Château de Chambord, also known as Château de Chambord, is located in the Loire Valley of France. With a total length of 1012 km, the Loire River is the largest river in France. Castles appear along the Loire Valley like pearls, dotted with ancient villages and towns, and the medieval walls loom, adding to the looming charm of the Loire Valley. The Loire Valley enjoys the reputation of the "Garden of France", and the cultural landscape of the Loire Valley, especially the many ancient cultural relics, to a certain extent, shows the ideological trends and design concepts of the Western European Enlightenment during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In 2000, The Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee as a cultural heritage, with Chambord Castle included.
Chambord Castle
The Loire Valley was once a holiday and hunting destination for French kings and nobles, and many French kings chose to build their palaces and castles here. The Loire River, surrounded by royal castles, naturally bears the royal imprint, so the Loire Valley is also called the "Valley of the Kings". Many castles have left behind legends of royal anecdotes, which makes the castles even more mysterious. Château de Chambord is the most famous of all the castles in the Loire Valley and has been around for over 500 years. Nearby residents often like to make Château de Chambord and Château de Chenonceau a king and queen in the French castles. If The Château de Shanonceau is a castle full of women with a glamorous past, then Château de Chambord is the citadel of a man full of masculinity.
Loire
In 1516, at the invitation of King François I of France (1494-1547), the great Italian artist Leonardoda da Vinci came to Château du Clos Luce in Amboise for the last 3 years of his life, accompanied by the monumental masterpiece Mona Lisa, which showed a "mysterious and eternal smile". Da Vinci died in 1519 in the château de Clos ruz and was buried in the Royal Castle of Amboise.
Chambord Castle is the ultimate in Renaissance architecture, and the hunting palace ordered by the young King François I is like a pearl embedded in the Loire River, becoming the most splendid symbol of the French Emperor's beads. Although the castle was not completed during the reign of François I, it is one of the few buildings that has survived in its original design. The castle reflects the traditional French architecture in terms of layout, shape and style decoration, and is also influenced by the Italian Renaissance and has become one of the representative works of the French Renaissance.
Chambord Castle is the ultimate in Renaissance architecture
The Château de Chambord is the largest of all the castles in the Loire Valley, covering an area of 5,440 hectares with a total of 440 rooms, 365 chimneys, 13 main staircases and 70 secondary staircases. The castle houses more than 4,000 paintings, tapestries, furniture and works of art. François I's apartment, located on the second floor of the royal flank, consists of a bedroom, several attached private cubicles and a prayer room with a beautifully carved dome. It is a castle like a fairytale world.
artwork
painting
One summer day in 2015, I walked into Chambord Castle, walked from the main entrance to the main castle, and I felt as if I were immediately in a bright and spacious marble palace, facing the famous leonardo da Vinci's "double spiral staircase", two sets of independent stairs staggering around a common axis, spiraling upwards, while people going up and down the stairs could see each other without meeting. It is said that this would avoid disputes between the queen and the king's mistress. It is said that the "double spiral staircase" of Chambord Castle was designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Regardless of the truth of this claim, Chambord Castle was indeed the place where the love stories of royal celebrities took place.
Double spiral ladder
This article is written by The Author at Chambord Castle (2015)
View of the surroundings from the castle
Surrounded by a large forest and facing a large garden, Chambord Castle is surrounded by a large forest, and the greenery, flowers, sculptures and clear water of the lake give people a great visual enjoyment, the perfect combination of royal power and art. I ascended to the terrace of the castle and looked out at all the surrounding scenery, as if I were in the sky city composed of terraces and roofs, all the scenery was presented in front of me, and the minaret and bell tower towered into the sky, as if soaring into the sky, symbolizing eternal power. The luxury and sacredness of Chambord Castle is the imprint left by a generation of dynasties, the reincarnation of dynasties, carrying the solemnity of history in the flow of years, engraving the legend of the dynasty...
Sun Keqin wrote and photographed
bibliography
Sun Keqin, Sun Bo, 2018, Into the World Heritage Site. Beijing: Peking University Press.
Keqin Sun, Bo Sun, 2020, World Heritage Site. Beijing: Peking University Press.