Mid-19th century crinolines in the ground floor salon (the old chapel).
The Château d'Ussé is one of those places that a lot of reviewers like to be sniffy about. This seems to be largely because of its connection to the Sleeping Beauty story. It's seen as rather 'Disney', rather cheesey, a tourist trap for those with small girls, but of no real historic or artistic merit if you are a serious château goer.
Early 20th century street wear. The original 18th century
silk damask wall hangings were woven in Tours.
silk damask wall hangings were woven in Tours.
Personally I think this is unfair. It's hardly their fault if Disney modelled Cinderella's castle on the place! There are some stonkingly good pieces of furniture, ceramics and a few paintings in the main public rooms, and the 'new' chapel has some glorious carvings. Added to that there is an excellent costume collection. The costumes are displayed on mannequins in tableaux, populating the rooms. Every year a different set of costumes is brought out, and the tableaux change. They've been doing this for several decades, with each year having a different theme. This year's theme is hats.War may be looming, but so are the hats.
Early 20th century evening wear.
Early 20th century evening wear.
That epitome of frothy femininity, the early 20th century tea dress.
Susan
You may have noticed (or it may not even be happening to you, in which case I wouldn't expect you to notice...) but clicking on the photos now brings up a copycat lightbox type viewer. It isn't our fault, and I cant work out how to stop it happening. I hate it.
14 comments:
Yes it is annoying and it stays in the same window which is even more so.. Hope you can sort it. See if you can find it in the HTML script and just delete it.. Save your original first. C
I love Usée, especially all the fairytale stuff, and the view of it as you come along the riverbank from Bréhémont is quite stunning.
They serve nice ice-creams at the nearby café, too.
What more could a tourist want?
Colin. It's a bug (apparently) Google servers are putting it into the blog as part of the page load procedure - it doesn't appear in my template HTML
WV is butchom. Very Jules and Sandy
I hate it too, Susan. Just noticed it for the first time today.
Actually that was Simon. Susan doesn't know that much about Julian and Sandy. Or HTML
"Stonkingly"?
By the way, the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language says that "to fettle" is dialectal, and "fettling" is British dialectal.
Ssuan/Smion... I use target="blank" in the picture location html in order to 'comand' a load into a new page... the 'Lightbox' effect isn't happening on our blogs; I've just checked. Just a thought.
Tim
as do we. It's an experimental bug. Hopefully when it turns into a real bug there will be a way to turn it off.
Simon It looks like it is from a widget LIGHTBOX The following is from the HTML of the picture viewer(
If you google lightbox there is loads of info C
Sorry Blogger removed the coding ahhhhhhhh C
Ken: Stonking=remarkably good.
I also like the interior of Ussé and all those beautiful costumes and the kids love the purely fairytale part. It's nice for them to have something of greater interest than a lot of the châteaux have to offer.
Fraussie: Kids like the underground bits too. The costume collection is serious and properly curated and presented, but no one ever mentions it.
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