Interior designer Douglas Mackie's driving tour of the Loire Valley

There is no other area of France about which we all have such a preconceived visual picture. The Loire Valley is the land of the improbably romantic chateau, those turreted confections that populate almost every nineteenth-century ballet backdrop. This is France as if invented by Oliver Messel, with the Loire River, the longest and most unspoilt in France, as its great artery.

It is years since our last visit, and we were keen to return to old favourites and explore more unfamiliar areas. Our previous trip had begun at the Tank Museum in Saumur, as my historian partner, Julian Jackson, was researching his book The Fall of France. Our agenda now was rather more architectural.

The Loire Valley is a relatively easy drive from Paris, where we picked up our hire car from Avis at the Gare du Nord, and headed to our first stop – the perfect midway break – Chartres Cathedral. It was a pleasure seeing the brilliantly coloured windows on a radiant July morning, despite the recent, rather brutal bleaching of the interior.

We then drove south towards Blois, a scenic drive past rolling fields of wheat and windmills. The town, pleasingly unsophisticated and a good place to begin a visit to the region, is perched on the banks of the Loire and is dominated by an immense chateau, where the gruesome murder of the Duc de Guise took place in 1588. Like nearby Amboise, Blois was a centre of the French court in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and its leading characters emerge across the region’s chateaux: Francis I, his son Henry II, Henry’s wife Catherine de’ Medici, and his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. They loved to build, and the list of places to visit is daunting. We deviated, however, to meet up with local friends for oysters and a bottle of Sancerre from Blois’ Saturday market.

Our late-afternoon destination was the Château de Chambord, the quintessential expression of the hybrid of Medieval and Italian Renaissance styles that characterises Loire Valley architecture. Our bed for the night was at the newly refurbished Relais de Chambord, only five minutes’ walk from the palace. If only every great house had such civilised lodgings close by, with such a good restaurant. We had been flagging in the high temperatures, so the air-conditioned interiors were a welcome relief. Dinner was on the terrace, opposite the chateau, and watching the walls change to a deep rose pink was a magical experience. The hotel arranged a private guide for us the following day, whose passionate knowledge brought the chateau to life, showing us how this incredible edifice became the ultimate symbol of the divine monarchy of Francis I.