Équipe Saumur 2023: Week 2, Part 2

Please note: I have added links to the videos of the student speeches and the national hymns to the Week 1 blogpost and a group photo to the first part of the Week 2 post.

To say that your second week was a full one would be quite an understatement. Even our Friday and Saturday were very busy.

Friday saw our first excursions. We met at Saint Louis at 7:15 AM, and set out to t=visit the royal residence of Chambord. If you’ve not seen this place, it is difficult to describe.

Built in (or at least begun in) 1519 by François 1, king of France at that time, the château has over 400 rooms, of which about 100 are open to the public. Over 1,800 workers spent over 40 years building this magnificent building. We had what is known as a “visite libre” which is a free visit. That means that the students were free to explore the building and the grounds as they wished, as long as they were in groups of three or more.

The problem for me, the person who’s job it is to document their experiences, was simply to find them in this huge building and on these huge grounds.

To give you a little perspective, the entire Biltmore estate in the US could be contained within the walls of Chambord. And then there are the gardens of Chambord. It was a daunting task. Below, you will see images of the students as I find them and of some of the things that they saw.

After two and a half hours there, we got on the bus to go to Chenonceau, the ladies’ castle. I have to admit that this is my favorite of the Loire valley castles, and I have visited 11 of them.

We arrived and headed straight for the picnic grounds. Our host families had prepared a picnic lunch for each of us. French moms want to be sure that kids have enough to eat. I’m sure that each student had more than they could possibly eat. (Except maybe for Monsieur Isaiah, who eats two meals for everyone else’s one.)

We then entered these most magnificent grounds. There’s a long, wide alleyway surrounded by trees that leads to the château itself. The walk there is just beautiful. It was getting hot by then, but the walk up the shaded alley with its breeze cooled us.

We then entered the sunny, open ground in front of the castle, with the gardens of Diane de Poitiers on the left and Cathérine de Médicis on the right. I opted for a group photo from Diane’s garden.

It’s a must to read the history of this place. It really did pass from woman to woman. King Henry II gave it to his mistress Diane de Poitiers, who was absolutely beautiful even by today’s standards, as a gift. Upon his untimely death, his wife, Cathérine de Medicis, decided that she should have the château for herself.

Thus, there are two large gardens; that of Diane, done in the formal French style; and that of Cathérine, done in the less formal style.

Each room of the château is decorated with fresh flowers grown on the grounds of the château. Fresh vegetables are grown on site. There are even ponies and donkeys raised on the grounds.

Given a choice, I could easily spend an entire day exploring the château, its history and its grounds.

Below, you will find pictures of the students and some of the things that they saw.

Our next stop was Clos Lucé, in the city of Amboise. This was the home of Leonardo da Vinci the last three or four years of his life. “What?” you say. “Leonardo was Italian.” That is true. However, François 1 (yes, the Chambord guy) invited Leonardo to come to France late in his life. Leonardo agreed, bringing his entire family and many of his works with him. (This is how the Mona Lisa, called La Joconde in France, and Virgin on the Rocks came to be in France.)

His house actually looks a bit modern with its red brick façade, but it actually dates from the late 1400s as it was a vacation home for French royals before François 1 gave it to Leonardo.

We got to see Leonardo’s work room, his design desk, his kitchen and his chapel among other things. In what is called the basement, but seemed like a ground floor, the American company IBM has made models of many of Leonardo’s designs that had never been realized. (Some of these have been also realized in life-size on the grounds.)

The house is not that large, but the grounds are vast. Our students had over two hours to explore, and they took great advantage.

We returned safely into the arms of our families about 7:30 PM. Of course, some of us still had to attend birthday parties and other family events. Family life on a Friday does not end at 8:00PM.

And there was the trip to the BioParc for Saturday afternoon!