les chateaux de la loire, part 2

On Saturday morning Abby and I woke up a bit early so that we could go into town and find a replacement memory card for me. Thankfully, we were successful, so from now on all of the following pictures were taken by me.



Testing out the new memory card: this is the view of Blois from the top of the hill, with the Loire River in the distance.



These little symbols are all around Blois; they mark out a path for tourists to follow in order to see different parts of the city. There are four different types. This one is a porcupine, one of the symbols of Blois.

That day we were visiting Chenonceau, the Chateau that Henri II gave to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.





Sadly, because it's winter time and thus not peak tourist season, the facade of the castle was being reconstructed and we couldn't quite fully appreciate it as we would have liked to. It was a bit obnoxious, but there were many other aspects of Chenonceau to enjoy.



One of the most interesting things about Chenonceau is that it's built over the river Cher.



Also, we got these nifty video iPods as part of our audio tour. Definitely the coolest and most helpful audio tour I've seen so far.



Diane de Poitiers' room, with a portrait of Catherine de Medici (Henri II's wife) hanging over the mantle. Awkward.



The gallery.

During World War I, the gallery was used as a hospital. (Now I'm basically going to translate what the Chenonceau pamphlet says because it's really interesting.) During World War II, the Cher River was the demarcation line. The entrance of the Chateau was part of the occupied zone (on the right bank). The gallery, with the southern door giving access to the left bank, allowed the Resistence to pass numerous people over to the free zone. Throughout the war, the German army nearly destroyed Chenonceau.



The kitchens. I had a lot of fun in these rooms.







Maybe a little too much fun.



The Louis XIV Room.

On the mantle are a salamander and an ermine which are, incidentally, not the symbols of Louis XIV but of Francois I and his wife, respectively.



I believe the room was named after this portrait, which Louis XIV gave to his uncle after having visited Chenonceau a long time before. I don't know. I just thought the red was pretty.



The Room of Five Queens, named for Catherine de Medici's five daughters and daughters-in-law: La Reine Margot, Elisabeth de France, Marie Stuart, Elisabeth d'Autriche, Louise de Lorraine.



Catherine de Medici's room.



I love this room. It's decorated entirely in drawings of Chenonceau.



This room was fascinating. It belonged to Louise de Lorraine, whose husband, Henri III, was assassinated. After his death, she came to Chenonceau to live a secluded and pious life in this black room.



Garden of Diane de Poitiers

Outside the Chateau are the gardens, (there are two on opposite sides of the castle, one for the mistress and one for the wife) which were beautiful but made me wish we could be there during the springtime to see everything in bloom.



There was also a labyrinth!



Not a very difficult one.





We had a bit of the photo shoot, again.

We fooled around so much in the labyrinth that Nathalie had to change our lunch plans, but she was completely fine with it and so were we. We had a delicious lunch of crèpes in a restaurant right near another Chateau which we didn't visit.

Instead we went to see the last house that Leonardo Da Vinci lived in.



It was a pretty neat place to walk through, trying to picture all that genius wandering around the rooms.



There were quotes like this all over the house.





Da Vinci's desk!



One of the rooms was filled with descriptions and representations of Da Vinci's many inventions, from water screws to machine guns. To say the least, it was pretty impressive.

Around the house were expansive gardens that we could explore. Scattered around were various other inventions



Like this. I don't actually remember what it is though.



Apparently, Da Vinci kept pigeons. Like, thousands of pigeons. They were useful for something. (Can you tell I was a little over it at this point?)

That night we had a dinner with much giggling and probably a bit too much alcohol. (However, Emma, Amanda, Erica and I still managed to keep our pact to try to speak French throughout the whole dinner!) It was all in preparation for our night at the discothèque! In fact, it was an Irish pub/discothèque. I don't even know. It was a fun night, I'll leave it at that.

Consequently, it was not such a fun morning. However, we all managed to get up, successfully check out of the swanky Holiday Inn and take one last walk around Blois before we had to leave that afternoon.



We decided to follow the fleurs de lys around for a while. (Those were the ones closest to our hotel.)





Ah Loch Ness, how you treated us well.



This, I suppose, is where all the walks meet up: the porcupine, the fleur de lys, the boat (for the river) and the church.



The other side of the stairs, just to bring things full circle.

Thus with our train ride back to reality ended our magical weekend of exploring castles and getting lost in history, and also alcohol.