France: The Loire

Rating:
Summary: France: The Loire
Review: Talking about details! Everything you would want to know(and some you don't)about the history, chateau, architecture, accommodations, restaurants, etc. of the Loire Valley. A "must read" for someone wanting to get into the deep things-it is packed full.

Rating:
Summary: France: The Loire
Review: Talking about details! Everything you would want to know(and some you don't)about the history, chateau, architecture, accommodations, restaurants, etc. of the Loire Valley. A "must read" for someone wanting to get into the deep things-it is packed full.

Rating:
Summary: Background History for Visiting the Chateaux
Review: Tourists all too often waltz in and out of some of the most spectacular places on earth altogether unprepared for what they see. Everyone knows that the Loire Valley of France has hundreds of striking chateaux, but few know that for over 100 years, the kings of France preferred to live along the Loire rather than exposing themselves to the (then) noisome stinks of Paris and its rabble.

Philippe Barbour's excellent guide gives you the background to travel intelligently. You, too, will know how Charles VIII, Conqueror of Milan, died (by bumping his head on a low door at the Chateau of Amboise); how it happens that the Chateau of Cheverny still sports its original furnishings (the same family has dwelt there since before the Revolution); and how Marie de Medicis disposed of her dead husband's mistress Diane de Poitiers (she exiled her to the Cheateau de Chaumont -- I can imagine a worse fate). You will learn that the Loire was not only the home of the French kings, but also the literary giants Rabelais and Balzac, both of whom wrote prolifically about the valley of their birth.

At the same time, Barbour's book is a highly acceptable guidebook for accommodations and restaurants -- if you remember that the book was published in 1997. Cadogan does not redo its guides every year, so they tend to emphasize background information that supplements other, more up-to-date guides like those produced by Rick Steves or Frommer.

If you don't want to travel uninformed, this is perhaps your best bet for obtaining the background you need painlessly.