The Castle

François Briçonnet, Mayor of Tours and treasurer to Louis XII, had a Renaissance-style house built in 1508. In 1853, Santiago Drake del Castillo, a rich Parisian aristocrat became its owner. He tripled its size, following the same style, using plans drawn up by Meffre, an architect from Tours.
 
In 1927, the billionaire Charles Bedaux acquired Candé and modernised it, notably by installing 8 bathrooms and a telephone exchange. On 3rd June 1937, the marriage between the Duke of Windsor, the ex-King Edward VIII, and the American Wallis Simpson, for whom he had just renounced the English throne, took place here. The Indre-et-Loire General Council inherited Candé in 1974.
 
Visitors can find out about the day-to-day life of the illustrious personalities who have lived in the château in the dining room, the music room, the library in which a rare Skinner organ case (listed as a Historical Monument) takes pride of place, and the 1929 bathrooms decorated with glass mosaic tiles.
 
Other highlights of the visit include the Duchess of Windsor’s dressing room and the gymnasium. The dressing room is fascinating because of the sumptuousness of the dresses, hats, gloves and shoes designed by the greatest European couturiers.
It evokes the elegance of this ambassador of fashion, exiled by the English throne. The atmosphere is completely different in the gymnasium, which was renovated in 1929 by the Rossel company: here you’ll see racing training bicycles and “Bayard”, a (mechanical) horse powered by an electric engine, which imitates the different paces of the trot and the gallop. These kinds of appliances used to be part of the equipment on board luxury trans-Atlantic liners, including the Titanic. A recently restored quaint massage appliance completes this very rare collection.