The lovely town of Azay-le-Rideau is just a few kilometres west of Villandry and another style of chateau as the French renaissance borrows from the Italian. We see a refined loggia staircase surmounted with a salamander and an ermine.
We went on the guided tour led by Héloise, I kid you not.
These palaces are all about impressing top people: aristos, the king, money-lenders.
And apparently nothing beats a mirror image of your chateau, so dam the Indre and divert it, even though you are on a municipal boundary. Héloise told me that during the Second World War the division between occupied France and Vichy ran through the property (I suppose, because it's in the middle of the damn river).
Héloise said (there'll be a lot of this) that the salamander was a symbol of monarchy, but that during the revolutionary period this tended to be ignored or forgotten hence these bass-reliefs survive, whilst more obvious symbols of absolute monarchy by divine right do not. Though I did note the chateau came into non-aristo hands in 1791.
In the kitchen there was a
putto in each corner.
As we were thinking of returning to our campsite by the Indre, the light improved dramatically, so we went round to admire the palace again. The view below was first seen by Chris and I together eleven years ago long before motorhoming.
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