Today has just been the longest day in all the world, I swear. Woke up early in the morning to head for the first season of castle-viewing. We organised to join a tour that drove us to the various places and we were given free reign to look around.
First place we visited was Clos Luce, the smallest of all the castles. It was really just a small manor, but it was made famous as it was the home of Leonard da Vinci in the years before he died. He's actually buried in the nearby Chateau Amboise, which was surprising to me.
Clos Luce was also the site of the first Italian renaissance garden.
Second place was not far down the road. It was originally (I think) a medieval castle built on the hill right by the river as a fortress. It was strategically built as it was easy to defend and also meant that the owners had control of the river.
Years later the Chateau was seized by a French king as the previous owner had been convicted by conspiracy. It was then improved upon and underwent a Renaissance transformation and became a Royal Residence.
Later it fell into disrepair and a later owner actually stripped down a large portion of the castle and sold it as raw building material, so that castle that is there currently is only a fraction of what used to be there.
It was much larger than the previous, but not larger than the two we visited in the afternoon. A lot of the rooms were very sparsely furnished and quick to walk through, but I really enjoyed the gardens and the grounds, and the view from the top of the Chateau was amazing, we could see the entire town of Amboise as well as the Loire river. The view itself was worth every Euro spent today. Very beautiful.
From there we had some lunch just by the entrance to the castle. The food was quite delicious, I had savoury pancakes and Sarah had some sweet crepes. But the wait staff there were so rude and took so long not only to take our order, but then to give us the food. Boo on them.
Next post will be the afternoon session, and you can view all my photos from the morning under the "read more" section. Enjoy :)
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