We finished the ride to Amboise, staying at the Chateau des Arpentis just outside town. This is a very nice place to stay, with lots of grounds, wonderful common areas and quiet, but it is out of town so you’d need a car to get anywhere. We were in the family suite, again on the 3rd floor, but the chateau has an elevator, so no worries. The family suite is enormous with lots of space to get away from each other. We headed to the very nice pool to stretch our legs and grab some sun before heading into Amboise for a scenic walk around town and dinner at another pizza place.
The next day we had the breakfast at the chateau, which is a continental breakfast and not as complete as the one in Bayeux. It was very good, but given the limitations we only had it once in our 3 night stay. We then headed to Clos Luce to see where Leonardo da Vinci lived his last years. While ducking in and out of rain, we explored the grounds that built out some of da Vinci’s drawings and learned so much more about him and his life.
We then headed back to Amboise town for lunch on the main street under the Amboise Royal Chateau and then getting some more sweets from one of the many cute shops in town. We stopped at the tourism office for directions on some vineyards that would be open and headed to Plou et Fils on the Loire River about 10 minutes outside Amboise. We got to tour the wine caves and tasted a few of their wines. On the way back to the Chateau for swimming, we noticed a pizza kiosk in a parking lot and decided to get pizza there after swimming. The kiosk pizza was great and the Chateau des Arpentis grounds make a lovely background for al fresco dining.
The next day was a tour of the chateau in Chemonceau, such a grandiose and interesting place. We headed back to our chateau for a swim, then to another winery (Maison Laudacius) also on the Loire but in the opposite direction of our first winery. The next day was our drive to Paris and we decided to get an early start, so headed back to the chateau so we could pack and get an early start.
An early start had us out of the chateau by 7 am and driving the French autoroutes to Paris in a driving rainstorm, but we arrived at the Holiday Inn Gare de Lyon 3 hours later as the rain subsided. After dropping our luggage at the hotel, I took the rental car to the return near the train station a couple of blocks away and it was time to explore Paris.
As one of our party had a foot injury and was wearing a boot, we wound up doing less walking than we had planned, but with the use of the hop on/off Batobus, which stops a few blocks from our hotel we were able to see most of the big sites. We did not plan on going to any museums and had Eiffel tower tickets for the last of our 3 nights in Paris.
We took in Notre Dame from the plaza in front while listening to a little of Rick’s audio guide, took in the Tuileries garden, the Place de la Concorde and other sights eating lunch near the Eiffel Tower – last stop for the Batobus before heading back east. We got back to our hotel to formally check in. We had a family room, but it seemed so small compared to the chateau. We had one queen and two twins in two rooms with a bathroom in between. We walked around the neighborhood near the train station before settling on dinner right near the Hotel and called it a night.