A Provoan Yankee in the Frenchmen's court: Part the second

The next day was a 3 castle day-- we started out at Chateau d'Azay-de-rideau, a really cool castle that is out on a little island.

This is the front with my friend Maddy, Audrey Hepburning it up in front of the gates

Part of the Castle was under construction but this is the part that wasn't.

 This is the tapestry room for Cupid and Psyche

This room was really cool because it showed how they made all of the furnishings as in the pillows and the blankets and then the furnishings looked really cool!

It was super flooded due to the amount of rain that we've had, so I couldn't go all the way around the lake.

Then we went to the Chateau de Chenonceau the coolest castle because it is out on the Cher river.

It has a large wood surrounding it and green houses with roses and donkeys!

This castle reminded me of Beauty and the Beast more than the actual Beauty and the Beast castle (more on that later).

 This castle was home to Diane de Poitiers a super important person. She was the mistress of King Henri II, she was his favorite even above his wife, Cathrine de Medicis. Technically as a king you're allowed to have a mistress as long as you don't embarrass the queen, but he didn't care so he built/gave Diane this castle. She influenced many of his political decisions and after his death Catherine booted her out nicely...ish and then used it as her base of operations.

 This is the Catherine de Medici garden.

From Catherine de Medici's study

 This is the Queens chapel

This is the hall on the first floor that goes across the river. Diane de Poitiers came up with the idea of extending the castle across the river because it served as a good party space and as a good way to get from one side of the river to the other for hunting.

 The steward's tower

Each room had bouquets in it picked from the gardens of the castle

Then we finished the day with the Chateau d'Amboise

The first stop was the church where Leonardo Da Vinci is buried

This Chateau was super cool because it was in the middle of the city and was huge compared to everything else.

 After visiting a tower and the chapel the audio guide had us go inside the castle

 One of our first stops was the Salle de Gardes. It was the walkway they would patrol to protect the castle from enemies on the river

 Then we went upstairs to the Throne room

 Also to the Conspirators balcony, because it was in this castle that Francois I had a radical Protestant post a list of grievances to his bedroom door, and the guards chased him out this way.
Which stopped him from making the reforms he was already putting in place between the Catholics and the Protestants. So go radical... ruined it for everyone.

 The Music Room in the Chateau

 A view from a different tower.

 The outside of the Chateau and the end of the garden

 The bust of Leonardo Da Vinci and another Lebanon Cedar

 Then there were these cool picture frames just randomly around and it looks kind of like a Magritte painting.

A gate from the castle

To finish off our sejour in Loire Valley we went to the Chateau de Blois

 This Chateau had like 4 different sections from different time periods, a Classical, a Middle Ages, and a Renaissance

This was a staircase designed by Leonardo Da Vinci

This was yet another Chateau built by Francois I, most of the Chateaus in the Loire valley were built by him or for him or used by him at least once

 This is a part of the old staircase/building that was used when they restored it.

 On the fireplace the Salamander and the Erming can be seen they are the seals for Francoise I and his wife.

 This is the capture of Europa

 This is a very little door, it's so small so as to not affect the structural integrity of the wall.

 This is a harpsichord and the room/hall that it was in wasn't there in the time of Francois I, we would have been standing in the middle of the air outside the castle walls.

 So this mini chapel was right before the coolest room which was used for the cabinet of curios that the kings had, it had secret panels and everything.

 This depicted the murder of the king by a radical monk who was then killed.

 This is a stained glass window with the symbol for one of the single digit Louis'. It's a porcupine. Because porcupines are "fire-resistant" and therefore strong.
(he looks kind of cute and cuddly to me:)

Then we went to the Chateau de Chambourg aka the Beauty and the Beast castle.

 We walked around the grounds first.

 This is the church for the castle

 And I was just mild mannerdly getting a waffle when suddenly people on horseback appeared-- and it was soooo cool!

Then we found a cool place where there was like a horse show- it was super legit.

 Then we went inside the castle to take our tour.

 To start off we went into the green hunting room and then we walked up the double helix staircase.

 We went all the way up to the roof.

Then we went inside one of the towers, our tour guide was struggling with English, but it was fine.

 This room was used by artists to sketch out what they would later paint or sculpt so that the queen/person in charge could look it over before it was added to the castle.

 Finally we made it to the normal part of the tour, it was a fine tour except that instead of taking us through the cool rooms with all of the furnishings we went through like empty small rooms in a tower all the way down and then stopped. But it was fine in the end.

 This is the entry after a treaty, France is in the shadowy part in the back

So that was the Sleeping Beauty castle--
[Insert Pic here}

After all of that, we made it back to Paris in one piece and then we came to Nice...

Until the next post--