracted numerous STDs and was a free-spender, so there weren’t that many parallels). Ultimately, he helped provide some of the push to head west.
Standing there witnessing this fantastical, real-life mash-up of two scenes from Impressions de France was a surreal moment that felt like things coming full-circle.
It’s difficult to attain validation on such a life-changing decision (and I’ve never had any regrets), but to the extent that it is possible, I felt it at that moment.
Above is a video Sarah took of the balloons…
The photos and video of the scene are pretty, but I don’t think they can conceivably do justice to how I felt seeing this in person. For me, this was pure magic.
As the balloons drifted away, we were approaching closing time for the interior, so we all went inside. I quickly passed through the rooms as our time was limited and I was more concerned with sunset outside.
On the plus side, the interior was almost entirely devoid of other visitors, making it the perfect opportunity for photos.
From this perspective, I think you can see the influence on Cinderella Castle, which was inspired by several castles in Europe (including Chambord, but I didn’t really spot any similarities there).
The well out front also reminds me of the Wishing Well on the side of Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World.
If you’re into photography, I’d highly recommend our strategy of doing Château de Chenonceau near closing time. That’s one thing we definitely got right on this spontaneous trip.
After the interior of Château de Chenonceau closed, we were allowed to linger around in the gardens outside, and were able to stay until sunset. (It’s not just Disney parks we “close down” at the end of the night!)
Even though our time inside was limited, our visit to Château de Chenonceau was one of the most satisfying experiences of the trip. In a relatively short window of time, I took a ton of photos, some of which (beyond those in this post) I will be sharing tomorrow in my Château de Chenonceau Photos & Tips post on TravelCaffeine, so stay tuned for that!
In terms of ultimate takeaways, the main one would be: wow, what a region! It’s like French royalty got in a pissing match with one another to see who could have the grandest, most antler-ific castle, with France’s tourists being the real winners in their game of chateau one-upmanship.
Just looking over a list of Loire Valley highlights is pretty astounding. For all the beautiful sights we have, the United States doesn’t have the number of significant historical residences in the entire country that France has in one small region.
France’s beauty and diversity is highlighted in Impressions de France, but part of me always wondered if this was over-emphasized for the Epcot film. To the contrary, the country presents even better in person than it does on the film. Even after past visits to Paris, I still had thought California was the most beautiful country on earth. This trip has me thinking France gives California a good run for its money, especially given that we didn’t make it to Cannes, the French Alps, and numerous other places.
The second takeaway would be that the Loire Valley is not day trip material. You should stay here overnight, and perhaps for 2-3 days. At the end of our day, rather than retiring to a bed & breakfast in the area, we drove to Val d’Europe, where we’d be staying for the next several days while visiting Disneyland Paris.
…and that’s where we’ll pick up in Part 5.
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YOUR THOUGHTS…
Have you visited the Loire Valley? Any favorite chateaux? Is the Loire Valley a place you want to visit? Do you wish more historical sites contained toys in their displays? Wish you could take a balloon tour over literally anywhere? Thoughts on our Impressions de France tour? We’d love hearing some feedback on the report thus far, so please share any other thoughts or questions you have, in the comments!
I spent a summer living in the Loire Valley based in Saumur and the Chauteau there is beautiful and right in the centre of the town! well worth a visit. Usse is my favourite but these ones you hit are perfect too! I lived there for 8 1/2 months and still didnt manage to see everything the Loire Valley has to offer!
Well done for visiting somewhere a bit less popular too! not many people outside of Europe have ever heard of the Loire!
I just wanted to add my voice to the “i love these trip reports” list. I also wanted to add that I like your tone in these reports as well. Thanks!
You seriously lucked out with your spur-of-the-moment chateaux itinerary, cause Chambord and Chenonceau are the BEST. Not sure if you already knew this (or someone told you in a previous comment), but that double-helix staircase in Chateau du Chambord was designed by Leonardo da Vinci. And it was created so that the king’s mistress could be coming down the staircase and the queen going up it at the same time without either one ever seeing the other. Gotta love monarchs, eh?
