Chateau de Cheverny is one of the jewels of France’s Loire Valley. This stunning estate dates back to the early 16th Century and has been open to the public for over 100 years.
While smaller than some of the big names in the Loire, Cheverny Castle is still a must-visit for many thanks to its storied history as a family home and the pack of hunting dogs who still live on the grounds.
We were lucky enough to visit Chateau Cheverny in October 2025, spending half a day exploring the castle and grounds, dining at the chateau restaurant and, of course, meeting the famous dogs!
Below I’ll break down everything you need to know to visit Chateau de Cheverny – from the logistics such as how to get there and when it’s open to a full review of what to see and where to spend your time.
Finally, I’ll end with my tips for visiting and whether or not I think Chateau de Cheverny deserves a place on your Loire Valley itinerary!
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Logistical info for visiting Chateau de Cheverny
The info below is current as of Nov 2025. For the most up to date hours and prices, please consult the chateau website here.
Opening days & hours
The castle is open every day of the year (even Christmas!). In the off-season it’s open from 10AM to 5PM and in the high-season it’s open from 9:15AM to 6/6:30PM.
Prices
Admission to the castle and gardens is €15 for adults, €11 for reduced fare, and free for children under 7 years old and disabled persons.
There are additional fees to visit the Tintin exhibit and to take the boat and electric car rides.
The Grand Salon
Dog-friendly?
No. Because the chateau has dogs of its own, you are not permitted to bring your own dog onto the grounds.
Many other castles in the Loire Valley do allow dogs on leashes or in carriers, but that’s not the case at Cheverny.
Baby-friendly?
Of course, you can always visit a Loire Valley castle with your baby, but many have rules around baby gear.
At Cheverny, strollers are not permitted inside the castle (but can be used on the grounds) and there are no rules about the type of carriers you can use (some castles forbid metal hiking carriers).
There are change tables in the bathrooms by P1 Parking and at the Orangerie Cafe.
How do you get to Chateau de Cheverny?
The easiest way to get to Cheverny Castle would be to drive. We rented a car and drove from Orleans, which was really simple (and picturesque as we went through small towns instead of taking the toll road).
Here are the drive times/distances to Chateau de Cheverny from nearby cities:
- From Paris: 2.5-3 hours (195km)
- From Orleans: 70 mins (75km)
- From Tours: 1 hour (75km)
- From Amboise: 45 mins (40km)
- From Blois: 20 mins (15km)
If you are driving, you’ll be happy to hear that parking at the chateau is free!
If you don’t want to drive, you can take public transport to Cheverny Castle. You’ll take a train to Blois-Chambord and then a 35 minute bus to the chateau. This bus seems to run fairly often, but double check the schedule before you make your plans.
The Bridal Chamber 
Kitchen Garden
Another option is to visit Chateau Cheverny on a day tour. Many of the Loire Valley chateaux tours from Paris include a stop at Cheverny, along with a couple of other castles. You can also take a tour from Tours (ha!) or Blois.
While it’s a long day, a Loire Valley day trip is a great way to visit a few chateaux all at once without having to worry about any of the logistics.
Check out these top-rated Loire Valley castle day trips:
How much time do you need to explore?
We spent about 2.5 hours at Chateau Cheverny which included seeing the dogs, walking through the gardens, touring the castle and having lunch at the Orangerie Cafe.
This was a pretty relaxed pace – we stopped often to take photos, sat down for lunch, and I also had to nurse Baby C. You could definitely visit Cheverny faster than we did.
Apprentices’ Garden 
The Arms Room
That being said, we didn’t read every plaque or leaflet front to back and we didn’t go on a guided tour. We didn’t visit the Tintin exhibit (The Secrets of Marlinspike Hall) nor did we do the electric car and boat ride around the grounds.
All of those things would add more time to your visit. You could definitely make a full day out of visiting Cheverny Castle, especially if you take your time with lunch and head out on the car and boat rides.
Chateau Cheverny provides the following table so you know how long a typical visit might take:
A short history of Chateau de Cheverny
The land that Chateau de Cheverny sits on was purchased by Jean Hurault in 1392. The Huraults were a noble family who worked in service of the Dukes of Orleans and later Kings of France.
The current chateau was built from 1624-1640 by Earl Henri Hurault and Marguerite Gaillard dela Moriniere. You’ll see their “H” and “M” initials throughout the castle.
The castle has remained in the Hurault family for six centuries (besides two times when they lost it). It returned to the family for good in 1825 when Anne-Victor-Denis, Marquis de Vibraye and Hurault descendant, took ownership.
