Chateau de Tanlay

On Wed. July 28, we visited the Chateau de Tanlay.  It was about a 45 minute drive from our house.  The chateau was built about 1550 and is a fine monument to French Renaissance architecture at a time when it had broken away from the Italian influence.

When we arrived in Tanlay, we realized there was just one place to eat lunch at as it was already 12:30, we figured we'd better eat before seeing the chateau...or else there would be no lunch for us!  So we ate at this small restaurant.

This was the lunch menu.

For those who don't want to get out their translators the choices were:

Appetizer:

Rabbit terrine

Salmon pate

Special Salad

Entrees:

Beef kidneys

Sirloin Steak

Fish

Dessert:

Cheese or your choice of ice cream, creme caramel, chocolate mousse

To start, I had the rabbit (which I enjoyed, it has a very mild taste and is quite nice):

Everyone else had the salad, which turned out to be a terrific "potato" salad with ham, cheese, egg, red peppers, gerkins, fresh chives in a mayo/Dijon sauce.

For entrees, James had the beef kidneys (I was glad because I wanted to try them, but didn't want to commit to a whole plate of them, good thing too.  Kidneys are an acquired taste.)

The rest of us had the sirloin.  I have to say, we have been fairly disappointed with the beef in France.  For the most part, it's pretty tough and not much flavor (including what I buy from the butcher).  The potatoes and ratatouille were yummy!

For dessert, James had creme caramel, Kerry & the kids had chocolate mousse and I had the fromage!

The fromage was fabulous!  The one in the front was like eating butter.  We've been trying to find it ever since (but neglected to ask the name of it!)  I'm going to show a picture of it to our local cheese lady and see if she's got it.

After a leisurely lunch, we headed over to the chateau.

Cool, huh?

It had an actual moat, filled with water!

We have not found any Mt. Dew in France for James; however the moat water was the same color!

We went on a guided tour of the chateau (in French, but they had English handouts to follow along).  We were only allowed to take pictures in two rooms, which was a shame, because the house had some really cool stuff in it!  We got to see the bedrooms, dining room, waiting rooms, great hall and the tower room.  They had items from the 15th century up to the 1950's (the last time people actually lived here).

In this room, the Great Gallery, we could take pictures.  This room was meant to play a trick on the eyes.  Everything here is painted, however it all looks 3D.  It was really amazing.

All flat painting, no carvings or sculptures.  Amazing!

The kitchen was a cook's dream and a scullery maid's nightmare!  Look at all the copper!!!

As we left the chateau, we saw this:

And this: