The Chateau de Chambord, the largest castle on the river La Loire
The double spiral staircase in the center of the castle, believed to be designed by Leonardo da Vinci, though the credit for the rest of the castle goes to the architect Monsart. The stairs are incredible because they are much like a strand of DNA. The two are opposite each other, and two people can go up on either set of stairs, and reach the top without ever meeting each other.
This outdoor spiral staircase was added on as an afterthought so the servants had a way to get to the King's apartments without getting in the way of the royalty
The floor plan of the castle
Inside the double spiral staircase, looking up.
My host dad, Gauthier, on the opposite set of stairs.
An architectural technique called "Colombages", named for "les colombes" or "the doves". I don't know why it is called that, but that is what it is.
Don't let this go to your head, mom... Oh, and it means "I am the queen" or more literally, "The queen, it is me."
Haha, my host dad doing what he does.
And again... :)
It was really hard to keep my eyes open for this picture... The sun was terrible.
Me and host mommy, Anne
Anne and Gauthier, they are wonderful!
The museum of Leonardo da Vinci, in Clos Lucé. This was where he lived for the last few years of his life.
This was Leonardo's bed, and the last room he lived in.
"Who can stop hate, except for love?"
"The soul can never be affected by corruption of the body"
This wasn't the real deal, the original Mona Lisa is on display in the Louvre.
You probably recognize this as the first "military tank". Manned by eight people, cannons on every side.
This was a model of the Archemedian screw, which Leonardo turned into a way of raising water from one level to a higher level. Really quiet ingenious. As the river flowed, it would turn the mechanism, and the screw would spin, collecting water inside. As the screw turned, the water would push itself up the screw, and be dropped into the higher basin.
This was the view of the Chateau d'Amboise from Leonardo's bedroom window. The same view from which he drew the famous sketch of Amboise.
The pigeonry. There were over 1,000 nooks for the pigeons.
You might recognize this piece of artwork... Just maybe...
This was called "The final hours of Leonardo"
I thought it was funny how if you changed the perspective of the photo a little bit by zooming out, a beautiful view could be completely changed by the garbage can on the side of the road. ;)
Oh, and by the way, this is the city of Amboise.
This was in the Trade-guild museum, or "la musée du Compagnonnage". They were very similar to the freemasons, and often were taken to be the same organization as the freemasons.
Anyways, they were masters of all trades of building, and they did tons of stuff like this. And in case you can't tell from the depth of the photo, this thing was like more than 6 ft tall...
"One for all, all for one"
Ok, this was the cat of the friends of my host parents. We were staying in their house. Anyways, I was crouched down to get something out of my suitcase, and this cat just jumped into my lap and started sleeping. So I had to take a photo. Now, normally, I don't much like cats, and I am allergic to them, but my pal Maurice was the shit.
"To the children of Chigné killed during the war"
Ok, I thought that it was hilarious that there was a bubble gum called camel balls, and that they had actually drawn a cartoon camel swinging his testicles at you. I know that in the states, this would never fly, but in France, apparently that is ok.
And all these photos were taken in the lovely town of Cantes Saint Martin
My host dad saw this and said something like "This building is almost as old as the United States." Pretty incredible.
A far-away view of Cantes Saint Martin
These were the steps leading down into the wine cave we visited. That was pretty incredible. I didn't get any good photos of the cave itself, but there must've been at least a million different bottles of wine, and some of them were twice the size as normal wine bottles. Very impressive, France.
This was like 1/30 of the whole cave.
See that little bottle with all the white writing on it? That's not a beer bottle, that is a bottle of wine you might find on your counter-top... Yeah...
This was a friend of my host parents'. We went to her house for "appetizers" one night and she showed us around her house. Her house was so old, it was like a recognized historical monument. And she had all sorts of really cool, super old stuff, like this spinning wheel. Oh, and it still functioned. She showed us how she makes yarn from wool. Pretty sweet...
And these last few were the only pictures I took of Versailles... Sorry, but I was all pictured out by the end of the trip. But the sunset was so pretty, I couldn't refuse snapping a few more.
No comments:
Post a Comment