Blois

The next day (saturday) we went to two more castles. The first one is Blois.



This is the entrance including a larger than life size statue of Francois I (I think?) and his horse.





After you walk through that entry way, there is a large courtyard with buildings on all four sides. The interesting thing about this castle is that it was built over a period of about 400 years, so each side of the courtyard is in a different architectural style. Stright ahead is the most recent addition in a neo-classic stlye with romanesque columns. You can't really tell in this picture, but they ran out of money so the construction is not quite finished some of the colunms are only partially carved. The part on the right with the ornate saircase is older and more of a renaissance style.


If you were to turn around, the other side of the coutyard is from the middles ages so it has a completely different style.


This is me and my friend Louis-Claude.

This is a really fancy firepalce. It has the symbols of the king Francois I, the dragon on the left, and ??? I forget who, but his symbol is the weasel on the right.

Speaking of symbols, if I was king (or Queen I suppose) I would definitely pick a random mascot and put it everywhere. ie: porcupine.

This is the view of the inside of the big staircase.

This is me and my friends Lian and Shreen. (That's right, I have friends that aren't statues).

Cowboy Joe came too.