Indre-et-Loire · Over the river Cher
Château de Chenonceau: tickets, hours and how to get there
The château built across the river Cher, known as the Ladies’ Château. Official prices, 2026 hours and the train from Tours.
Today
Opening hours for every month are on the Opening hours page.
Checked against the official website on October 22, 2026 · Official source
In short
- On the official site an adult ticket costs 19 € with a paper guide and 24 € with an audio guide. Over-65s pay 16 € and 21 €, children aged 7 to 18 pay 15 € and 20 €, and children under 7 enter free. Prices read on the official site on 22 October 2026.
- Chenonceau is open every day of the year, Christmas and New Year included. The 2026 hours run from 9:30–16:30 on short winter days to 9:00–19:00 in July and August. The official site does not publish a last-entry time.
- Allow 2 to 3 hours for the château, the gardens and the maze (our estimate).
- By train: TGV from Paris Montparnasse to Tours Saint-Pierre-des-Corps in about 1 hour, then a TER to Chenonceaux in 25 minutes. The station is 400 m from the ticket office. Tiqets lists parking as included.
The gallery over the Cher
The present château was built between 1513 and 1517 by Thomas Bohier and above all by his wife Catherine Briçonnet, on the foundations of a mill. Diane de Poitiers, to whom Henry II gave the château, built the bridge. Catherine de’ Medici added the two-storey gallery over the river, in the 16th century. We could not confirm the exact years of the gallery in the official sources we read.
In the Second World War the Grand Gallery was the only passage to the free zone, with the Cher as the demarcation line, says the official history. Henry James, writing in 1884, described the château as a house built on a bridge.
The Ladies’ Château
The official site calls Chenonceau the Château des Dames, after the women who built it and saved it: Catherine Briçonnet, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de’ Medici, Louise de Lorraine, Louise Dupin and Madame Pelouze.
Catherine de’ Medici ruled the kingdom from the green study. Louise Dupin hosted an Enlightenment salon in the 18th century, with Jean-Jacques Rousseau as her secretary. James thought that period the happiest in the history of Chenonceau.
Gardens and maze
There are two formal gardens: Diane de Poitiers’ garden, of 12,000 m², whose present design is by Achille Duchêne, and Catherine de’ Medici’s, of 5,500 m². The Green Garden, an English-style garden, dates from 1825.
The Italian maze has 2,000 yew trees on more than one hectare, and the flower garden, also over a hectare, has 12 squares and about 100 varieties grown for the château’s bouquets. The park covers 70 hectares.
Collections, wine cellar and the old tower
Inside, the official site lists tapestries, furniture and paintings, including works attributed to Rubens, Primaticcio, Tintoretto, Murillo, Van Dyck and Poussin. A detached medieval tower, the Marques tower, is the only remnant of the earlier castle.
The Cave des Dômes is a historic wine cellar with a 16th-century vault, with tastings from mid-March to mid-November. There is a self-service restaurant in the Dômes building, a crêperie and picnic areas.
