I spent the day getting an up close look at four private chateaux in the Grenoble area. We didn’t get to go inside all of them. And inside or out, the owners each were reluctant to allow a group to go traipsing through their grounds (or home). In the interest of respecting the privacy concerns each has, I will not go into excruciating detail about each chateau, its location, its owner, etc. Not that I can remember all those details already as it is. So, you’ll just have to be content (as always) with my vague (yet entertaining) recollections.
The one overall impression I’m left with is that owning a chateau must be a real pain. Because most seemed to be most horribly in need of repair. Especially those we got to see the inside of. These places are hundreds of years old. And I’d have to assume pretty expensive to maintain. Just heating one to a reasonable level in winter seems like a bank-busting task. So the peeling paint, the exposed bulbs for lights, the faded wallpaper all must be the trade off… you live in a castle but you can’t afford to do anything to it. You can have it declared a landmark, but that apparently comes with a lot of strings attached (like having to open your home to the public so many times a year, using special contractors and that sort of thing)
The first one we went into was originally built as a fort… and the tower was used to watch for soldiers. It’s on a hill with a perfect view to check for anyone coming from the Savoy region or leaving Grenoble. We got to see the old kitchen. It did not look like a place I’d really want to cook. It looked sort of like where Cinderella makes the tea for her evil step mother and sisters while they ring the bell and holler her name. The odd thing was… there was some sausage hanging to dry. Honestly, I wouldn’t eat a thing to come out of that musty old kitchen. But someone must. We also saw the room that had originally been the chapel. I didn’t realize until today that chateaux all have (or had) chapels. This one had a secret passageway into a tunnel that leads off the grounds. It was used to hide a family one time during World War Two when some German soldiers came knocking at the door.
Our next stop was a chateau in much less need of fresh paint. (I guess you cannot just slap on fresh paint… it’s like just slapping paint on an antique chair… it ruins any value) From the outside… which is all we got to see… this one looked like the one I’d want to live in. There were houses on the grounds where the grounds keepers used to live. Even those looked like excellent places to call home. There was a big fountain… a couple of towers… huge windows. This one is open in August and like one day in September… but the guide said you don’t get to see much so unless you are a history buff with questions for the family it probably isn’t worth it.
After lunch, we saw the outside of another well kept castle. Again, the out buildings looked like charming choices for living spaces… covered in vines. This castle wasn’t built as a fort or lookout, although there are towers.
The final stop was to the inside of a chateau we’d seen while we were house hunting. No, we didn’t see it as a potential home. We drove by it and our relocation expert pointed it out. Bill took a couple pictures of it from the road below and we slipped it in while showing pictures of our trip and tried to say it was our new house. But I’m a horrible liar. Let me just say this: if we HAD seen the inside of it (and it had been in our budget… which would have made it different than any of the houses we did see) I still would have turned it down. The floors are stone and uneven. It was cool inside like the whole place was a cave. After going down into the cave, everyone had white dust all over themselves from the wall you had to scrape by because the door doesn’t open all the way. The stairs leading to the second level are hundreds of years old and made of cement (I think) and all uneven and scary. We did see the chapel with walls done in frescoes by some Italian painter. The dining room reeked of cigarette smoke. And the antenna on the 14 (probably black and white) television looked about as old as the staircase. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
I guess the bottom line is, I’m glad I don’t live in a chateau after all.