I am on my road warrior mode again, and again in the beautiful Centre Val de Loire region with many visits. These are all firsts amazing abundance of marvelous places to see in my belle France. I took early into Monts to see the Château de Candé, and there is always a first, I calculated wrong the opening times and they were only open until October 30th so missed it but with the story and the outside pictures I took,will write this post as an introduction and I will be back , eventually. Hope you enjoy the post as I.
The Château de Candé is a Louis XII style castle, located in the town of Monts, in the department of Indre-et-Loire 37 in the Centre-Val de Loire region, It is 10 km from Tours on the banks of the Indre river , in the heart of a 260-hectare estate. The town of Monts is located on the Indre , and it is about 341 km from my house.
The town is served by the A 10 Paris-Bordeaux highway/motorway; exit no. 24.1 Montbazon or Sorigny can be reached from the city center via the D 84. In addition, Monts, can be reach from the A 10-A 85 interchange taking you ,also, to Angers or Vierzon. The D 17 follows the Indre valley from Azay-le-Rideau to Cormery and beyond. The D 84,leads to Sorigny and the D 910. The D 86, goes directly to Joué-lès-Tours and the Touraine conurbation. The Monts train station is located on the line from Paris-Austerlitz to Bordeaux-Saint-Jean via Tours and Poitiers. fyi
The interesting story here is that as a Renaissance mansion built in 1499-1500, most certainly replaces a medieval fortified house in a place called Condatum in the 10C. The castle was extended in the second half of the 19C by the wealthy Anglo-Cuban sugar cane planter Santiago Drake del Castillo ! (born in Havana, Cuba, in 1805) and his son Jacques. In a more ambitious project, Drake del Castillo added the north wing and its keep in the neo-Gothic style and thus tripled the living area. A chapel dedicated to Saint Clare in homage to Charlotte Claire Spitz, Santiago’s second wife, was built in the park, flanked by a building housing a girls’ school ; this school, once closed and refurbished, served as accommodation to the director of the gunpowder factory and another in which a hospice is installed. All these works took place between 1864 and 1867 In February and March 1871, several rooms of the castle were occupied by Prussian officers while the stables were requisitioned to house their horses. Jacques Drake del Castillo, eldest son of Santiago, notably developed the culture of the vine there by adopting modern cultivation and winemaking methods which earned him awards in the agricultural competitions ; Art lover, he owns in Candé and in his Parisian hotel several paintings by Claude Monet, of whom he was a friend, and Edgar Degas, he organized, in 1899 , and for Touraine, the ceremonies of the centenary of the birth of Honoré de Balzac. The meal that closes these celebrations takes place at the Château de Candé
Jean Drake del Castillo is the son of Jacques, who takes over the reins of the estate after his defeat in the municipal elections of 1925, he leaves Candé definitively and settles in Cannes where he frequents artistic and social circles, befriending Gary Cooper and Raimu, In 1927, Charles Bedaux, a wealthy Franco-American industrialist, and his American wife, Fern, bought the castle from Jean Drake del Castillo, who was forced by serious financial problems following the risky management of his heritage. to gradually sell all of his properties, Candé being the last from which he separates, The new owners demolished the vestibule built by Santiago Drake del Castillo, and especially endeavors to modify the interior layout by reconciling modernity, comfort and aesthetics.
It was in Château de Candé that the “marriage of the century” between the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson was celebrated on June 3, 1937. The civil marriage was pronounced in the castle library for the occasion, the two spouses engraved their first names and the date on a panel in the library, with a pyrography device specially purchased by Charles Bedaux, then the religious marriage is celebrated in the music room , No member of the Royal Family of England is present at this marriage From June to September 1940, part of the castle is made available to the American Embassy, so that it can retreat there, In 1951, Fern Bedaux decides to donate the castle and part of its furniture to France, reserving the usufruct until her death, which occurred in 1972, Fern’s personal effects were bequeathed to friends, according to her will, and the State regained possession of her gift, but transferred ownership to the general council of Indre-et-Loire in 1974 , The castle and its domain have been open to the public since 2000; they also regularly host cultural events. Since 2014, at the request of the council he department of Indre-et-Loire, the Mobilier national is gradually putting the original furniture back in place, taking as a reference an inventory carried out at the request of Charles Bedaux in 1930, after the completion of the renovation and furnishings he had commissioned with his wife. Two-thirds of the furniture, made available, has returned to its place. At the same time, the tapestry and decor workshops of the Mobilier national have identically remade the curtains of several rooms inaugurated in July 2018.
The official Domaine de Candé : https://domainecande.fr/?lang=en
The local Loire valley tourist office on Candé: thttps://www.loirevalley-france.co.uk/organise-your-stay/visits/chateaux/domaine-de-cande
The town of Monts and its heritage : https://monts.fr/fr/rb/487710/patrimoine-37
There you go folks, this is what road warrior trips in my belle France are all about, finally it hit you, missing on a property but as said, I will be back, the story seems too interesting to let it go for just an introduction. The Château de Candé is unique and worth the detour me think. Again, hope you enjoy the post as I
And remember, happy travels, good health,and many cheers to all !!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 
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