Chenonceau and Clos Lucé

We wanted to see two chateaux to the east and two to the west.  My favorite is Chenonceau, and my dad really wanted to go there, so we decided to start there.  It's beautiful, and it has lots of great stories.  It's built out over the Cher River.

The chateau's main story revolves around Catherine de Medici, her husband, Henri II, and his mistress Diane de Poitiers.  It was Diane's main residence until Henri died in a jousting tournament.  Then Catherine kicked her out (to Chaumont-sur-Loire) and took the chateau over for herself.  There are two beautiful gardens on either side of the castle.  One is supposed to be Diane's and the other Catherine's.  This is Catherine's.

Vivian and I got a balcony selfie with Diane's garden in the background.

We also got a picture of the princess alone on her balcony.

She has on her kid's audio-guide headphones.  We picked the audio guide up at the beginning of the tour.

The house is beautifully set up, and Vivian went methodically from number to number listening to all the explanations.  She loves audio guides :-)  I got a picture of her in the gallery which is the interior part of the river spanning structure.

In Catherine's time it was used for grand balls, but during World War II it served a very different purpose.  The Cher River was the dividing line between occupied and unoccupied France, so the French resistance used the gallery to smuggle people out and supplies in.  It's a miracle the Germans didn't bomb it.

Elena has no time for audio guides.  She was determined to explore every room on every floor at least twice.  Since there were five adults, we took turns shadowing Vivian, chasing Elena, and actually enjoying the chateau ourselves.  I tried to capture Elena in exploratory mode, but all I could get was pictures of the Elena blur.

She slowed down enough on the marble stairs for a real picture.

We all enjoyed the chateau so much that it was well past regular lunch time by the time we wrapped things up.  Luckily, there was a little sandwich shop and a picnic area along the water, so we got sandwiches and enjoyed the lovely day.  We gave the leftover bread to Vivian for feeding the ducks who were optimistically hanging around.

After lunch, we drove to Clos Lucé, Leonardo da Vinci's home for the later part of his life. He was invited to live in France by Francois I, Henri II's father.  The house itself is pretty,

and there were some interesting things to see inside,

but the best part was the gardens.  There were several models of Da Vinci's inventions and kids could try them out.  Vivian's favorite was the spinning device.  She could get up enough speed to give herself a ride.

We had a lot of fun in the garden, and then we headed back to our hotel for a rest and dinner.  We tried a restaurant down the street for dinner on our second night and had a delicious meal.  I know we would have fun in France no matter what, but being able to enjoy it with family makes the whole experience even better.  Vivian especially loves having more audience members for her iMovie creations ;-)