Day 11: Escape Chateau Amboise

We had a full day, I am blogging at 12:45am. 

We left Beaune at 8:30am and as we passed through Toucy we were in the middle of the Saturday market, it seems you can buy live chickens for 15 euro, not a bad price, but Iris would not let me stop the car. 

We arrived at an working museum called Guedelon. Using 13th century tools and techniques they are rebuilding a stone chateau. Really they have created a village already, in order to support the project. Of course there are stone cutters and quarry workers. But there were carpenters, blacksmith, rope makers, cooks and farmers. As you can see we ordered a typical 13th century meal with pork, sausages, egg (we think) and lettuce. We also ordered a meat plate to share.... There was not too much sharing, Iris volunteered to eat the pickle.

Here a worker uses an axe to shape a beam from a log with unbelievable skill.

Back in the car for 2.5 hours. After a brief shopping break at the Grand Frais, a great find for fresh produce, we arrived at our final destination, Amboise. The house is perfect, Clean, spacious, well equipped and best of all a short walk to the centre of town. The owners have an old collection of cool hats. The Internet works too!

We walked around town which is lively and intriguing with many paces to eat. Lots to explore tomorrow including the Sunday market with 400 vendors. 

I forgot a funny story. Remember the Gaul sword we bought? Well Iris was right, it is too long for our suitcase. So on the drive we found boxes in the trash that I will cut up and tape around the sword so we can check the sword as language on the plane. I don't think we could get it onto the airplane as a carry on.

Why did we name this blog Escape Chateau Amboise? 

While walking around Amboise we ended up buying tickets to the 10 pm light show about the history of Amboise. Of course the story is told in French, we are all very tiered, the show ends at 11:30 pm, the show is outside. Clearly we should have been wiser about this grand spectacle. Upon sitting in our seats we knew that we made a mistake. The show started 10 minutes late, then it started to rain lightly. Finally when Jonah fell asleep we got up and pushed our way off the stadium seating and walked out crossing between the seats and the performers. We made our escape, laughing all the way.

 

For sure we learned a lot today. Mostly the 13 century building and innovation for the time period was impressive. One of the coolest tools was used by the rope maker to twist string into rope using a two part tool we are calling the rope tool. I had no idea how many innovations came from the Romans. I think the boys wee impressed by the second floor outhouse. Iris picked up a recipe for bread and chicken-fat pudding. Isabel loved the lunch plate.