The old quarters of Châteaudun

(S/E) From the Tourist Office, head towards the Mail, passing in front of the museum. Take the Promenade du Mail on the right through the gardens landscaped by the town. Panoramic view of the River Loir.

(1) Turn right, then left into Rue Jean Moulin until you reach the war memorial. Head down to the left along the Passage du Gué aux Chevaux. Cross Rue des Fouleries, take the footbridge over the Loir and turn left into the narrow lane. At the end of this path, turn right, then left twice. Cross several footbridges and arrive at the watermill, at the foot of the rocky outcrop overlooked by the castle.

(2) Cross the car park and climb the 200 steps. At the top, turn right into the Venelle des Ribaudes, which leads to the castle entrance. Turn left into Rue du Cloître Saint-Roch, continue straight on along Rue du Château with its corbelled houses, then head down Rue Saint-Lubin on the right – the town’s former main thoroughfare, which was spared by the fire of 1723.

A few fine houses still stand here: at No. 2, the Louis-Esnault house is a fine example of 16th-century bourgeois architecture. First mentioned in 1434, it was rebuilt around a hundred years later and restored in 1793. At No. 12, a beautiful gateway with carved wooden doors and an ex-voto depicting a statue of Saint Lubin adorns a substantial 15th-century house. A few steps away, on the right, a narrow lane offers a glimpse of further remains of Saint Lubin’s Church and the carved door of its former presbytery.

At the end of this street, you come to a long half-timbered house known as the Maison de la Vierge or Loge des Portiers. Built against one of the 13th-century city walls, it stood next to one of the gates of the old city, the Porte d’Abas.

Turn left into Rue des Huileries. On the corner of this street and Rue de la Cuirasserie, a Renaissance house with a stone façade is adorned with a graceful corner turret and semi-circular windows. A complex comprising the former Hôtel-Dieu, founded in 1062 and rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries; the former Abbey of La Madeleine, now a courthouse and nursing school; and the Church of La Madeleine, built at the tip of the rocky outcrop, forms the Place Cap de la Madeleine.

Continue along Rue de la Madeleine and turn left into Rue du Guichet, then right into Rue du Maréchal Lyautey to reach Place du 18 Octobre.

(3) Head left to the Tourist Office (S/E).

(S/E) The town is home to a municipal museum of Fine Arts and Natural History, founded in 1864 by the Dunoise Archaeological Society to preserve archaeological artefacts found mainly in the Dunois region. Housed since 1890 in a former school, it offers a journey across the globe and through time thanks to its 2,500 stuffed birds from around the world, its collection of 18th-century Chinese porcelain, its works of art from Russia and the East, and its Egyptology gallery.The castle stands majestically, showcasing its 12th-century circular keep, a Sainte Chapelle, a Gothic wing and an elegant Renaissance façade.

From the promenade, there is a panoramic view of the Saint-Jean district and the valley.

(2) A former watermill on the River Loir, on Rue des Fouleries. A stopover lodge and base for the canoe and kayak club.

Historic quarter: the Saint-Roch cloister, the castle, Rue Saint-Lubin, the former Madeleine Abbey complex, and the Hôtel-Dieu.

(3) Place du 18 Octobre: at the top of the fountain, a stone phoenix watches over the town. According to Egyptian mythology, this creature lived for several centuries and built a pyre on which it sacrificed itself to be reborn from its ashes.
In 1723, Châteaudun was almost entirely destroyed by a terrible fire and was reborn, like the phoenix, a few years later.
Around the square, the streets, laid out in a perfectly geometric pattern, bear witness to a methodical reconstruction. They symbolise the crossroads of traditional transport routes between the Beauce plain to the east and the Perche region to the west. It is to this strategic position – a veritable bulwark protecting the Orléans region and the Loire Valley – that Châteaudun owes its very existence.