Apartments for Rent

Harvey at the kitchen table

View of the courtyard from the kitchen

Sunny and Quiet Flat in Paris - The best thing about our first rental was the washer/dryer.

Un Petite Troglo

Best Bathroom ever

Sleeping in the Cave

Gite de Charme Troglodyte - Great rental, loads of room quiet and on the beaten path.

A tile job  after my own heart

View from the front window

Gite de Charme Semi Troglo Center Ville - Both of our rentals in Amboise were with Mireille Decrock. She was very accommodating even though the crazy Americans needed the heat turned on. She had decorated all of her properties beautifully and ensured that beds, pillows and towels were comfort standards. Included also was a small amount of breakfast supplies.

If staying in Amboise, the best grocery store is on the way out of town, E. Leclerc. The Carrefor on the main street is expensive.

Rain, Castles and Google Maps

We arouse early to get to the Chateau Royal before the tours arrived. Buses with old folks and young folks all about us. Arriving about 30 minutes after opening and it being a 90% chance of rain, we found ourselves pretty much alone, except for the lawn guys and the ladies at the ticket counter. The wind whipping around us, we had a gorgeous view of the Loire.

Me, wearing Tammy's raincoat. Thanks, it was indispensable!

High atop the city Amboise

The biggest draw of the Castle de la Loire, was the grave of Leonardo. According to the books, his grave was uncovered many years ago from an unmarked grave during renovation and moved to the

chapel on the grounds of the castle.

We wandered around, marveling at the immaculate grounds and the general state of the buildings. It is said that there are 4.5 kilometers of tunnels under the castle for all the workers that took care of the Royal Court. But Castle de la Loire is not what I was drawn to Amboise for, it was for Chenonceau, located on the Cher River.

Built right over the Cher River.

Now, in the few days I have been in the Loire Valley, I have learned that one can go broke seeing castles. You can't swing a cat without hitting a castle or a chateau, they are frickin' everywhere. As we had already given our moolah for the day to the Castle, I just wanted to look at Chenonneau and maybe walk around the gardens. Maybe drink a noisette in the town. But there was no way to get past the gates. Thus my delightful Monkey Man got us on Maps a la google and we plotted a series of small dirt roads that looked as though they followed the edge of the river, on the far side of the castle.

Dirt path leading to the far side of Chenonneau. Raining like crazy.

Sure enough, thru the magic of our google overlords, we found a great path right up to the castle. We hid under an ancient stone archway during the worst of the rain. That didn't bother me none, because a lovely bottle of Cheverny White was waiting for us at our gite.

Amboise, the King o' France and Leo

Amboise has charisma oozing out of every crevasse, courtyard and stone within it's charming borders.  Once home of the French Royal Court, the town is a mixture of  15th and 16th century buildings (and of course, TROGLO's)

Wine and cheese and birthdays, oh my!

I choose Amboise as one of our hubs, unsuspecting it was the heart of the Early French Renaissance. nor that it has been inhabited since neolithic times. I mean, even the Visigoths visited here! The castle, as we know it, became a hub sometime around 1489, a bastion of enlighten thinkers and artists.

High above on the ramparts.

The real surprise of this small village, with it's tiny, twisty alleyways and crazy beautiful buildings, is that Leonardo Da Vinci lived the last 3 years of his life here. I guess I always thought he died in Italy, but at the age of 64, Charles VIII, the King of France, asked him to come, stay, work, paint and generally, just hang out and do what he wanted. Chuck gave Leo a Chateau with a generous allowance and a secret tunnel that connected to the castle. It is unimaginable to me that at age 65, in the late 1400's, Leo crossed the Alps on the back of a donkey. Of the personal items that he could put in the donkeys trunk (which was probably about the size of the Fiat we have rented) he brought the Mona Lisa. I always thought the French had stole her, like they stole most of the art in the Louvre.

Leonardo's Chateau

We toured his last home, viewing his last works and those of his students. Harvey was fascinated with his inventions. IBM had gifted the Chateau Leo's inventions in working model forms bringing his flying machines, swinging bridges, geared vehicles, to name a few, to life.

More of Leonardo's personal items.

The room where Mona Lisa first lived in France

It has been a rainy day and the Chateau full of school children. We wind our way back down the narrow street to the Carrefour and buy the fixin's for French chili to be cooked in our new gite, in which the kitchen is in a cave. A lovely bottle of Samuer (white wine) and a bar of dark chocolate, and we are out the door for a warm and dry evening.

Paris to Amboise

Harvey drove us out of Paris in a blue Fiat 500. An absolutely amazing feat. That we found our rental car in a parking garage 3 stories (out of 5) underground, lit with soft purple lights; emerging on a street where we had no idea where north, south, east or west were. Harvey had googled directions to the Periphery, the large expressway that circles Paris, that morning while we were cleaning our apartment. Just in case the GPS did not work.

 

Page 1 of directions, Oy!

We were relieved when the GPS kicked in but oh, what a route it chose for us! I began to feel uneasy when I noticed we had reached the Pigalle district and then could not believe we were directed past The Moulon Rouge. Onward we traveled down to Place Clinchy, the boulevard ever widening, the buildings becoming ever more upscale. Ahead I spied and arch in the road. My stomach jumped. "Harvey, I think we are fixing to drive thru the roundabout at the Arc du Triomphe" I said, hardly believing what was going to happen.
"No, we're no where near it," Harvey stated with conviction in his voice.

The busiest roundabout in the world.

Harvey made it thru the first go: no dents, no horns, no wet pants. Nothing was impossible after this.

Finally on the A10 and heading to the Loire Valley and Amboise, these were the signs at most of the exits.

 

Travelers get nice picture of the various castles, lakes, chateaus and towns they could visit. Liking the road less traveled, we left the A10 at Blois and drove along the Loire River to Amboise. The road sits on top of a large dyke, with all the old farmhouses and fields to out right, the wide and fast river on our left. The fields are all shades of gold and green. We passed well maintained forests; fully grown trees standing attention in straight military lines. Every so often, there was camping available, with parks full of caravans, lawn chairs and canoes. Signs whizzed by for various farms advertising exotic homemade cheeses-cow and goat, asparagus-green and white, and of course, wine.

Then we reached Amboise, across the River Loire.

Just one side of the Castle

This castle and a cave to sleep in to boot! Tomorrow we explore, eat cheese and drink wine.

One of the many Troglo under the castle.

Au Petit Troglo

Entry, Au Petit Troglo

I am now officially a Troglodyte. Last night I spent the night in a cave under a castle that was built in 1400's. A cave with WIFI. Leonardo D Vinci is buried near the castle (not in my cave) and we're not even in Italy!
'Nuff said!