Our Blog - Loire Valley Trip - Chinon, France

Chinon is mostly known as a wine region but this is not the "Chenin blanc" that most people may think comes from here based on the similarity of names. This is a Cabernet Franc red-wine area. In addition to tasting (and buying) some red wine, we also spent an hour or so in the little village of Chinon. While there isn't that much history here, Joan of Arc stopped here in 1429 to meet with King Charles VII, who had set up his small court in Chinon. It was here that she asked the king to entrust her with the army that was to meet up with the English at Orléans.

There is a royal fortress perched on a rocky outcrop above the town. While we didn't visit the fortress, we could see it from a couple different places in town. Within the old town, there are quite a few interesting houses. There is also a vast network of caves dug into the hillside under the royal fortress. These were initially used to extract the tufa stone that was used to build the houses and royal fortress. In later years, these caves were reused as wine cellars. In general, I have a set of pictures of the old medieval part of town with the interesting houses.

This house was used in 1428 when the Estates Generals met to ask the Dauphin to make peace with Philip III of Burgundy.

This is called the House of the Governor, and successive governors of the town were housed here until the mid 17th century. The most remarkable feature here is the double staircase with a wrought iron balustrade.

Here is a view of part of the royal fortress up on the cliff above the white stone houses.