Château d'Ussé

Rigny-Ussé, France, France

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Château d'Ussé, located in Rigny-Ussé along the Indre River in France's Indre-et-Loire department, is a stunning 15th- to 18th-century castle famously known as the inspiration for Charles Perrault's "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale.

First fortified around 1000 by Gueldin de Saumur and rebuilt in stone by the Comte de Blois, it was transformed by Jean V de Bueil in the 1400s, then enhanced with Renaissance elements by the d'Espinay family, including a striking chapel, before later additions by Louis XIV's finance controller who commissioned gardens by Le Nôtre.

Still privately owned and inhabited by the Duc de Blacas family for over two centuries, it features furnished interiors, formal French gardens with pre-Revolutionary orange trees, and terraces overlooking the valley, drawing visitors to its fairy-tale charm.