In case anyone might have a similar itinerary, I wanted to share how we saw these two late in the day. We were driving from the D-Day beaches of Normandy to Amboise. We were booked at Chenonceau early the next day so ideally would need to see Azay and Villandry en route to Amboise since we couldn’t backtrack. Basically I looked into how late we could see them. We ended up entering Azay around 5:30 pm and walking its grounds, which is what I wanted—just admire the setting. During the last opening hour (5-6 at this season) the grounds are free and open to the public. Next we drove the 15 minutes to Villandry. Think we entered around 6:30 or so. Though last entry is at 7, you can freely stay in the gardens after. The clerk told us “to the night,” which I think means sunset perhaps? This was absolutely wonderful. Only two people were in the gardens on this late April Thursday evening and we had a leisurely walk around the place. Hoping this might help someone else plotting chateau hopping. (On Chenonceau the advice to take the early booking is golden. By 11:00 or so it’s buzzing with people and tour buses.)
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