Cross the Cher on Chenonceau’s arches

A château built across a river on a bridge of five arches, with a gallery running the full span. It is the most photographed house in France and the only one you can walk from one bank to the other inside.

Chenonceau is called the château des dames because women built and saved it repeatedly. Katherine Briçonnet oversaw the original construction; Diane de Poitiers added the bridge; Catherine de’ Medici, having evicted Diane on Henri II’s death, put the two-storey gallery on top of it. Louise Dupin, in the eighteenth century, kept it from the Revolution by arguing it was essential infrastructure — the only bridge over the Cher for miles.

That gallery earned its keep again in the First World War as a hospital ward, and in the Second the river was the border between occupied and free France. The south door opened into the free zone, and a good many people crossed the building to reach it.

The gardens are formal and separate — Diane’s on one side, Catherine’s on the other, still laid out as a rivalry. The flower arrangements throughout the house are cut from the estate’s own workshop every week.