The Grand Salon
One of the times the Huraults lost Chateau de Cheverny was to Diane de Poitiers in the 16th Century. Diane de Poitiers used Cheverny as a base to oversee construction of her new home, Chateau de Chenonceau.
When she was ousted from Chenonceau Castle by Catherine de Medici, she returned to Cheverny as her temporary homebase while she renovated her next home, Chaumont-sur-Loire Castle.
I loved learning this fact as we also visited Chateau de Chenonceau. It’s fun to see how all of these chateaux are connected and to trace the history between them.
Another castle connection? Architect Jacques Bougier, who designed parts of Cheverny Castle, was also the architect behind Chateau de Blois and Chateau de Chambord, two other castles we visited on our Loire Valley trip.
The back table has photos of the current family and chateau owners
Chateau de Cheverny was one of the first stately homes to open to the public in 1922.
It’s open every day of the year and has only closed three times since it’s opening (when the Queen Mother visited in 1963, for the funeral of the Marquis de Vibraye in 1976, and when the current owners got married in 1994).
Cheverny is one of the only chateaux that is still privately owned and still lived in by the original family. The current Hurault family descendants live in the right wing of the castle!
While their apartments are not open to the public (you wouldn’t want tourists traipsing through your private home!), they do have their current family photos on display in the public part of the castle.
Exploring the chateau
Now that we’ve brushed up on our chateau history, let’s move onto the castle itself!
Exterior of the castle
My mom posing in a frame they set up in front of the chateau
The first thing you’ll see as you enter the grounds of Chateau de Cheverny is the ginormous home itself. While called a “chateau” which translates to “castle,” Cheverny is more like a very fancy mansion than a Disney-style castle.
But it’s still gorgeous! The south facade (the one you’ll see upon entering) is designed in the Renaissance style which was the new fashion at the time. They say it was inspired by Luxembourg Palace in Paris.
Funny enough, the back of the castle (the north facade) is actually done in a completely different design, Louis III style. This makes it look like two different castles!
This is the back of the castle – can you see the difference?
The styles are different enough that when my mom was going through her photos, she had to double check with me that she was still looking at the same castle!
As I mentioned above, strollers are not allowed inside the chateau. So as we went to enter, we were instructed to bring our stroller up the stairs and into the building. It was then placed inside a small glass-walled room on the first floor of the castle.
Ground floor: Dining room, salon, galleries & library
The Dining Room
Upon entering the castle, you’ll head right to the impressive Dining Room. Here you can see 19th Century solid oak furniture and wooden panels that tell the story of Don Quixote.
We found the room to be very impressive and ornately decorated. It was a great first impression of Cheverny!
Later in the tour, you’ll return to the ground floor, exploring the rooms on the west side. These include a Grand Salon with a restored 19th Century ceiling and family portraits, plus the Gallery and the Portrait Room with (you guessed it) even more paintings and portraits.
The Grand Salon 
The Portrait Room
There’s also the Library, which holds over 2000 books, and the Tapestry Room, adorned with 17th Century Flemish tapestries and a very cool regulator clock that tracks not only the time but the phases of the moon.
Like the dining room, all of these rooms were very intricately decorated and fun to walk through. The Grand Salon was my favourite with its colourful chairs, ceiling and fireplace.
1st floor: Private apartments, arms room and bedchamber
The Family Dining Room
From the dining room, you’ll head upstairs to the first floor (or what we’d call the second floor in North America) and into the private apartments.
The apartments are comprised of the birth chamber, a red boudoir sitting room for ladies, the nursery, the bridal chamber, the family dining room and the petit salon.
The nursery
I particularly liked seeing the nursery which had some of the first rocking horses in France (dating back to Napoleon III) and two giant dogs made out of Lego. Mixing the old and the new!
Across the hall is the Arms Room, which is the largest and probably the most impressive room inside Chateau Cheverny.
It includes original decor by Jean Monier, weapons and armour from the 15th to 17th Centuries, and an animatronic dog that wagged its tail (pictured above)!
The King’s Bedchamber
From the Arms Room, you’ll move into the King’s Bedchamber, which is very elegantly decorated. We learned that back in the day people would sleep sitting up as they believed lying down was for the dead.
They were also scared that if they laid down, they would swallow their tongues!
Top floor: Chapel & staircase
The Chapel 
Chateau de Cheverny made out of Lego!
At the top of the stairs is a giant display case that holds a Lego version of the entire castle complex and the chapel, decorated in the style of Louis XIII.
Louis XIII was also the inspiration for the staircase – it being a straight staircase with landings instead of the traditional spiral staircase. You can also see Italian influence in the decor carved along the stairs.
