I am a few days behind. Sorry about that. Here’s what we’ve done the last few days…
Sunday was our last day in Amboise. We started off the day at Clos de Lucé. A chateau built in 1471, which was used as a summer home to the Kings. It was also the last home of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1516, King Francis commisioned Leonardo to come to France and appointed him the First architect, painter and engineer of the King. Leonardo at the age of 64, accepted and crossed the Alps from Italy with several of his disciples and 3 paintings which he carried in his saddlebags, one of which was the Mona Lisa. During the time Leonardo lived here, the king lived in Château Amboise only 400 meters away (literally down the narrow street), the two would meet almost daily and Leonardo was not only able to continue to paint and work on his designs but also he would organize celebrations for the court and drew up many architectural plans. The home was beautiful and rustic and completely restored. They even rediscovered Leonardo’s workshop with a painting room, sculpting room and a design room. In the basement IBM produced 40 of his inventions into models, using materials of the time period; the first tank, the swing bridge and the paddle boat, were just a few of what he came up with over 500 years ago.
Leonardo’s bedroom 
His workshop 
His notebooks of design marvels 
His design shop 
Model of : Tank 
Model of : Swing Bridge 
Model of : Paddle Boat
Outside the gardens were beautiful. It was filled with plants, flowers and herbs which Leonardo actually used in a lot of his paintings. They had also taken the small models and constructed them into life size inventions, which were scattered throughout the park. It was amazing to truly see what a genius Leonardo da Vinci was.
Swing Bridge 
Machine Gun 
Tank 
After lunch we went to the Château Amboise, located in the center of the town and visible from anywhere within the city. This was the royal palace for many kings during the 13th – 16th centuries. It was set up high above the rest of the city and even had gardens up on the rooftop. The chapel also has the tomb of da Vinci, who died in 1519, only three years after arriving in France. The sights from up top of the Loire valley and river were breathtaking.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s tomb 
Our concierge, recommended a dinner spot. It was I’liot Restaurant. It had only tables for twenty people and it had a horseshoe shaped bar ehich sat 10 more. The chef and sis chef cooked all the meals behind the bar. Everything was seasonal and local food. There were only two choices for each, appetizer, main course and desert. It was definitely a great experience and wonderful food.
On Monday, we left Amboise and took three different trains to Beaune. It was going very smoothly until our second train ran later and we RAN to our last train with the doors closing on us. Luckily, we had just stepped on. Once we got to our destination we had dinner, and looking forward for our next few days here in Burgandy wine country.
