Amboise

Holidays seem to go so quickly. We have packed so much into just one day today, walking the shops, exploring the backstreets admiring the gardens and stories that are told by the timber and stone buildings, visiting the last home of Leonardo Da Vinci, and his garden, afternoon drinks in the sunshine of the hotel garden and dinner in the little restaurant across the road.

Leonardo da Vinci, he would have to be someone you would invite to dinner if you could invite anyone at all from past and present.  What a fascinating man, and to think we stood in the house he spent the last years of his life, the bedroom where he died, looked out of the window that held his favourite view of Amboise Chateau, and gazed at the desk where he wrote and sketched many things, including his will and last words. Incredible.

Also incredible is the fact that people have made working models of some of his inventions from his drawings. A device for drawing water up hill, the first shifting spanner, ball bearings, a tank that could fire automatically, a machine gun, a bicycle and the first automated car, all be it without an engine, the parachute, water wheels, a device for accurately measuring distance, etc etc etc, and all this between sketching, painting, sculpting and architecture of famous town and palaces. What a man.  The garden around his home has also been restored and a section added to display the working models.

We have had an early night as Max has come down with a cold and we need our energy for another exciting day tomorrow.