Sunrise from our hotel room window overlooking the Loire River, another beautiful day to explore the Loire Valley!
Breakfast was very basic at the hotel – Château Le Prieuré – La Maison Younan. The best item was croissants; I haven’t had a bad croissant in France!
The breakfast room:
After the quick breakfast, we drove to the first château of the day – Château de l’Islette. I picked this chateau for the kids because it provided costumes for the kids to wear! How awesome is that to dress up like a princess to explore the chateau? After we purchased the entrance tickets, we walked straight to the costume room located at the opposite side of the ticket office from the gate. The small room was filled with kids’ medieval dresses and outfits. My daughter was super excited to pick and try them on!
She first chose this light pink dress:
Boys’ outfits weren’t as many to choose from so we picked one that fit my son. The smile from our princess’ face was priceless 🙂
My son’s armor looked so cute but that only stayed on for 10 minutes LOL.
Luckily, we managed to get a family photo first before he pulled the cape and crown off!
Château de l’Islette was a lot quieter as it was further away from the main towns and not as famous as the other chateaus. We walked to the garden to take more photos, the chateau as the backdrop was so beautiful!
She gets to be a princess for the day 😀
The house covered with vines is the little coffee and gift shop, not much to buy in there though.
My daughter asked to change to another dress, okay princess! this time, she picked a hot pink dress and my son a black armor top.
We walked down to the riverbank to take photos across the bridge:
Reflection of the chateau:
The sun was lighting up the chateau and gave a warm glow.
After the photos, it was time to explore the chateau’s interior. Unlike the other chateaus we had visited in the past few days, Château de l’Islette is a living chateau! The owners are still living there and they are away for the summer so they opened up the chateau for public touring. Their living room:
The bathroom looked modern:
One of the kids’ bedroom:
Another kid’s bedroom:
The master bedroom:
Back to the living room to take a closer look at the magnificent chimney:
The dining room:
And the kitchen filled with family photos on that wall!
Window to see the greenery outside:
The other side of the living room:
Yep, there’s also a chapel inside the chateau:
One more photo at its garden before we left:
After Château de l’Islette, we had lunch at Royal Chinon – another Chinese buffet restaurant. We passed it on our drive to the hotel yesterday so we decided to check it out, better than La Muraille de Chine where we had dinner last night. It wasn’t as big or as many choices as Wokasie but it did the job for lunch. It was only $64.99 for 3 adults and 2 kids!!!
After lunch, we headed to Château d’Ussé, also known as the Sleeping Beauty’s castle. The chateau was right next to the road, not in the middle of the woods. The only way to get a photo of the whole chateau is from the parking lot:
At the ticket office, the kids were given a booklet to answer questions about the chateau to solve a word puzzle and at the end, they’ll get a prize. Some of the questions are quite hard and not obvious to find the answer in the castle…..like the age of that tree -.- We walked a little bit uphill to reach the chateau and right next to the chateau is the chapel; we’ll visit that later.
Without a wide angle lens, this was as much as we could get the chateau in the picture:
Underneath the chateau is its garden, smaller than other chateau’s.
The front courtyard:
The main entrance:
The spiral wooden staircase right after the entrance:
Beautiful ceiling:
The chateau’s interior is quite furnished and looked more like a palace style than a medieval castle:
One of the questions asked how many hidden slots are inside this cabinet…urg how to even count it without touching it?
The living room with long draped curtains:
One unique thing about this chateau is that it has underground tunnels. We didn’t venture far and went back up the stairs:
A silver throne seat?
A people carriage:
The second floor has more grand rooms like the dining room:
This is my favorite bedroom, fit for a princess!
The bathroom:
A smaller bedroom:
From the 2nd floor window, you can see the town further down and its parking lot across the road:
We thought we were done visiting the rooms until we saw the sign pointing to the tower that said “Sleeping Beauty”! We climbed the spiraling stairs up to the tower where it has displays of the fairytale story – Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault. The answer to the word puzzle is Charles Perrault 😉
The last display was the prince came to kiss the princess to break the curse 🙂 My daughter kept saying her dresses are so pretty!
After visiting the chateau, we walked to the chapel:
Then, the stable:
The kids got a certificate for solving the puzzle….a little souvenir gift would be better 😉
After Château d’Ussé, we headed back to the hotel and took some photos, we were too busy with checking-in and settled down yesterday. One of the entrances:
The reception was on this side where the hotel’s restaurant was located with good views of the Loire Valley underneath:
The seating area right outside the restaurant:
Next to the lobby:
The staircase up to our room, my daughter said the red carpet means fancy LOL!
We were too tired to go out for dinner and really nothing good at town that is worth a trip so we decided to order delivery from Uber Eats. We ordered burgers and wraps from a French fast food chain, not bad at all and at the comfort of our room!
We spent 4 nights in Loire Valley and visited 7 chateaus; 2 each day! It was an incredible road trip and the kids loved it. Each chateau has its own uniqueness in terms of architectural and furnishing style and location. We enjoyed all and recommended them. It was hard to pick a favorite! If I could change one thing on this trip, I would stay at Tours or Amboise for the last 2 nights instead of Saumur for more restaurant options and closer to get back to Paris CDG airport.
