Although we decided to take the later train, I still wanted to get my sleep. So Saturday, we got up at 9 to catch the 11am train. We all showered and got ready and walked to the train station. Everyone went this time except for Joel because he apparently didn't know we were going. We all made it to the train station just in time for everyone to buy their train tickets and then we all "compostaged"* our tickets and got on the train. The train ride was about 20 minutes, like the one to Chenonceau.
We got there and decided to eat something because we had checked the castle hours and noticed that it closed during lunch hour. We went to a little pizzeria and ate delicious pizza. Sierra and I shared one that had mushrooms, and something else on it. I can't remember anymore. We got these really sharp knives to cut the pizza with. They were actually a little frightening and lethal but they cut the pizza right up! lol
After the pizza we had dark chocolate ice cream for dessert. It was very delicious because it also had tiny chocolate chips in it! Yumm! We then headed to the castle which was actually quit a ways from the train station and pizzeria. When we got to the castle it was still closed so we just hung out and took some pictures. :) When we finally got in, we were all really excited.
Amboise is the castle where Leonardo Da Vinci is buried. There is a small cathedral at the castle where his body lies. It is beautiful!
The little cathedral is adorable, it is tiny but the stained glass windows are gorgeous and the architecture is beautiful. Everything in France is beautiful. When you first walk into the actual castle there is a huge layout of the castle and there are parts in red and parts in black. The black is what is still standing today and the red is what used to be the castle but got destroyed by Napoleon because he hated Henry II who lived there at the time. 1/5 of the castle is what remains standing today. It is so depressing to think of how much beauty was destroyed. After looking at the layout of it, you can tell outside where the castle used to be, it's insane.
I believe that Chenonceau is still my favorite castle but this one was beautiful as well. The gardens at Amboise are way better than Chenonceau's but it's winter so it's hard to appreciate the gardens when majority of things are dead. I wanted to stay in the gardens forever!
We had so much fun in the gardens taking pictures. There was so much to take pictures with. I'm not sure what type of trees these are but they are at all the castles and I really like them. Amboise has a lot of pretty furniture inside of it and a bed that I would die for! It was beautiful :). We were at this castle for quite some time and then we headed back a little early so that we wouldn't miss our train like at Chenonceau.
At Amboise you can actually visit Leonardo Da Vinci's ACTUAL house that he lived in. It is down the road but we didn't think of going there while we were there because we had heard that it wasn't even exciting and it was a "tourist trap". Maybe one day we'll go back and see what it's all about. The train tickets are super cheap here. Especially if you have your "carte 12-25". It's a card that costs 49€ but it gives you discounts on all train rides so instead of paying 7€ for a train ride you pay 4€ or something like that. The card eventually pays itself. I love it!
I'm sorry this castle story was a bit random and unorganized but all-in-all it was a beautiful castle that you should all visit some day and I LOVED the gardens!
*"Compostage"-stamps your train ticket with the date and time. It's mandatory to have it stamped before you get on. We're not really quite sure why but Grant said it's probably so that people don't try selling their tickets when they get off of the train because when you buy your ticket it's good for about a week. If the train guy comes around and checks your ticket and it's not stamped you have to pay a fine.
LOVE the pics
ReplyDeletethanks :) haha
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