Chateau de Villandry

The gardens are the reason to come. Joachim Carvallo, a Spanish doctor who bought the estate in 1906, tore out the English landscape park his predecessors had installed and reconstructed formal Renaissance gardens on four terraces using period documents. The ornamental kitchen garden is the famous one: nine squares of vegetables arranged by colour and geometry inside box hedging, replanted twice a year so that cabbages, leeks and beetroot form a pattern like embroidery. Above it sit the ornamental garden of clipped love symbols, a water garden, a maze and a herb garden. The chateau itself is comparatively plain, and many visitors buy the gardens-only ticket.

History

The lands, known as Columbine until the 17th century, were acquired early in the 16th century by Jean Le Breton, Francis I's controller-general for war, who built a new château around the 14th-century keep where Philip Augustus had met Richard the Lionheart to discuss peace. The Le Breton family held it for more than two centuries until it passed to the Marquis de Castellane; it was confiscated in the Revolution, and early in the 19th century Napoleon acquired it for his brother Jérôme. In 1906 Joachim Carvallo bought the estate, with the fortune of his wife Ann Coleman, and devoted years and money to repairing it and creating its Renaissance-style gardens of box-edged water, flower and vegetable gardens, and in 1934 the château was listed as a monument historique (Wikipedia, Château de Villandry).

What you'll find

• The kitchen garden - nine squares of vegetables planted as geometric pattern.
• The garden of love - box hedges clipped into symbolic shapes.
• The water garden - a formal mirror pool on the upper terrace.
• The belvedere view - the whole layout seen from the terrace above.

When to go

The kitchen garden peaks twice, roughly late June and September, after each replanting; May and early spring show structure but bare beds. The gardens open year-round, the chateau closes in parts of winter.

Practical notes

Timing matters more here than at other chateaux: in early spring the beds are empty and the effect is largely lost. The chateau interior is modest. Summer afternoons are crowded and there is little shade.

Nearby

Azay-le-Rideau lies southwest; Tours is east.

Key facts