Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau

Azay-le-Rideau was built between 1518 and 1527 by Gilles Berthelot, a royal treasurer, on a foundation of wooden piles driven into an island in the Indre, which is why the water comes right to the walls and the reflection is unbroken from the park. Balzac called it a faceted diamond set in the river. Berthelot never lived in it: Francis I seized the property when the treasurer's finances were investigated, and Berthelot fled. The staircase is the interior showpiece, a straight flight under carved loggias rather than the older spiral. A full restoration finished in 2017 returned the roof and the nineteenth-century interiors.

History

The château stands on the site of a fortress built in the 12th century by Ridel, or Rideau, d'Azay, a knight of Philip Augustus, to guard the Tours to Chinon road where it crossed the Indre. In 1418 the future Charles VII, insulted by the Burgundian troops holding the town, had the castle stormed and burned, and for centuries the town was called Azay-le-Brûlé. In 1518 Gilles Berthelot, mayor of Tours and treasurer-general of the king's finances, bought the ruined site and began a new residence mixing medieval forms with the latest Italian style, its building supervised by his wife Philippa Lesbahy; it had to be raised on piles in the wet ground of the island, with stone brought by boat from the Saint-Aignan quarry about 100 km away. It was still unfinished in 1527, when the execution of his cousin Jacques de Beaune drove Berthelot into exile, and Francis I confiscated it (Wikipedia, Château d'Azay-le-Rideau).

What to look for

• The reflection - the chateau on piles mirrored in the Indre.
• The straight staircase - loggias and carved decoration over a Renaissance flight.
• The salamander emblems - Francis I's device carved through the building.
• The English park - a nineteenth-century landscape with framed views.

When to go

April to October; the chateau opens year-round with shorter winter hours. Still mornings give the best reflection. Summer evenings bring a light and sound projection.

Before you go

It is small compared with Chambord or Chenonceau and takes about an hour inside. The village is tiny. Interiors are largely nineteenth-century in taste rather than Renaissance.

Nearby

Villandry lies northeast; Usse is west along the Indre.

Key facts