It's a glorious day...blue sky and its to go up to 26.....started with breakfast in Yvonne's house and had wonderful croissants, baguettes and chocolate beignets with fruit, OJ and excellent coffee. Yvonne gave us 3 itineraries to try...decided to go first to Amboise, another walled Royal city and then to Leonardo Da Vinci's house ...Chateau du Clos Luce. We parked across the bridge from the fortress/Chateau and walked across and up the cobbled stone streets to Clos Luce....it was totally awesome....Da Vinci lived there for his last 4 years under the patronage of Francis I....the King and his sister Marguerite of Navarre were both from Angoleme....what a coincidence eh! The museum explains life as Da Vinci would have known it and recreates many of his inventions.... IBM has taken his drawings and constructed animated as well and actual models of his weapons, tank, water wheel, paddle boats etc....I had no idea how advanced he was and how ahead of his time...it was a really fascinating tour. The garden with the models and landscaping as per Da Vinci was lovely.
Then on to Chenonceau.....wow...what a palace. beautiful gardens... the formal ones originally created by Diane de Poitiers and later Catherine de Medici are both beautiful especially in a few weeks when the wisteria and clematis are blooming. June must bereally gorgeous as there are roses everywhere....every wall, terrace and fence are covered by Rose vines.There is a huge wooded park around the palace as well. There is still a moat and of course its famous for the rampart or wing extending over the River Cher. We took the tour which cost 12 € but it was really interesting. The castle/Chateau was originally rebuilt from a very old fortress in and later expanded by Diane de Poitiers who was Francis II mistress. He died young and his widow Catherine de Medici took over the castle and expanded the gardens and added the rooms over the bridge to make it more like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. She put Diane de Poitiers in the Chateau Chaumont sur Loire just down the river. The chateau is famous for the women who lived there and changed it up until the early part of this century. The other outstanding feature were the gorgeous floral arrangements. There is a floral greenhouse on the estate and they change the flowers every 2 days ....they are stunning! And huge.... Lilies and tulips and lilacs and cherry blossoms... The rooms were really well furnished and the kitchens were particularly interesting....made us think of Downtown Abby. There was a 16 th century farm with carriages and a couple of old Bentleys and fields of tulips near the greenhouses. We later drove through the little village back to Les Meslins and since we had bought a bottle of Rose we sat on the terrace with Yvonne and Jeff and enjoyed out bottle was well as one of theirs... A very nice time. then we drove to Montrichard where there is another castle ruin ...this time from the XIII entry and ate a lovely dinner in the small central square at La Neutreuil Restaurant..... Great baguette, some kind of prosciutto ham with a creamy filling and cod filet with very nice veggies and sauce. W had dessert Millefleurs with lots of Chantilly cream.....yummy! We also met a fellow from New Jersey...Jim who has a house nearby. He spends a few months a year in France but is now trying to sell his property. He invited us to come for a drink but it was getting late so we declined and went back to the B and B.