Chateaux news

Opening of Château Gaillard (Amboise)

One of the earliest Renaissance châteaux to be built in France (1496 to 1520) and a forgotten royal residence that belonged to Charles VIII and Louis XII, Chateau Gaillard opens its doors for the first time after 2 years of restoration. 

Open Wednesday to Sunday from 2 July to 24 August and on 20 and 21 September 2014 for the Heritage Days, 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. Unaccompanied visits. 

Commentated visits will be held in 2015, in the context of the “Land of Art and History” label. 

Address: 29 allée du Pont-Moulin, Amboise. 

Admission: Full fee: €7 / Reduced (7-25 year-olds): €5 / Free (under 7 years old) 

On the web:

• Château Gaillard

Embellishment of Château d’Angers’ gardens

In early 2014, a partnership between Château d’Angers-Centre for National Monuments, corporate sponsors from the Végépolys competitive cluster, Terre des Sciences and Lycée/CFPPA Angers Le Fresne enabled work to begin on embellishment of several of the château’s green spaces – a matter of renovating the 1950s gardens created at Château d’Angers by the Architect for Historical Monuments of the day. 

The hanging garden was the first step in the planned renovation. 

On the web:

• Château d'Angers

Opening of the Fontevraud Abbey Hotel

The new 54-room hotel was inaugurated at the end of May 2014 following 3 years of study and design and 18 months of construction, for a 16 million euro investment entirely financed by the Pays de la Loire Region. 

It is located in the Saint-Lazare Priory to the southeast of the Abbey – a building that originally housed a leper hospital, before becoming a convalescent home for nuns in the 17^th century. Turned into an infirmary during the period the Abbey acted as a prison, the priory was a hotel from the early 1980s up until December 2011, when work on the new hotel began. 

Fontevraud’s outstanding heritage value – it was listed as a Historical Monument in 1840 – and the determination to carry out any contemporary operations with design and digital technology in mind led to the constitution of a team of architects and designers with complementary visions to design and supervise layout work on Fontevraud’s hotel and restaurant. As a result, the Chief Architect for Historical Monuments, Gabor Mester de Parajd, and the Patrick Jouin - Sanjit Manku tandem have been working in close collaboration. 

On the web:

• Fontevraud Hotel