Day 17 - Loire Valley

Today we woke to no rain, although no sun either, and decided to make the most of our one full day in the Loire by making it visiting day.

We started off by trucking just down the road to Amboise to visit the chateau there. This was where King Charles VIII died when he was on his way to watch a game of tennis. He bumped his head on a door frame and died just a few hours later aged only 28 - pretty bad luck. It also has the tomb of Leonardo Da Vinci in a beautiful wee chapel on the grounds. The garden also has an amazing topiaried section and we watched some apprentice gardeners as they trimmed up some of the gazillion topiary balls in preparation for the summer crowd season.

After we had finished with our visit to Amboise, we moved on to our next stop. We were off to Leonardo's for lunch. I don't mean a restaurant called Leonardo's, I mean Mr Da Vinci's house. Wicked huh! The house where he spent the last 3 years of his life is within walking distance of the Amboise Chateau (in fact, rumour has it that there is a tunnel that runs between the two. It was really cool wandering through it - although a bit spooky in his bedroom, where he died. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the house so I can't share any with you.

We then moved into his garden and had lunch at a cafe set up in the terrace garden. It was really lovely, the garden looks and smells lovely. Appparently Leonardo was fascinated by nature and his garden certainly reflects somebody with a real passion for it. There are also some full sized models of some of his inventions scattered through the park area of the garden, so we had a bit of fun with the treadmill lifting machine and the archimedes screw.

The final place on our visiting list was Chateau Chenonceau. Oh my, what a place. This was the actual home of Catherine Medici when we she reigned. You can certainly see the difference in a chateau built for a woman and then gifted to other women through the years. The chateau is actually built across the river, with the kitchens a couple of the bridge supports! Apparently kitchen supplies were brought in by boat and hoisted directly into the kitchen. Dad, you should have seen the butchery. It was about the same size as the regular kitchen, they were obvoiusly big meat eaters! The butchers blocks were pretty impressive and obviously well used.

During the war, the river that Chenonceau is built across was the demarcation line.  That meant that it's front door was on one side and the door at the end of the grand hall (which runs the full width of the river) was on the other.  This made it ideal for smuggling members of the resistance over the line.

Our feet were about done, but we had a quick wander in the garden and then had a wee play in the maze. It was hilarious because it was built to the scale it would have been originally which meant that everyone's heads stuck out the top - especially Brett's. It was great to let rip a bit after having to be so well behaved all day.

We are now back at our chateau for the last time, packing up to move off to Paris tomorrow. We will stop at Chambord tomorrow, a fairytale looking chateau, on our way up the valley. Then we will drop the van off and finish our french adventure with a few days in Paris. It is hard to leave the Loire, but with Paris calling I'm sure I can do it. I hope it's as wonderful as I remember.
 
P.S.  You're right mum, I think we will need a holiday to recover!  Just as well Gaynor has a comfy couch lol.
P.P.S.  The French lessons have been very  handy Michelle, but we would have been a bit rusty without your immersion stuff, so thanks heaps.