Château de Chambord - une grande façade!

Chambord

a very grand façade

Constructed for King François I in the early years of the Sixteenth Century, this chateau features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces, and 84 staircases.  In the center hall is a grand double-helix open staircase spanning three floors.  The château also features 128 meters of façade, more than 800 sculpted columns and an elaborately decorated roof. When François I commissioned the construction of Chambord, he wanted it to look like the skyline of Constantinople. 

In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the art collections of the Louvre and Compiègne museums were stored at the Château de Chambord.
 

This is my contribution to the City Daily Photo Theme Day - façade

Click here to see all the others from around the world.

Château de Chambord

Chambord, France

(an easy day trip out of Paris to the Loire Valley)

Château de Chambord

The castles in the Loire Valley are an easy day-trip out of Paris. To say that Château de Chambord is enormous just does not cover it. Consider that it has 426 rooms, 80 staircases, 282 fireplaces, a double-helix staircase, a moat, a flamboyant roof (originally designed to look like the skyline of Constantinople) all of which is surrounded by a wall 32km long. The estate is the same area as Inner Paris... Well, you get the idea. It is at least ten times larger than enormous.

During WWII, Chambord was used to store art from French museums including the Louvre. As many as 5000 crates were protected here, one of which contained the Mona Lisa. You can read much more here and here.

Built in th 16th Century as a hunting lodge, it was rarely inhabited, drafty, and bitter cold in the winter.