Montrichard


Montrichard is a town and former commune in the Loir-et-Cher department, Centre-Val de Loire, France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Montrichard Val de Cher.
During the French Revolution, the commune was known as Montégalité.

Geography

The town lies on the north bank of the river Cher. south of Blois, west of Vierzon and east of Tours. The countryside is mainly constituted of vineyard, woods, cattle and cereals.

Sites and monuments

Montrichard is pronounced, with a T sound, despite its silence in the word mont and similar place names such as Montréal. One of the explanations that may justify the pronunciation of the T is that Montrichard is derived from the words mont, tri and chard, because the town is situated on a hill surrounded on three sides by square towers.

Notable people

The town is mentioned in the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, as the town from which the mother of Frank Abagnale came. Later in the film, Abagnale has set up a high-end printing facility for printing corporate cheques in Montrichard when he is tracked down and arrested by the FBI. The exterior shots of the town, however, were filmed in the Place Royale in the lower town of Quebec City, Canada, which is identifiable by the presence of the Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Church.