The gas station only took the Esso card and the Maestro card, I believe. And so did the second one we found. It was quite entertaiing as we dropped lower and lower in gas (we started looking for a gas station when slightly under 1/2 tank, luckily.) We were finally at ~1/8 tank at a lawnmower dealership with a 1970’s-era gas pump on the sidewalk. The store owner spoke no English and my French wasn’t good enough to get much beyond that we could purchase gas. So we were basically playing charades as I’m trying to get him to put gas into my car and take whatever he needed from my wallet (running out of gas in the French countryside didn’t seem like a great option). Luckily, a man out walking his dog spoke a little English and resolved the communication issue.
In case you didn’t find this – the (expensive) toll roads also don’t take Visa/Mastercard/AmEx. So have a local credit card or a healthy amount of cash (it cost us ~40 EUR to travel from Mont. St. Michel to the Loire Valley).
Chaumont was neat – we were hurried and I would have liked to have read more of the history, but the castle and the grounds were very pretty. I liked Chenonceau better, but am glad we visited both. This is the only decent shot I got of it: https://flic.kr/p/Kmyisb
I have loved this trip report so far! I went to Paris last year for a weekend (before a week in London,) and I’ve been wanting to go back. I appreciate seeing what you have to say about all these different places–I’ve been following your blog for a while now, and I think you do a great job presenting a balanced report of what you’ve experienced. I’m definitely putting the Loire Valley on my travel list, thanks to you. 🙂
I just wanted to say I am really enjoying these posts too – I love France and cannot wait to go back someday. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised when these trip reports turned out to be non-Disney related.
We did a day trip through a wine tour company to Burgundy region and the Loire Valley in early October and really loved it. The trip went so fast I feel like we didn’t get to appreciate the region enough. This is an amazing recap of how much we missed!
France is definately the most beautiful country on Earth (OK, I’m French, but that doesn’t count :D)
You have visited probably the three most visited castles of the “vallée de la loire” but there are so many (probably more than two hundreds only in this part of the country).
I also would recommend to visit Château d’Ussé (https://www.chateaudusse.fr), aka “château de la Belle au bois dormant” (Sleeping Beauty castle), Chaumont sur Loire (with an incredible garden festival), Amboise (the place where Leonardo Da Vinci lived), Villandry (with a fantastic “French Garden”) and Le Lude.
Thank you for the recommendations. Château d’Ussé looks excellent!
In defense of Legos: I have been to Chambord and Chenonceau, but not Cheverny. I would agree, it’s possible to look at Lego installations in a historical site and think “tacky”. But, it’s also important to consider that these are places not only of French history, but of French culture and art. Modern art and Pop art have long been a really important part of France’s cultural history.
In some ways, (this is just my opinion from visiting the Centre de Pompidou) I think that France really struggled to redefine its culture in the later half of the 20th century after the horrors of the occupation. Modern and pop art gave expression to a whole new feeling about “Frenchness”. The juxtaposition of Lego art with traditional French art and architecture may seem jarring and commercial to us, but it may be an effort to show the struggle to connect with a past that, while visually present, may feel very foreign in present-day France. It may also be an effort to try to interest French children in their cultural history by adding elements that may seem relevant to them.
I would probably also think “yikes! what the heck is that doing here?!” if I walked into a room like that with big Lego dogs. But, if my time in France taught me anything, it’s that “being French” is a very different thing than being American and that the motivations and feelings about many things, especially art and history, can be totally different from what they are here.
Personally, I kind of like the idea of modern day France “claiming” its past by adding to it with present-day media. In some ways, it’s no different than having a video about the place at the entrance or an electronic screen with information. Or, maybe it’s just tacky commercialism. I’m not French, so I can’t really say.
Thanks for sharing your perspective on this; very thoughtful and compelling.
