8 French Castles Straight Out of a Fairy Tale

With its many gorgeous castles, France can often feel like a fairy tale. On a simple day trip from Paris or a full castle-hopping itinerary across the countryside, visitors can explore everything from medieval strongholds that have stood the test of time to the elegant Renaissance châteaux dotted across the Loire Valley. Many of these architectural marvels are open to the public and offer guided tours, special events, and historical treasures, along with experiences like winetastings and contemporary art exhibitions. The following eight châteaux are especially worth a visit, inviting travelers inside their walls to experience centuries of history, art, and architecture.

Château de Chenonceau

The Loire Valley is nirvana for castle lovers, thanks to dozens of châteaux lining the river. It’s hard to call one more attractive than the next, but Château de Chenonceau, under two hours by train from Paris, is worthy of all the praise it gets. The castle owes its existence to prominent women who ensured it was restored, including Catherine de’ Medici (married to King Henry II) and Diane de Poitiers (his mistress). Plot twists aside, a visit here takes visitors through the castle’s 11th-century beginnings as a fortress and mill to its transformation into one of the Loire’s most picturesque châteaux.

A highlight is the two-story Grand Galerie, built atop a bridge that spans the Cher River and houses Flemish tapestries, paintings by Rubens and Tintoretto, and 15th- and 16th-century furnishings. The on-site restaurant is open for lunch only, there’s a crêperie in the former royal stables, and visitors can taste wine under 16th-century vaulted ceilings in the old cellar. If the weather is nice, bring a picnic and spread out on the beautifully manicured lawn, which has several tables.

Courtesy of Daniel Schoenen/agefotostock

Château de Chambord

Commissioned by King Francis I, Château de Chambord celebrated its 500th birthday in 2019. Its most famous interior feature is a double-helix spiral staircase that twists up three floors, but the grand castle also boasts 426 rooms (guests can peek into 60 of them), 83 staircases, and 282 fireplaces. When visiting, don’t forget to look up: Francis used the salamander as his emblem and had it included more than 300 times on the ceilings and walls. Afterward, head outside to explore the formal gardens and surrounding greenery, the largest enclosed park in Europe. And although Château de Chambord is a stunning historical site, it’s also firmly entrenched in the 21st century with its Chambord Live concert series featuring artists such as Sting, Imagine Dragons, and the Black Eyed Peas.

Courtesy of agefotostock

Château de Fontainebleau

With more than 1,500 rooms and 320 acres of parkland and gardens, Château de Fontainebleau is one of the largest castles in France and the only royal residence to have been continuously occupied for seven centuries; its 36 monarch residents spanned from Louis VII in the 12th century to Emperor Napoleon III in the late 1800s. Today, it’s a UNESCO site and national museum, an easy hour’s train ride from Paris. Take a tour to see the study where Napoleon I once worked and the sublime Francis I Gallery, a showpiece of Renaissance art and architecture that predates the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre and the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. You can also check out the notable Imperial Theater, three chapels, and many opulent accoutrements. With offerings like canoeing on the pond and a toy train that runs around the gardens, this is one of the better châteaux to visit with kids.

Courtesy of Eduards Osis/Flickr

Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg

Even its strategic position 2,400 feet above the Alsace Plain couldn’t save this 12th-century castle from being looted, set aflame, and left empty for about 250 years. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that the château was restored at the order of the last German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who owned the castle. (The Alsace-Lorraine region was ceded to Germany by France in 1871, became French again in 1919, went back into German hands in 1940, and was finally returned to France in 1945.) Less than an hour from Strasbourg, the mountaintop Château de Haut-Koenigsbourg is easy to spot from the road, especially given its pink sandstone facade. It’s also ideally located along the Alsace Wine Route. The panoramic view is worth a visit alone—on clear days, you can see everything from other castles on nearby peaks to the Alps and the Black Forest in Germany.

If the castle looks familiar, that’s because it’s had a few pop culture cameos. It was prominently featured in Jean Renoir’s 1937 anti-war masterpiece La Grande Illusion, influenced the design of the Citadel of Minas Tirith in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and inspired Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki during the creation of his Howl’s Moving Castle.

Photo by CristiDumi/Shutterstock

Château de Biron

Among the more than 1,000 châteaux in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, the imposing 12th-century Château de Biron is one of the biggest. Less than 10 minutes’ drive from the charming fortified town of Monpazier and equidistant from Toulouse and Bordeaux, the castle dominates the tiny village of Biron with its 12th-century keep, chapel, Renaissance apartments, and impressive vaulted kitchens. The Gontaut-Biron family owned the château for 24 generations before selling it to the state in 1978. Today, visitors can stop in to see rotating contemporary art exhibitions, concerts, and theatrical productions, plus sweeping views over the Périgord countryside.

Château de Couches

This symbol of the Middle Ages—with its crenelated towers, 12th-century keep, and 13th-century walls—towers over the Burgundy countryside and vineyards, reminding passers-by that it was once an important defensive castle. Visitors to the Château de Couches, also known as the castle of Marguerite of Burgundy, can tour the dungeon and Gothic chapel and attend concerts, workshops, and all kinds of holiday festivities, including celebrations for Halloween and Christmas. The restaurant here pairs local, seasonal ingredients with Burgundy wines and is open for lunch and dinner. After tucking into roast pigeon (in keeping with the medieval theme) and a glass of pinot noir from the château’s vineyard, stay the night in one of four cozy guest rooms.

Courtesy of Clemens van Lay/Unsplash

Château d’Angers

Most châteaux in the Loire Valley are built with tuffeau, a local limestone that lends the buildings an elegant cream or golden-hued appearance. Bucking that trend is this hulking fortress, with 17 semicircular towers and thick walls mostly composed of gray Anjou schist, a coarse, sturdy rock that seems to say, “Keep out.” The 13th-century castle tops a promontory overlooking the Maine River that has been inhabited since the Neolithic period and was later used as a strategic settlement site by the Romans.

The building now houses the Apocalypse Tapestry, commissioned in the 1370s by Louis I, the Duke of Anjou, and depicting the end of the world as described in the Book of Revelations. When the work was completed, it was nearly 460 feet long but roughly a quarter is missing, so it’s now 337 feet long and nearly 15 feet high—still the largest known medieval tapestry in the world.

Courtesy of Alain Bonnardeaux/Unsplash

Cité de Carcassonne

A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997, the Cité de Carcassonne is in the Occitanie region near France’s southern border with Spain and Andorra. It represents the best-preserved medieval walled city on the continent. Gauls, Romans, and Visigoths lived on and fought from this hilltop overlooking the River Aude, although much of the architecture we see today emerged in the Middle Ages when this was the wild frontier between the kingdoms of France and Aragon.

Within these walls, you’ll find such treasures as the Gothic cathedral and the Château Comtal, or Count’s Castle, complete with ramparts and crenellations used as firing posts. Also hiding behind the walls is a small but vibrant fortified section of town, with hotels, bars, galleries, museums, and restaurants serving the local specialty, cassoulet. The city is in such pristine condition thanks to work by 19th-century French Gothic revival architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who was responsible for restoring such medieval treasures as Notre-Dame de Paris and Mont Saint-Michel.

This article was originally published in 2019 and most recently updated on February 4, 2025, with current information. Nick DeRenzo and Sophie Friedman contributed to the reporting of this story.