Château de Chenonceau

Château de Chenonceau stretches across the River Cher, a Loire Valley palace often called the Ladies’ Château for the women who defined it—Diane de Poitiers, who shaped its gardens, and Catherine de’ Medici, who added the long gallery over the water in the 1570s. Built largely in 1513–17 for Thomas Bohier on the site of a medieval fortress, it blends late Gothic structure with Renaissance grace. Its bridge-like setting made it both a courtly stage and, in World War II, a passage between occupied and free France.