Château de Chambord: tickets, opening hours and what to see

Two ramps twist one above the other around a hollow core: two people on different flights can see each other through the openings but never meet. After climbing it, you reach the wings through the galleries that connect them to the keep, the royal wing to the east and the chapel wing to the west.

The estate counts over 60 rooms open to the public.

Wikipedia notes that the original design is attributed, with several doubts, to Domenico da Cortona.

Moldings mark each level and flattened pilasters set the vertical rhythm, in an Italian-style grid. The estate’s architecture page notes that this concern for form was already evident in other Loire residences such as Chenonceau and Blois, but that Chambord’s geometry was imposed neither by uneven ground nor by the remains of older buildings.

According to Wikipedia, François I spent barely seven weeks at Chambord in total, and furniture was brought in for each hunting trip. The estate adds that 18th-century occupants fitted the apartments with woodwork, parquet floors and false ceilings for warmth, and that the furniture was sold during the Revolution.

Up there the roofline turns into a field of chimneys and stair turrets. Wikipedia counts 11 kinds of towers and three types of chimneys, without symmetry, and quotes Henry James, for whom they looked “more like the spires of a city than the salient points of a single building.”

The French formal gardens were replanted to their 18th-century design in 2017. The original garden had been planted over 6.5 hectares from a drawing of 1734. The gardens close 30 minutes before the château.

• HistoPad: a digital visitor companion sold as an add-on to the admission ticket and included in the Passport. It leads you through 16 stations from the ground floor to the second floor, with nine 3D reconstructions, virtual access to several areas closed to the public and more than 90 minutes of audio content. It comes in twelve languages, with a version for visitors with reduced mobility and a mode for the visually impaired.
• English guided tour: a seasonal tour, daily in July and August, lasting one hour. The guide covers the cruciform chamber, the double helix staircase and the terraces, and the tour is charged in addition to the entrance fee.
• Visitor leaflet: available in French and English in the reception area. The practical page recommends taking one at the château entrance to see where you are going.
• Film: a 20-minute film on the architecture and history of Chambord plays continuously in a ground-floor room, with subtitles.

• Length: The show runs for 45 minutes.
• Language: The show is in French, with summary sheets in English, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and Chinese.
• Seating: The bleachers are covered and shaded, and the estate asks spectators to arrive 30 minutes before the show.
• Dates: Performances run in set periods, listed on the show page.

Dogs are not allowed at the show or in the stables, except for visitors with disabilities.

• By car: They are open around the clock with no advance reservation, and the estate advises paying at the automatic terminals as soon as you arrive.
• By train and bus: By rail, Chambord is 80 minutes from Paris. A Rémi shuttle on line 2 links Blois station to the château.

Anything larger than 55 x 35 x 20 cm also goes in a locker after a security check.

Dogs on a leash are welcome in the park but not in the castle enclosure, the French gardens or the stables, except for people with disabilities.

Wheelchairs and seat sticks are lent at the ticket office or the château reception, depending on availability, and the HistoPad gives access to commentaries on the upper floors.

Chambord is open every day of the year except 1 January and 25 December, but in low season the château also closes on some Mondays, listed on the opening hours page. Last access is half an hour before the château closes.