le Château des Dames

I visited Chenonceau château on the river Cher today.  The château, built in the 1430s, was used by several mistresses and wives of kings of France, although not at the same time, for obvious reasons.  Catherine de Médici was a famous resident, and the château was the site of the first fireworks display in France, upon the accension of Catherine's son François II to the throne.

I thought it was interesting that that during World War I the gallery was used as a hospital ward, and during the Second War it was a means of escaping from the Nazi occupied zone on one side of the river to the "free" Vichy zone on the opposite bank.

I'm headed to Burgundy tomorrow, to a city named Beaune.