| Les chateaux de la Loire, France, April 2012 |
In October 2007 I visited my friends Moira and Remy in Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, a small town about 30 km east of Orleans.
Of course I invited them to come to Amsterdam for a return visit, but..., they got a daughter and became too busy with family life to travel to the Netherlands.
Therefore I decided to go again to the Loire valley, with my brother Pim. Visit a few of the famous Loire castles and have a meeting with Moira and her family.
We decided to choose Blois as our home base during this short trip. It is a long 750 km drive from Amsterdam, so we left early and we arrived at our hotel in the afternoon. The Hotel de France et de Guise turned out to be a good choice. Centrally located and with a very helpful front desk.
After a short rest we went out to explore Blois. Nice town! We had dinner in one of the restaurants suggested by our hotel. Walking back we noticed that there was a Son et Lumiere (Sound and Light show) in the castle that night. Although it was cold and rainy, I went there.
The history of France during the 15-16th century is too complicated to even sketch roughly here. Interesting show.
The next morning we started after breakfast with a visit of the castle. You could spend many hours there. The main builder was Francois I, must have been an interesting character, introducing the Renaissance in France.But it was also a violent time, with Catholics murdering thousands of Protestants during the Wars of Religion.
We met Moira and Remy and their daughter Thalia in a nearby restaurant for a sumptuous (and affordable!) lunch. It was good to see them back as a happy family.
They decided to join us to Chambord, the most impressive of the Loire castles. The unusual double spiral central staircase of this magnificent palace may have been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci!
Remy suggested that we might visit the following day the mansion in Amboise where da Vinci lived.
First we visited the Chenonceau castle, which is one of my favourites. During the WWII the river Cher was the border between Free and Occupied France and the gallery crossing the river was used by people to travel (illegally) between the two parts of France.
After Chenonceau we continued to Amboise for lunch and a visit of the Clos Luce mansion where da Vinci spent the last years of his life as a guest of Francois I. In the museum and the garden you can find many of da Vinci's inventions, built as a prototype.
There are more than 50 castles in the Loire region! We had a look at a few of them on our way back to Amsterdam
A very rewarding trip
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 Our hotel in Blois
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 Pim on the balcony of our room
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 Our room
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 Springtime, but cold!
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 Eglise Saint Vincent
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 Interior
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 Facade of the Blois castle
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 Detail
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 Jacques Gabriel bridge
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 The other side of the river
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 Water level can be high!
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 Terns looking for food
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 Saint Nicolas Church
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 Dinner with local specialties
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 Blois by night
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 Entrance of the castle
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 Son et lumiere
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 Beautiful illumination
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 The François I wing
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 The octagonal staircase
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 17th century wing (Classical style)
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 Beautiful decorations
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 The breakfast lounge of the hotel
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 The castle by daylight
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 Statue of Louis XII
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 Salle des États Généraux (13th century)
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 Me as the King of France
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 The François I wing
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 The staircase
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 One of the Royal state rooms
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 More Royal rooms
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 Richly ornamented
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 Beautiful furniture
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 The emblem of François I
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 Pim climbing the stairs
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 View of the court
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 Ceiling In the Classical wing
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 Raining!
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 Decorated columns
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 View from the castle
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 Saturday market in the rain
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 Lunch with Moira, Remy ....
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 and Thalia!
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 A delicious lunch
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 Pim and Thalia
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 Rapeseed fields
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 Chambord castle
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 Most impressive Loire castle
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 One for the album
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 The court of Chambord
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 The famous double-spiral staircase
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 The staircase, first floor
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 Looking down the stairwell
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 Crowning the stairwell
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 On the roof of Chambord
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 Many decorated chimneys
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 View from the roof
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 Glorious!
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 Detail
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 Hunting trophies
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 Again the Royal Salamander
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 Entrance of Chenonceau
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 The squire and his castle..:-)
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 Chenonceau, my personal favourite
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 One of the state rooms
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 Detail of the interior
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 More details
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 Beautifully decorated cupboard
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 The famous corridor bridging the river
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 Going down to the kitchens
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 Intricate ceiling design
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 One of the kitchens
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 Details of the kitchens
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 The gardens of Chenonceau
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 Must be old
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 Nice manor house in the gardens
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 Wisteria in bloom
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 More blue flowers
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 The castle as seen from the garden
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 Amboise and its castle
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 Another view of Amboise
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 Entrance of the castle
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 The bell tower of Amboise
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 Time for lunch
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 Hungry!
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 Old houses
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 Troglodyte houses!
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 Clos Lucé mansion
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 Da Vinci's bedroom
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 The museum in Clos Lucé
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 Models of Da Vinci's inventions
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 More models
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 In the park of Clos Lucé
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 Full scale model
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 So many mistletoe's !
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 Castle of Chaumont
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 Old houses in Vendôme
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 St Georges Gate, Vendôme
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 Castle of Châteaudun
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 Detail of the castle
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lightlingmk2 wrote on May 17, 2012:
" Catholics murdering thousands of Protestants " Disgusting isn't it ? All in the name of religion, even today. Castle designs are beautiful. Nice holiday, Jan. |
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