Visiting the renovated Fortifications (castle) at Chinon.

You can be sure of one thing when you choose to visit any historic buildings in mid November ......... you will encounter few tourists. Today we travelled to Chinon to visit the recently renovated chateau and castle. Other than four visitors from the USA we had the entire castle to ourselves. The entire castle has recently undergone a massive 14.5 million euro renovation and this plus all the latest visual and interactive displays provides the visitor with a wonderful overview of its history.

Château de Chinon is a castle located on the bank of the Vienne river in Chinon, France. It was founded by Theobald I, Count of Blois. In the 11th century the castle became the property of the counts of Anjou. In 1156 Henry II of England, a member of the House of Anjou, took the castle from his brother Geoffrey after he had rebelled for a second time. Henry favoured the Château de Chinon as a residence: most of the standing structure can be attributed to his reign and he died there in 1189.
Early in the 13th century, King Philip II of France harassed the English lands in France and in 1205 he captured Chinon after a siege that lasted several months, after which the castle remained under French control. When King Philip IV accused the Knights Templar of heresy during the first decade of the 14th century, several leading members of the order were imprisoned there.
Used by Charles VII in the 15th century, the Château de Chinon became a prison in the second half of the 16th century.

Full details @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chinon

Chinon is one of the many places you can visit from Les Deux Platanes.