Sunday, June 23, 2013

Day 23: The Day I Started to Get Sick of Castles

I know I said I didn't want to ever get tired of castles but today at my fifth castle I might have been a little tired of them. This one was called Chateau Chambord (sham-boar) and it was beautiful. Built by Francois the First in the Loire Valley to be his hunting lodge because of the lush forests around it, it took 20 years to construct which meant that in his 30+ year reign Francois spent only 62 days in this castle. It was huge and the architecture was a marvel because nobody knows who the architect was and they speculate that he was Italian because the way its planned was only really seen in Italy and Spain before this castle was built. It also had a staircase going through the middle of the castle which was the first of its kind like that. This staircase was awesome because it was two staircases juxtaposed so that two people could be on the stairs one going down and the other going up and you might never pass each other. I also thought it was so cool that the king's bedroom was where he held a lot of meetings and he actually had a secret door on the wall next to his bed that lead to a hidden bedroom in which he actually slept. I also learned that in the king's bedroom in the 16th century there were usually a couple beds because his logistician (the guy who kept track of everything he did) would usually sleep in the room with him. Overall as much as I was sort of over castles today it was cool to have our own personal guide because I learned so much about subtle secrets of the castles.
There was also a huge chase festival going on at the castle. For those who don't know (I didn't either) chase is a type of hunting that involves dogs or something (I guess I still don't really know). In any event this castle was the big hunting and chase castle so there was a whole trophy room and there was a dog show at this festival.
After being shown around the castle it started to downpour so we decided to leave a couple of hours early and ended up getting back to Paris by the early afternoon and we kind of had a lazy afternoon since the weekend had exhausted us and I have a field trip tomorrow morning to the world's first cafe which I am so so excited about. A demain!













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