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Villandry is an elegant castle from the Renaissance period. Originally a feudal stronghold stood on the spot where Phillip Augustus king of France and Henry II Plantagenet king of England met on July 4, 1189. There contrast were arbitrated in the medieval tower that still stands in the southwest corner of the castle. Phillip Augustus won out and his victory was then sanctioned by the peace of Azay.
A few centuries later the manor became the property of Jean le Breton, president of the Blois Exchequer. He was a well known architect that had worked on Fontainebleau and Chambord.
The two large L-shaped wings contain typically Renaissance elements borrowed from palace built at the beginning of the 16th. century: large windows framed by pilasters with capitals in classic style, horizontal moldings, large dormer windows decorated by superstructures with pediments and volutes. This wonderful castles is also famous for the magical beauty of its gardens laid out by the famous landscape gardener Doctor Carvallo, it was also develop with the Italian Renaissance style. At that time, Italian gardens were characterized by a geometric layout and a typically architectonic taste. In France the new fashion led to the creation of the "French Gardens" where the garden became larger. Convenient avenues ran along the lower beds where low borders set off the decorative plants.
The gardens of Villandry comprise three tiers of terracing. The lowest level, in the Louis XIV style, takes the form of a rectangle of slightly irregular shape surrounding on three sides the two higher tiers of gardens. It is devoted to vegetable garden and has 9 square sections divided into beds of various colored plants, surrounded by box hedges and hardy plants. Above the vegetable garden, the ornamental garden is set on the middle terrace, where the castle stands, and in front of which is a bed planted with a pergola walk shaded by vines. At the opposite side of the garden to the castle, there is a maze of clipped trees. On the highest level, whose edges are bounded by arbors, lies the water garden. The property as a whole gives the impression of a grandiose conception, full of harmony and majesty.
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