Château de Chambord
— — the roof that built itself a skyline.
Not only on a wall.
“François I started Chambord in 1519 as a hunting lodge, which is one of the more famous understatements in French architectural history. The roof carries 282 chimneys and a forest of turrets, a small white-stone city on top of a building. Inside, a double-helix staircase, often attributed to Leonardo, climbs the center without the two halves ever meeting. The walled park around the château is the largest in Europe.
Château de Chambord, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Château de Chambord stands in the Loir-et-Cher département, about 110 miles south of Paris, deep in the forest of Sologne. It is the largest château in the Loire Valley, with 426 rooms, 282 fireplaces, and 77 staircases inside a roughly square plan. Construction began in 1519 under François I, who intended it as a hunting lodge, and continued in stages for the rest of the 16th century. The walled park around the château covers 13,500 acres, the largest enclosed park in Europe, ringed by a wall over 20 miles long.
The château is built from local tuffeau, a soft white limestone quarried in the Loire valley that hardens on exposure to air. The roofline carries 282 chimneys and a dense thicket of turrets, lanterns, and dormers, a horizon described by André Félibien in 1681 as a small town set on a roof. The double-helix staircase at the center, attributed by tradition to Leonardo da Vinci, lets two people climb at once without meeting. The grand staircase is open to the roof terrace, where the chimney city can be walked among at close range.
Chambord is open daily except December 25th and January 1st, with hours that shift by season. The château and the surrounding 13,500-acre national estate require separate tickets to the building. The park itself is free to walk. The estate is a French national property, restored across the past century and managed under the Public Establishment of Chambord. The nearest train station is Blois, about 12 miles to the northwest. From there the château is reached by road, by bike along the Loire à Vélo route, or by seasonal shuttle.