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Published: February 1st 2010
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Today was a fabulous day.
However, the start was a little rough—I woke up at 8:56 and was supposed to meet Denise outside my house at 9. I frantically texted her (which actually takes a while on my cell phone here because the only t9 setting it has is in French) telling her I was running “a few” late, but luckily was out the door around 9:07. We treched our habitual 1.1 miles to meet up with the rest of the BEF (Bucknell en France) group to take our first excursion to Amboise!
It took about 20 minutes or so to get there, and I was actually appropriately dressed for the expected cold weather (as opposed to the first day where we had to tour of Tours—Mme Fazalley won’t let me live down the fact that I was not wearing warm enough clothes…). We could see the chateau (for those of you who don’t know, chateau just means castle in French) anyway, we could see it from the bus, and it just looked kind of out of place because it’s literally on one side of a main-ish road with lots of shops off it…Kind of like it’s not big
How Big Amboise Was
The black part is what's still there deal there’s just this castle chilling in this tiny town…But the weather was actually not too bad (at least with a scarf and both my fleece and parka it wasn’t bad) and we got a guided tour (in French, so I’m sure some things were lost on me) of the chateau. Apparently Amboise used to be really huge, but around Napolean’s time, senators would live in the old chateaux in their respective towns, so most of Amboise was torn down and just a corner of it was restored, along with a very small chapel, which is where Leonardo da Vinci is buried. The chateaux itself was pretty cool—although it didn’t hold a candle to Versailles (in Paris).
We walked through the castle, hearing tidbits of information about the previous kings who had lived here (and how Charles VIII, I believe, died here, because he didn’t duck enough to get through a door and hit his head. He wasn’t very tall—probably shorter than me, but I guess most old castles would have really small doorways on the inside so that if it was ever under attack, guys wearing armor wouldn’t be able to get through). When we reached the top
of one of the towers, our guide told us that usually you’re able to see the big cathedral in Tours from it—however, once we got outside it was snowing and the visibility really wasn’t all that great…
We then had allotted time to look around the garden (where the castle used to be is now a garden). Due to the snow, we took about 3 minutes and then all headed to the gift shop, where we decided we would do lunch a littler earlier than planned.
For the first excursion, Bucknell took us out to lunch. It was cold and wet outside, so we were all happy to be going to a restaurant together, as opposed to being left to fend for ourselves and most likely just grab a cheap crepe or something. We I had a three course meal, with 2 or 3 options for each course. I started with a salad with paté, then had some sort of white fish with a delicious sauce, and desert crepes. This was then followed by a cheese plate, and then we decided (since we had some time to kill) to have coffee after too. It was delicious, and a
fun time for us to all be together. (We filled in Mme Fazalley about our exciting February break plans, and our new April break plans which consist of Rome, Sicily, Athens, and ending with five days of complete relaxation at a resort on Ios, a Greek island—but you’ll read all about that in due time!)
We took about two hours for lunch, and by the time we finished the sun was out and it had turned into a beautiful day! We took a short walk to Clos Lucé, which was Leonardo da Vinci’s house the last three years of his life. It was absolutely beautiful. We decided to take a tour of his garden first, while we knew the weather was nice. Weird invention type things were placed around Leo’s garden, demonstrating things that he “imagined” during his life. (All the signs explaining the inventions said he imagined these things—which is a very poor translation.) It was an amazing time, enjoying the beautiful weather, walking around the garden, and, of course, playing on the playground we found.
We then strolled though his house, which was pretty cool but it’s pretty much just the actual building that is original—the
rooms are all decorated with things that were probably like what he had, but weren’t the actual things. Also, Leo’s actual artwork is all in real museums too—it was kind of funny because there were some prints of his stuff, like the Mono Lisa in some of the rooms. This is because Clos Lucé is privately owned—it’s not the government’s property, just some really rich family owns the place—kind of crazy.
Leonardo da Vinci really was a cool guy though. He lived in the 16th century, and so many things he invented were completely crazy and unheard of for his time—he laid the groundwork for the ability for airplanes to exist, as well as inventing mobile bridges so that armies could cross rivers, then pack them up again.
After Clos Lucé, we had a bit of free time in the town where we did a little shopping and Annie, Allison, Denise, Mackenzie, and I went to a patisserie where Mackenzie told us that she was quitting Bucknell in France and going home in two weeks. We were all shocked and had no idea she was so unhappy here. None of us really knew what to say for a
Crushing the walnuts
This is where a donkey used to walk round and around and around...now there are all sorts of gears and stuff on the ceiling regulated the speed of everything--Thanks Leonaro da Vinci for inventing gears! minute, and then she started laughing and told us she couldn’t believe how gullible we were and that there was no way she was leaving. It took us all a minute to recover—I’m still a little scared thinking about it. Haha
We then went to a huilerie, a place where this guy makes walnut oil—the business has been in his family for years and years, and now it’s just him that runs it—It was pretty cool, there was this huge crushing stone that turned the walnuts into paste, (which is now electric, but it used to be powered by a horse walking around in circles, like in Pirates of the Caribbean) then the paste was heated for a little over an hour, then it was pressed and the oil was squeezed out. I’ve never had walnut oil before (and actually, I’ve still never had any, but I feel like I have because the place smelled so strong—I think I still smell like it a bit.) I bought a bottle for my family here, who are all health nuts (haha get it, nuts?) and they really like things that are completely natural, and they like walnuts (a pretty common snack
here—not that snacks themselves are common occurances).
After a slightly longer than necessary visit to the oil place, we went back to the bus, where the driver drove us to the other side of the river where would could take pictures of the castle at sunset! It was one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen. A fabulous first excursion and I’m already looking forward to the next one!
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roomie
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yay pretty pictures
either your photography skills are stellar or france is really picturesque. or both. yay leonardo's grave that's cool. :) haha i'm weird.