Chateau Royal vs Da Vinci chateau in Amboise

Will you be visiting other chateaus ?

Do you have any kids in your group ?

Both are excellent! What time of year will you be there? The view of the Loire River and town of Amboise from the upper gardens of the Royal Chateau is beautiful. I would slightly favor the Royal Chateau, but you can't go wrong with either choice.

We are traveling in mid-October and not traveling with children. We will be visiting Chenonceau, Chateau de Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau and Chinon.

With your plans to visit several other chateaus, I think I would chose Clos Lucé. Yes it's a small chateau in its own right, but it adds in insights into Leonardo's artistic and scientific genius.

Both are wonderful to visit. It was many years ago when I was there (27 to be exact) but what I remember most about the royal chateau was St Hubert's chapel with its stag horn embellishments and it's supposedly where Leonardo is buried.

I somewhat prefered Clos Luce because it is a small chateau, more like a manor house than a big castle. It's more intimate than the larger chateaux and there's frescoes on the walls made by students of da Vinci. It also has the models of several of da Vinci's inventions. And it has a beautiful courtyard/garden which was glorious in June, hopefully in October as well although probably no roses.

Thank you all for your input. We were traveling as part of the Loire to the South of France tour and we had free time in Amboise. As it turned out, our wonderful guide, Patrick, strongly recommended the Clos de Luce and facilitated the visit for any in our group that wanted to go (almost all of us). We enjoyed the visit.

Thanks for coming back and letting us know which you chose and that you liked it !