On the first landing you’ll find a huge pair of prehistoric antlers. We learned that these antlers are over 6000 years old and hung at the actual height of the animal (so this beast was HUGE!).
Exploring the castle grounds
As I quickly learned during our Loire Valley trip, there’s always more to a chateau than the castle building itself. Don’t miss exploring the rest of Chateau de Cheverny!
Dog kennels
One of the things Chateau de Cheverny is known best for is the huge pack of dogs that call the castle home. This goes back to the chateau’s history as a place for hunting.
There are currently 120 tricolour anglo-french hounds living at Cheverny, with about 20 puppies born every year. You can even go on their website to help name the new puppies!
Each dog has a “V” shorn into its flank for Vibraye, as the castle owner is the Marquis de Vibraye. The dogs live in the kennels, which were originally created in 1850 but renovated in 2012, and have over 2000m2 (about half an acre) of meadow to roam and play.
The kennels are also washed and disinfected daily – though it’s hard to mask the smell of that many dogs!
It was so fun to walk up to the kennels and see all of the dogs. They were much bigger than I thought they would be! A bunch of the dogs were right up at the fence, all lounging together, with more in the back meadow shouting happily.
Supposedly you can watch the dogs being fed but I’m not sure this is still happening. It used to occur at 11:30am each day from April to September, but I couldn’t find this posted anywhere on their website. Another blog I came across said they had stopped doing feeding time in front of visitors.
We visited in October, so wouldn’t have been able to see the feeding anyway. But even without seeing their feeding time, it was still enjoyable to just watch the dogs hanging out with each other.
You’ll also want to stop by the giant white dog statue that’s to the right of the kennels. It’s a must-take photo since you’re at the dog castle!
Gardens
Kitchen Garden
Like many Loire Valley chateaux, there are plenty of gardens on the grounds of Chateau Cheverny. None of them are huge, but they are worth seeing.
We started in the Kitchen Garden, which is right next to the dog kennels. It was small but filled with very colourful flowers. Vegetables grown here are used in the Orangerie restaurant that’s on-site.
As you exit through the back of the castle, you’ll walk through the Apprentices’ Garden. This garden was created in 2006 and combines French and English styles. I found it very peaceful, with some benches to enjoy the scenery.
There’s also the Garden of Love, which features sculptures by Gudmar Olovson; the Tulip Garden, where you’ll find over 500,000 tulips in bloom in the spring; the Sweet Garden, which holds almost 400 fruit trees; and the Maze, constructed out of laurel hedges.
Cafe de l’Orangerie
Cafe de l’Orangerie is the restaurant at Cheverny Castle. Back in the 18th Century, it was used to shelter citrus trees in the winter. Rumour has it that the Mona Lisa was also stashed here during WWII to protect her!
Today the Orangerie is a beautiful building with large windows and fun decor inside featuring giant floral arrangements and giant paintings of dessert that hang from the ceilings. It felt really joyful walking in – the perfect mix of fancy and whimsical!
Despite looking quite elegant, the cafe is actually very relaxed. There’s a limited menu of affordable items (all of the mains were between €10-18), plus a glass case with desserts.
Our group of four ordered the croque monsieur (ham and cheese sandwich), salmon and broccoli quiche, and chicken risotto. I suspect everything was premade (as it came out very quickly) but it was all still delicious.
But what really impressed me was the ice cream. We each got a scoop and the flavours were so rich and vibrant. The fruit flavours tasted like real fruit and the chocolate-y flavours were decadent.
They even had unique options, like popcorn-flavoured ice cream and a few flower flavoured ones. The poppy was surprisingly tasty!
So don’t sleep on the ice cream at Cheverny. It was really good!
If you don’t want to eat at the Orangerie, there’s also a kiosk nearby that sells sandwiches, ice cream and cold drinks, and a picnic area by the canal where you can dine al-fresco.
One final note: Beware of the cafe’s limited opening hours. Online it says that the Orangerie Cafe is open from March 23, but doesn’t say when it closes for the season.
Lunch is only served from 12:00-2:00/2:30PM (the French website says until 2:30PM but the English says until 2:00PM). Outside of those hours, you may only be able to get desserts from the display case (which, thankfully, would include the incredible ice cream).
Tintin exhibit: The Secrets of Marlinspike Hall
As you walk from the parking lot up to the entrance of Chateau de Cheverny, you may notice a familiar cartoon character keeps popping up. You’ll see him on walls, pamphlets and other places throughout the castle grounds.
Tintin, what are you doing here? Well, it turns out the famous Belgian comic book character has a connection to Cheverny Castle.
