Denis-Papin staircase

Escape through reading was the theme of the summer of 2021 in Blois. More than 900 people responded to the City’s call and proposed more than 2,000 different books, to make up this giant fresque. Other sets have also been installed on public space, to continue traveling in other times and worlds through books.

The world famous mouse invited itself to Blois, in the fall of 2020! It was the work of Régis Loisel, one of the sponsors of the Year of comics, and who paid tribute to Mickey in 2016 with his album Café Zombo.

Decoration made by the City according to drawings by Régis Loisel, in collaboration with the comics festival bd BOUM, Disney and Glénat BD editions.

During the summer of 2020, Blois celebrated the 20th anniversary of the inscription of the Loire Valley as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Loire Valley has witnessed a harmonious development of interactions between human beings and their environment, over more than two thousand years of history. That is Unesco’s analysis, which inscribed it it 2000 on the World Heritage List, thus recognizing it as Outstanding Universal Value. Learn more with the Val de Loire Mission…

For the first time, the decor extended along Denis-Papin street, as an invitation to (re)discover the banks of the Loire, for a walk to the rhythm of the current and tern fights.

Blois has been actively participating in the “500 years Renaissance(s)” program initiated in 2019 by the Centre-Val de Loire region. The year 2019 represents the 500^th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci at the Clos Lucé in Amboise, the 500^th anniversary of the birth of Catherine de’ Medici and the 500^th anniversary of the commencement of construction of the château of Chambord. Further information on the anniversary (in French only).

As a complement to the events organized in Blois to celebrate the first of these anniversaries and to pay tribute to Leonardo da Vinci, the risers of the Denis-Papin staircase are comprehensively covered over, from April to October 2019, by a modern-day reconstitution of the celebrated painting by Leonardo, the Mona Lisa.

A 10-kilometer (6-mile) panorama

Since the 19^th century, the Denis-Papin staircase has provided a link between the upper town and the lower town of Blois. On the uppermost of its 120 steps, interrupted by four landings, visibility under a clear blue sky may attain 10 kilometers, and areas beyond Saint-Gervais-la-Forêt are glimpsed.

A statue of the great inventor Denis Papin

On the uppermost landing,  there is a statue of Denis Papin. Sculpted by Aimé Millet and inaugurated on 29 August 1880, it pays homage to the inventor from Blois, who imagined the steam engine; the adjoining street bears his name.

Giant and original decorations

Since 2013, the staircase risers have been “dressed” in giant artwork responding to what’s happening in town. Eagerly awaited each year, the visual display allows art to invest public space, dynamizes the town center, makes the town’s cultural high points better known, encourages active participation and enhances awareness of the town’s peculiarities in an original and playful manner.