French chateaus

For the final Euro-vacation wrap-up post, I’ll share some pics of the French chateaus we visited. On the suggestion of my good friend Deb who had studied in the Loire region of France while in college, Alexis and I added this stop to our itinerary. From Paris, we took a train to a town called Blois (doesn’t roll of an American tongue as easily as a French one, pronounced “blwah”). There are lots of beautiful chateaus in the Loire region, but Blois seemed to be the easiest place to base ourselves out of to hit some of the more well-known ones.

The city of Blois itself has a chateau that has sections built in each of the major architectural styles- Gothic (13th century), Flamboyant (15th century), Renaissance (16th century), and Classicism (17th century). Here, we got our first taste of the huge, winding staircases that seemed to be in all the chateaus we would visit.

The next chateau we visited was Chambord (picture with Andy & Alexis in it). The common theme in all the chateaus was that they all seemed to have started off as hunting lodges! Chambord was huge and included 77 staircases, 282 fireplaces, and 426 rooms (according to the English language pamphlet!). We only visited a small section of the estate, but it was quite impressive. As luck would have it, there was a hunting exposition going on right on the grounds, so our visit was serenaded by constant gunfire while we were there (fitting, I guess, since it started out as a hunting lodge!). There must still be good hunting on the massive grounds because there were lots of recent photos of hunters and their kills in one of the rooms. There was even a replica of a deer stand from back in the day, complete with a chandelier!

The most down-to-earth chateau we visited was Cheverny. It was built by the Hurault family whose decendants lived in the Chateau until the 1980s. It was really cool to see the typical old paintings of men with wigs and stockings right next to a wedding picture from the 1980s! This chateau is said to have started what is now known as the “French Style” of architecture in the 17th century.

After all this sightseeing, Andy ended up getting sick. He stayed in bed on our final day in Blois as Alexis and I took the train to the neighboring town of Ambois. We set out to see the famous Chateau Clos Luse, but we ended up touring the Amboise Chateau (the picture with the river). Little did we know that the Mansion of Clos Luse (we thought it was a chateau, though I have no idea what the difference is) is only 500 meters from the Amboise Chateau and is connected by an underground tunnel. But, as it turns out, the biggest and grander of the two is actually the Chateau, so we came out on the winning end of that one, Alexis!! Although Leonardo da Vinci lived his final years at the Mansion of Clos Luce, he is buried beneath a chapel at the Amboise Chateau. I’m not one for seeking out graves of famous people, but it was kind of cool to see da Vinci’s final resting place! This chateau was huge and even sported a stairwell big enough for military horses and wagons to use!

So, unless Andy or Alexis have anything to add later, this concludes the Euro-vacation wrap-up (doesn’t that sound so official?!). I’ll be going to Australia on business from July 8-15, so I’ll try to do a few posts from down under!