Chambord

The last castle that we went to on the Tours weekend trip is Chambord, it is the largest castle in the Loire valley, but it was only built to be a hunting lodge for King Francois I.



This is the view from the back. We are in fornt of a really nice restaurant that we ate at before touring the castle.

This is the view from the front. Since it wasn't built to be a fortress it really dosen't have any defenses. Although Francois I apparently wanted to divert the Loire so that he could take his boat right up to the back door but it didn't really pan out.

There are four big towers, this is the one that Francois I lived in.





Interesting fact: Chambord has a giant double helix staircase in the center of the castle. This is a picture of it. Imagine two staircases that spiral the same way, placed one on top of the other. So one person could walk up while another walks down and they would never see eachother.



Unless they looked out these little windows! In the center there is just a long shaft that both staircase spiral around. That is Shreen looking out the window and some random people at the bottom.



At the top there is a regular staircase that goes up to this tower that has the fleur de lis at the top, the sybol of France.

Pretty. Fact: all of the furniture and tapestries are brought along wherever the king goes, so when people aren't there, it is completely empty.

We also got to go on a special guided tour to the king's chambers (which was empty) and the servants' quarters. The servants lived in the highest parts of the towers because it was hard to heat. This is a picture of the roof which is all jointed wooden beams with wooden pegs.