Leo's Place!

16/11/2012

Bonjour mes amis!

As promised...I'm back!

I probably have a month's worth of stuff to share with you, just from my parent's visit the last two weeks!  I'll keep it as interesting as I can...no boring Museum stuff, okay?

First, I thought I'd share a little tidbit.  Maybe some of you know this already, but did you know that in France (and I think in the rest of Europe as well) the ground floor of a building is called the Zero level or Zero floor?  I only mention this because...

While my parents were here, we ate lots of delicious food...

...and it's back to taking the stairs for me...

Anyway, we live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building.  So, if you were in the U.S., you'd only have two flights of stairs to climb to get to the 3rd floor.  We, on the other hand, have a 0 floor here, so we climb three flights of stairs to get to our apartment on the 3rd floor.  Sure, there's an elevator, but we take the stairs as much as we can...

...mostly so we can have more Baguettes and Pain au Chocolat!
(Just keeping it real here...)

Anyway, today I wanted to tell you about Leo's Place...

Château du Clos Lucé!

I showed you a picture of a Chateau yesterday.  Well, the one and only Leonardo DaVinci lived there, and worked on inventions there.  It isn't the biggest Chateau we've seen, but there was lots to see and be amazed by, and the Fall leaves were just right the day we went there.  We learned a lot about Leonardo DaVinci.  He was definitely both a "right brain and left brain" guy...creative and smart!  Wow!

So...let's enter the Château where DaVinci lived the last three years of his life...

Check out the detail on the Bed!  I know, I'm easily distracted by this pretty stuff!

A number of tapestries to admire!

Okay, I know...again with the Fleur-de-Lis, but this was a REAL window!

...and I couldn't resist this door shot!

In a small Chapel...

Loved these old, rustic pots!

In the Courtyard...

Me and my Mom in the Courtyard...

 

Leonardo DaVinci is probably best known by Americans for painting this...

and of course, this...

(Of course, we went to see the ORIGINAL at The Louvre in Paris later on during my parent's visit!)

But...

Leonardo DaVinci was also a brillant Engineer and Architect, and we got to see models of some of the awesome creations he came up with...

...and the life-sized Models...

We had fun wondering about "what if" Leonardo DaVinci had been able to patent all of his ideas...

It was a cool, somewhat rainy day when we visited... 

-Château du Clos Lucé-

 so we enjoyed the grounds...

We even enjoyed the signs!

I hope you enjoyed visiting Château du Clos Lucé with us!

And...
as always, I hope you have a "Jewel" of a Day!
Jan