This castle has been on my bucket list for over 40 years. I had a big poster with this castle on it as a teen, though I have to say the weather in the poster was a lot sunnier than the grey day that we had on New Year's day this year. Never mind, we still had a blast investigating the castles and the gardens. My favorite place in the whole castle was the kitchens and servant dining room.
One good thing about sight seeing during the holidays is the beautiful decorations (in addition to the lighter crowds!) There were decorations in almost every room, it was positively stunning.
I especially liked the gallery part of the castle that spans the river Cher. We got to wander through two of the levels, one the main gallery used for parties (and a WWI field hospital!). This table was over 100 feet longer (hard to estimate) and filled with a sparkly sugary Christmas buffet, beautiful crystal (Baccarat???) and silver. You couldn't get too close without setting off the alarms, but WOW, was it beautiful!
Just down some stairs off the gallery, you descend a stone staircase down to the servant area. It was huge! A large room just set up for butchering and meat prep, another for the servant living room, a dining room and a gorgeous big kitchen for cooking.
This was taken from the main hall and looking into the servant dining room. All the copper was beautifully polished. I wonder how they keep it looking like that?
Inside the dining room with a view of the holiday decorations. Wow, I loved the colors of the citrus and the mossy greens.
I could be happy eating dinner here.
From the butcher room, lots of knives and hanging racks.
Fresh water from below with this crank wheel
This oven was HUGE. We took a panoramic of it, but it was so hard to get it right.
You could feed a small army on this range.
Copper lids for the many pans in the kitchen.
Beautiful baking pans and fireplace. I am in love with this place.
Now THAT is a mortar and pestle!
Beautiful ironwork everywhere
Drinks anyone? I imagine it might have been water originally but I can think
of a couple of a big batch recipes to put in this vessel.
AS much as I'd like to avoid the crowds, I do think I need to go back here again in the summer to see what it is like.
Love, love, love
amazing post
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