As you may have read on Facebook, Saturday (July 9) was a disaster. I found Mom at the airport all right, but we were a bit late for our noon reservation to pick up our rental car. Turns out they closed at noon. EYE ROLL. As I was trying to stave off panic, Mom remembered there was a Hertz up the street. They were closed, too, BUT they were opening back up at two. And when they opened, they had a car! Hallelujah! We got on the road and visited Chateau de Chambord, a beautiful sixteenth-century castle, built as a hunting lodge for Francois I:
It has over 400 rooms and over 200 fireplaces! Definitely the kind of place one could get lost in... what I've always thought a castle should be.
This is the top of a double spiral staircase that may have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci (Francois I invited him to France where he spent the last years of his life in nearby Amboise). You can go from top to bottom and not meet someone coming the other way if they're on the other staircase. Very cool.
Many of the doors and ceilings feature the salamander, the symbol of Francois I.
We had a lovely time, although I was still anxious about the rest of the day. Turns out that anxiety was well-founded, because when we got to our hotel in Amboise....
...they had lost our reservation. I made it months ago online, and had a confirmation email, but apparently they never got said confirmation. Womp womp. The man at the desk was apologetic and found us a room in Tours... another 25 km away when we were quite ready for dinner and bed. We decided "c'est la vie!" had to be our motto.
Once we arrived at our new hotel, I realized we were only a few blocks from Cathédrale Saint-Gatien de Tours, so we decided to go to mass on Sunday morning since clearly we needed some help from on high! The church was beautiful, and the service quite nice. I think the priest spoke about being the next Christ by helping resolve the immigration crisis in Europe... My reading French might be pretty decent, but understanding spoken French has been a whole other ballgame. I'm getting better, but for someone who hates to make mistakes, it's been a little stressful!
I'm glad we were able to visit the Cathedral; it was breathtaking, especially the height of the ceiling. Maybe it was the narrowness of the nave, but it seemed so much higher than other churches I've visited.
After mass we went to Chateau de Chaumont, where was a Festival of Gardens going on. We walked through some of the creative displays before heading on to the castle:
Plants overtaking a "house."
This one represented surviving in rising waters.
A different exhibit about living in harmony with rising waters.
The chateau was an interesting mix of sixteenth-, nineteenth-, and twenty-first century rooms and art, like this exhibit in the chapel.
Nineteenth-century diningroom.
The stables were also really impressive, built around a large kiln that then became the indoor ring (seemed way too small for ring work to me...).
Next we were on to Chenonceau. It was a warm day and we were pretty tired, but after some ice cream we got our second wind.
SO BEAUTIFUL. Begun in the early 16th century on the foundations of an even older mill. Diane de Poitiers received the castle as a gift from Henri II, and she added the bridge across the River Cher to the hunting grounds. After Henri's death, his wife, Catherine de' Medici, took back the castle, sent Diane to Chambord, and build the great hall across the bridge.
Great hall over the river
The Chateau served as a hospital during WWI. During WWII, the river was the border between Nazi-controlled France and Vichy France, so it could have easily been destroyed by the Germans... thankfully it was almost entirely unscathed.
It had fantastic kitchens.
Louis XIV bedroom, since he came to stay once.
Most rooms had beautiful flower arrangements, including the entrance hall to the original part of the castle.
View from the upper floor, including the older tower and either Diane or Catherine's garden, I can't remember now.
Wisteria framing a doorway in one of the outbuildings.
Huge garden where flowers and food for the estate are grown.
Finally in Amboise, finally having dinner with local wine.
And some steak with amazing goat cheese sauce, even if it was too rare for me at "medium well." I like a healthy amount of pink, but the French seem to sear it and call it done!
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