The cartoonist behind Tintin, Hergé, was influenced by the look of Chateau de Cheverny. He used it as the inspiration for Marlingspike Hall, a famous castle in the comics.
In honour of this connection, The Secrets of Marlinspike Hall exhibition was opened on Cheverny’s grounds in 2001. It’s a huge space of 700m2 (7,500 sqft) that allows visitors to enter the world of Tintin.
We skipped the Tintin exhibit during our visit to Cheverny, even though the photos look cool. We wouldn’t have had time to visit it on our half-day trip to the castle and none of us are big enough Tintin fans to warrant the additional ticket price.
Electric boat and car ride
If you’re visiting Chateau de Cheverny from April to November, you can explore the grounds even further by going on an electric boat and car ride.
During this 30 minute guided experience you’ll drive through the forests of Cheverny, filled with trees that were planted in the early 1800s by Paul de Vibraye.
Next, you’ll board an electric boat for a ride down the tree-lined canals. Look out for changing leaf colours, if you visit in autumn, and resident beavers!
Unfortunately, we didn’t leave ourselves enough time to do this as we were headed to another castle after Cheverny. We also didn’t want to pay to add this experience to our ticket.
And if all of that wasn’t enough, the estate also has a golf course and a wine house. Throughout the year, you’ll find special events held at Cheverny celebrating the different seasons and holidays.
My top 5 tips for visiting Chateau Cheverny
1) If you’re seeing a bunch of castles in the Loire Valley, start with Chateau de Cheverny.
This was our first Loire Valley castle and I’m really glad we saw it first. While beautiful, Cheverny is more of a stately home than a traditional castle, so may feel underwhelming if you start with one of the big chateaux first.
2) Take advantage of Chateau Cheverny’s extended opening hours.
Chateau de Cheverny is one of very few castles that is open every day of the year. We encountered castles that closed in the off-season, were only open on weekends or were only open in the afternoons.
3) Prioritize this castle if you have kids.
Chateau Cheverny is a very kid-friendly castle with its dogs, maze, lego creations throughout the castle, Tintin exhibit, giant dog statue, mystery game and more.
Of course, kids will likely also be into the boat ride on the canals and the ice cream at the Orangerie.
4) Combine Chateau Cheverny with other castles nearby.
Because you can explore Cheverny in just an hour or two, it’s easy to combine with other castles nearby. This is perfect if you’re trying to see a lot of castles with not a lot of time.
You’ve got the castles of Chambord, Chenonceau, Blois, Beaugency, Meung-sur-Loire, Chaumont-sur-Loire and Amboise all within an hour’s drive of Cheverny!
5) Don’t miss out on the ice cream!
Seriously, the ice cream we had at the Orangerie Cafe at Cheverny Castle was so delicious. Don’t skip it!
Wrapping up: Is Chateau de Cheverny worth visiting?
Yes, I do think Chateau de Cheverny is worth visiting. I had a really great time visiting the chateau and believe it makes the perfect first castle to visit on a Loire Valley road trip.
Cheverny is likely the only castle that has been in the same family for six centuries, with that same family still owning and living at the castle today.
It’s also one of the only castles with a huge pack of hunting dogs on the property that you can visit. Plus Cheverny has the Tintin connection, which is cool if you’re a fan of the comics.
While not the largest castle (in fact, it’s more of a stately home than castle), the interiors at Chateau Cheverny are beautifully decorated. We visited other castles that were pretty from the outside but a bit of a letdown once you got in – not the case at Cheverny!
And, to be honest, the fact that Cheverny Castle is smaller made it a lot easier to visit. It felt very manageable to see everything and we enjoyed a leisurely 2.5 hour visit, rather than rushing through every room and garden.
Chateau Cheverny also wasn’t as busy as some of the more popular chateaux, like Chambord and Chenonceau. We had many parts of the castle completely to ourselves!
And, as I raved about above, the ice cream at Cheverny is amazing. You could visit just for the ice cream!
All that being said, Cheverny was not my favourite castle that we visited in the Loire Valley. If you only plan to see one or two castles, I wouldn’t say Cheverny is a must-visit (especially if it’s out of your way).
But if you’re planning a slightly longer Loire Valley itinerary with 3+ castles, then I’d definitely include Chateau de Cheverny on that list. It’s a unique place and I’m sure you’ll have a really good time visiting, just like we did!
Check out the rest of my Loire Valley, France posts to plan your next trip:
Or if you’re headed elsewhere in France, check out my itinerary for 2 days in Paris, 5 day itinerary for the French Riviera, and how to spend 5 days in Provence.
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