Located between the Loire and the forest and nestling onto a hillside peppered with troglodytic homes, the town of Langeais could be considered as the natural link between the chateaux trail and the Loire Valley wine trail via its fine bridge.
The chateau is worth a visit as you are immediately taken by its preposterous position slap bang in the middle of this small town. It’s a powerful building (well actually two) with its drawbridge and its towers with their machicolations (sticky-out bits for dropping things on your invaders!).
Kids will love the working drawbridge, well the ones with imaginations, as it evokes images of knights and castles.
While the
outside of the building is strong and fortress-like, the internal facade
is more influenced by the Renaissance giving it more of an appearance of
the traditional chateau. Within the gardens you are also met by the
second building of the site – a keep dating back to 1000AD, built by a
former count of Anjou – which is unusual as although most of the
chateaux of the region were built on former fortress sites, few have any
remains of the ori
ginal buildings – here is an exception which shows how
building had progressed through the centuries. I know which one I’d
chose to live in! Although they are only 200 mtrs apart they are
separated by 5 centuries - what's that distance over time formula
again?.
A great deal is made of the fact that the fortress was built in double quick time – between 1465 and 1469 – (hire these builders!) which, when you are face to face with it, is a remarkable achievement.
In 1491 it was chosen as
the venue for the marriage of Charles VIII and Duchess Anne de Bretagne,
which brought Brittany into the Kingdom of France and helps give the
chateau its place on the tourist map of the region.
The majority of restoration work to the chateau was undertaken by Jacques Siegfried who as added many fine examples of 15th century furniture and tapestries to help return the interior to something like its earlier splendour.
He bequeathed it to the Institute of France in 1904 and they remain its current guardian.
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The bridge at Langeais is a landmark you'll remember should you be fortunate enough to return to this very pleasant location within the Loire Valley.