Loire Towns

Visited two of The Loire’s towns over the last two days – Amboise and Blois. Both have the obligatory chateau – although we decided to just admire them from the outside (a bit of chateau overload). Instead, we visited the former home of Leonardo de Vinci in Amboise, where he spent the last 3 years of his life (during which time he left his influence on many local chateau’s). His former home has been turned into a museum and park featuring many of his inventions reproduced both as working models and life size representations which you can have a play with (including his helicopter, tank, plane, car, parachute...and so on). It was quite remarkable to see what he had come up with. His greatest impediment was that all his inventions required man power rather than having motive power (which was of course still to be invented some centuries later).


Then today we went to Blois – a city which we had visited last time we were here. On that occasion Colin had taken a photo of Heather and I which was one of my favourites from that trip. We searched desperately for the same spot so we could take a “14 years later” shot for a “then and now” comparison – but without the original photo for reference it was a bit of a lost cause. Every corner we turned seemed as if it may have been the spot...but we really had no idea. In desperation we took a couple of photos in different places (or in fact the kids did). The one above was from Caitlin (which wasn’t a bad effort as it happens). In any case, we had a great walk around the old town before returning to the camp for a lazy afternoon by the pool before we pack up again and head to Normandy tomorrow. The camp has worked out well – although we get visited nightly by mice who scurry around the tent (amazing how loud mice can sound on a canvas floor in the dead of the night). Last night there were joined by pigeons who landed on the roof...so it wasn’t the most restful of sleeps!