To your point: I like modern art, including pop art, and I think it’s great that Europe has not stagnated in the arts. Additionally, I think pushing the envelope on new ways to entertain and educate should be lauded, even if they fall a bit flat.
For me, though, this doesn’t just fall a bit flat–it’s wholly incompatible with the aim of the exhibits, which are time capsules of a different era. To me, those time capsules themselves are art. The decor in them is quite deliberate, the walls feature murals and/or tapestries, and the style is striking. Given that, adding LEGO to those exhibits is akin to painting a can of Campbell’s soup on the Mona Lisa. Now, that’s no doubt hyperbole since the LEGO displays can easily be removed from these displays, but the idea is the same.
I have no issue with historical exhibits (such as these chateaux) having an area reserved for rotating exhibits or art installations. In fact, that’s what Cheverny does with its Tintin exhibit. I think that is a far better approach, and less intrusive.
I come here for the photos, I stay for the STD jokes.
Ha, thanks…I guess? That’s not a joke, though. I mean, juxtaposing it against my life sort of was a joke, but Baudelaire is quite infamous for this.
Loving this Trip Report. Definitely putting many of these locations on my list of must-visits. Excellent job of capturing the magic of these places, and thanks for sharing.
Absolutely wonderful point about the vagabond quote! I love that poem. How fantastic that you connected this with many parallels in your own life Well done!
Love this installment. You experienced so many picture perfect moments on this trip. I feel the magic of those hot air balloons over Chenonceau in your photos and video, hard to imagine it in person.
Thinking back on it is still sort of surreal. It really felt like a scene in Impressions de France. Being a cynic, I had assumed all of those scenes were carefully staged (and I’m sure they are), and stuff like that and the running of the hunting dogs didn’t happen in real life. But, apparently, it does. France is a fantastic place.
I think you followed us through France! We were there at exactly the same time on our honeymoon. We spent four nights in the Loire Valley based in Amboise with a car to drive around. I agree, it was spectacular!
How did you feel about 4 nights there? Was that still not enough time, too much, or just right? Already debating what to do our next visit, and I think it’s coming down to more time in Loire Valley or trying to make it to Cannes.
If we went back (we’re from Australia, might take us a while)… we’d probably do one less night in Amboise and pick another town in the region for an extra few nights, maybe towards the coast. I could easily spend weeks in the Loire Valley. The restaurants in amboise are so amazing though. We went to a different one each night, all Michelin worthy.
We actually drove down to the Bordeaux region afterwards and spent four nights staying in a chateaux in Saint Emilion which was incredible! Definitely recommend that.
Have you been to nice? I’ve found most towns on the French Riviera to be very similar. We loved Avignon and the Provence region on our last visit though!
I’m always commenting because this might be my favorite series of articles you have published! Thanks again for writing.
You aren’t alone on the cause of your trip. After staying at Mont. St. Michel were were driving pack to Val D’Europe to visit DLP. I saw that the Loire valley was “only” 3 hours out of the way and we could visit some of the castles from Impressions de France, so I convinced my wife to take the trip.
We had planned to see Chenonceau, Chaumont, and Chambord but only got to the first two. Traffic, spending an hour finding a gas station that took Visa/Mastercard or cash (who knew!), and the necessity of sleeping and eating ate away too much time. I’m glad to see your pictures of Chambord and that will be on the list if we ever get back to the region.
Well, I really appreciate the comments on these trip report posts–it lets me know those reading are enjoying them. I didn’t expect there to be much interest in content that is so tangentially Disney, and these are certainly far less popular than an average Walt Disney World trip report, but it has been fun to write. Plus, having ‘deadlines’ for these posts hanging overhead keeps me motivated to get photos edited, which is good!
What did you think of Chaumont? That’s on our list next time regardless, so I guess it doesn’t totally matter, but I’m nonetheless curious.
I’m also curious…if they didn’t accept credit card or cash, what did they accept as payment Schrute Bucks? 😉
Thank you so much for indulging those of us who have been thrilled by this series. But . . . am I the only one not seeing photos on this one?