After a month of hesitation, I’ve finally signed up for a château (castle) tour offered at the Institute de Touraine—and I’ll never regret that I did! Tours is a village that embraces the Loire valley, the only natural river that flows from the sea straight through the heart of France. Probably because I walk past the river every day, I have grown used to its roaring body of water, but if you zoom out on a map until tours is merely a point on the line that resembles the river, you’ll see that old, amazing castles dots the river all along the way. These castles date all the way back to the middle ages and they look as if they popped out of a fairytale book.

A profile of me in front of Chateau Villandry in Tours, France.

Castles are a great part of the culture at Tours—it is what draws tourists from all across France and from all the world. A bike tour following the river is rated one of the best family vacation ideas since the Loire du Velo project, which built safe and well-guided biking trails along connecting all the castles, was launched.

The one that I went to this week is Chateau Villandry, which is well-know for its magnificent gardens. It is rumored that the botanist who designed the gardens of Villandry was ordered by the french King to plant herbs and flowers in the great gardens of Versaille. We arrived at the south side of the castle, which faced the river. This side was made to resist attack from other dukes and foreign power; all of its towers facing the outside were well-rounded (so projectiles will physically scrape the walls but won’t accumulate much damaged). To add to the defense look, there was an actual drawbridge complete with chains and old-fashioned turning wheels. Yet once you cross the bridge to enter the tunnel, come out into the courtyard and look back, the castle looks like one taken from the film-production of sleeping beauty. All the windows are large with decorations and some with terraces. What’s really amazing is the gardens, which had intricate designs, from a walkway sheltered with vines to fountains in a field of lavender. I was more then relieved that I could understand everything the tour guide was saying in French; I felt that my french has improved and my vocabulary grew immensely.