The Château de Chaumont sits high on a wooded bluff above the Loire, its round towers and pointed roofs lifting the place out of fairytale cliché and into something more imposing. The current building dates mostly from the late 15th century, when the Amboise family rebuilt the medieval fortress in the new Renaissance manner, though defensive features — the drawbridge, the curtain walls — were kept.
The interiors reflect a 19th-century refit by the princes of Broglie, who turned a defensible house into a refined country residence. There are tapestries, painted ceilings, a remarkable stable block that was state-of-the-art in its day, and rooms once visited by Catherine de Médicis and her Italian astrologer Cosimo Ruggieri. The bluff itself gives you long views down the Loire — one of the best in the valley.