(Don't worry, this is the last one!)
After such a busy schedule the last 3 days, we had a lazy Sunday morning in our hotel room. We ate breakfast in the restaurant at the hotel and then came back upstairs and put Jacob down for a nap. While Jacob napped, we packed up and then relaxed in the room.
We had to be back in Clermont for a Matthew to go to a work dinner, so our only stop on Sunday was to the Château du Clos Lucé. This is where Leondardo da Vinci spent the last 3 years of his life. The chateau itself is beautiful, but simple (actually one of my favorites that we have visited- beautiful brick walls and exposed wood beams is much more my style then some of the over-the-top fancy smancy chateaus). Matthew is completely intrigued by Leondardo da Vinci, and so this was perfect for him. The best thing about our visit started once we finished touring the house and headed out to the gardens. It was like Disneyland for geeks, er, I mean, engineers. In the basement of the house they had a ton of da Vinci's sketches, along with models that had been created based on his drawings. In the park, they really brought da Vinci's visions to life! There were life size replications of da Vinci's flying machine, a spinning tank, Archimedes screw, a bridge that swung on hinges, a multi-barreled cannon (that kids could crank and a recording of shots would ring out while smoke billowed out the ends!). There was also a double decker bridge that da Vinci designed after the plague. His idea was that better traffic circulation would improve the health of the cities. By offering two different levels, pedestrians could use the upper level, while carts driven by animals and often carrying waste would be below on the bottom level. The guy was just brilliant. Can you imagine what he would have been able to accomplish if he was alive today?
We really could have spent all day wandering around the park and playing with the models, but we still had a three hour drive ahead of us, so it was back in the car! If you are planning a trip to the Loire Valley, or like us, just passing through, I highly, highly, highly recommend making this one of your stops. There were a ton of kids running around, and they all had some sort of scavenger hunt/activity booklet thing given to them by the chateau. Or even without kids, if you or your husband is a geek, shoot!... I mean, engineer... it is well worth the stop. My brain doesn't work like Matthew's, but I still found it fascinating. Although, I didn't take time to analyze each drawing and the mechanics of each model (like Matthew did), or even take time to fully grasp the information on the signs. Such as this on the double-decker bridge sign: "In the rule of harmonious proportion...the height of the rectangle is equal to the diagonal of the square of the base..."
Ok, so that concludes our Normandy weekend! It was a really great road trip. I loved spending so much quality time as a family and soaking up some history while we were at it! Sadly, this was our last trip in France. We leave in July, and except for our cruise the first week of July, we have no more trips planned. There are so many more places we have left on our "to-do" list. (sigh) Maybe one day we will get to come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment