Chateau de Chenonceau

The Chateau de Chenonceau (French: [a.to d .n.so]) is a manor house near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire departement of the Loire Valley in France. It was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher, sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century. The current manor was designed by the French Renaissance architect Philibert Delorme.

Eventually, the chateau was seized from Bohier's son by King Francis I of France for unpaid debts to the Crown; after Francis' death in 1547, Henry II offered the chateau as a gift to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who became fervently attached to the chaeau along the river. She would have the arched bridge constructed, joining the chateau to its opposite bank. She then oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens along with a variety of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces, the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles.