Chateau de Chenonceau

Chenonceau arches its white gallery clean across the River Cher - the 'Chateau des Dames', shaped by a succession of remarkable women: Diane de Poitiers, who threw the bridge over the water, and Catherine de Medici, who raised the two-storey gallery upon it in the 1570s, turning a castle into architecture's most graceful river crossing. Begun in 1514 on the piles of an old fortified mill, the chateau now mirrors itself in slow green water, flanked by the rival parterres its two mistresses laid out, and furnished inside with tapestries, period kitchens tucked into the bridge piers and flower arrangements cut fresh from its own cutting garden. Among the most visited chateaux in France, it earns the queue honestly: no other Loire palace floats. Canoes thread the arches on summer afternoons, and the gallery's chequerboard floor runs some sixty metres over the river.

What you actually see

• The gallery over the Cher - the chequerboard hall bridging the river itself.
• The two gardens - Diane's and Catherine's rival parterres, still competing.
• The bridge-pier kitchens - copper and larders built into the arches.
• The river view - the floating facade from a canoe or the far bank.

When to go

April to October for gardens in full production; June flowers and September light are the connoisseur picks. Winter opens shorter hours but hands you the gallery nearly alone.

Honest expectations

This is the Loire's most crowded interior after Versailles-scale sights - mid-morning coaches pack the gallery, so arrive at opening or after four. Rooms are relatively small and the visit is shorter than Chambord's; the gardens and river angles are half the ticket's value. Book online in summer.

Nearby

Amboise, Chambord and the Loire Valley chateaux; Tours is the rail hub.