Many visitors to France focus on Paris, venture out to Normandy to see the historic sites, go east to Burgundy for the wine and cuisine, and yet others go south to Provence for the sun and Mediterranean climate.  There are those, of course, whose curiosity takes them to the Loire Valley to tour the grand and royal châteaus ~ perhaps visiting one or two in a day, a maybe a third the next day.  The visits can be tiring, much like a whole day at the Louvre.  They may never return to the Loire again, believing that if they've seen a château or two, they've seen them all.  We will attempt to disabuse those people of that belief as we devote this issue to the grand châteaus of the Loire ~ and illustrate that whether a château is family-owned in the countryside or a grand open-to-the-public royal palace in the Loire (there are about fifty of the latter), each is unique and special, most likely with a fascinating history and worth your attention.

People traveling through France following a planned itinerary often wish they had done a little more research on places they were going to visit.  Recently, we read the comment of a writer who promised himself to thoroughly research the places he was hoping to see before leaving home, but he didn't always manage to keep his own resolution.  Once in France he was often disappointed he didn't know more about the sites along the way.  We suggest that you take his advice to get the most out of your travel experience in France.  Perhaps our feature highlighting several of the Loire châteaus will be just what you need to make your visits enjoyable and enlightening.

France's buildings are constructed of the materials locally available:  the granite of Brittany, the slate roofs of the north, the red tile roofs in the south.  The Loire Valley is the home of tuffeau, the soft cream-colored stone that can be found everywhere.  Perhaps you have seen the troglodyte dwellings carved into hillsides along the river banks.  During the Mesozoic era some 90 million years ago, the Loire was the ocean floor and sediment ~ including fossilized living organisms, sand and shells deposited in the shallow water ~ was compressed to form tuffeau stone.  Thus, the great châteaus were constructed of this beautiful stone which was locally quarried, easy to work with and resulted in magnificent, timeless monuments.

We have visited many of the Loire châteaus, some more than once, so in this issue we will introduce you (or re-introduce you, if you have seen them before) to some of our favorites as well as explore several that may not be as well known to visitors.

No matter which you choose to explore, you will be impressed by how each is different from the other, how their histories and the famous people associated with them add a personal perspective to each, and how proudly they represent the devotion France and the French have to their unique historic legacy.      
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             continued on page 3