Villandry Renaissance Gardens
— — the colour the kitchen garden makes in late June.
Not only on a wall.
“The last of the great Renaissance châteaux on the Loire, with the kitchen garden that made the estate famous. Nine geometric squares of box-edged beds, replanted twice a year with cabbages, leeks, chard, and pumpkin so the colour is never the same in two visits. A Spanish doctor and his American wife bought the place in 1906 and spent the next decade putting the geometry back, working from sixteenth-century drawings. The Carvallo family still runs it, four generations on. Worth the train from Tours when the late-June plantings come up.
Villandry Renaissance Gardens, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Château de Villandry sits on the south bank of the Cher near where it joins the Loire, about 17 kilometres west of Tours in the Indre-et-Loire department of Centre-Val de Loire. It was built starting in 1532 for Jean Le Breton, finance minister to François I, on the site of a medieval fortress whose old keep is still embedded in the structure. The estate covers roughly six hectares of formal gardens on three terraces and forms part of the Loire Valley UNESCO World Heritage area inscribed in 2000. The nearest station is Savonnières on the TER line from Tours, a short cycle along the river bank to the gates.
The potager is the ornamental kitchen garden, laid out in nine squares of box-edged geometry, replanted twice a year so the colour is never the same in two visits. Peak colour falls in late June and again in early October, when cabbages, leeks, beets, and pumpkin sit at full mass against the low hedges. The gardens stay open every day of the year, but the herb garden and the kitchen plot read flat from mid-November through April while the new plants are settling. Joachim Carvallo, the Spanish doctor who bought the estate in 1906 and oversaw the restoration, chose the dual-planting cycle to keep the design legible across the calendar.
The château and its gardens are open every day of the year, including Christmas and New Year's Day, with hours that adjust by season. Tickets cover either the château and gardens together or gardens only, with reduced rates for children and students; current prices are listed on the official site. The estate is still privately owned by the Carvallo family, four generations on from Joachim and Ann Coleman, and ticket revenue funds the replanting of the potager twice each year and the upkeep of the six hectares of formal gardens. Gravel paths run through every section, and a small kiosk near the orangery serves lunch. Photography for personal use is allowed throughout; tripods need permission from the front office.