Les Chateaux: Partie Deux

 Day two of les chateaux was 1/15/11. The first stop of the day was Blois. We started in the courtyard, and you could see three different architectural movements in the three sections of the building. The coolest part was the opera stairs, where the King could sit to watch the performances in the courtyard, but everyone else could still see him.

One of the parts of the building (the one not pictured here) was actually empty because it was never completed. The other sections had museums on the ground floor (for original statues and stoneworks from the area), and then the rooms upstairs were decorated and furnished with replicas. They were mostly dark colors, like brown, maroon and navy blue, with gold accents. They all sort of looked the same so after a while they got boring. There was one small room that had original wooden panels for the walls that were decorated in gold, so that was cool. I liked the floor tiles in that room too, so I added that picture to the post.

 There were random artifacts spread throughout the rooms, and my favorites were the decorated piano and a porcelain or ceramic looking violin.My favorite part, however, was the big throne room at the end. It was freezing in there because there weren't any big fireplaces but it looked awesome. The ceiling and walls were all decorated. The picture below is just part of the giant space. Also, it had stained glass windows at the end, and I always love stained glass! Of course, we all took turns taking pictures on the throne that was across the room. After that, we had some free time so we looked at the little chapel on the grounds and some random huts, probably for caretaking. One of them looked like Hagrid's hut from Harry Potter so obviously I appreciated that!

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Next, we visited our final chateau, Chambord! It was beautiful out so I got lots of great pictures out front. The best part was going onto the roof because all of the spires and towers made it look like there was another city on the roof. We spent the afternoon wandering around. Honestly, there isn't much more to say. It was a cool, big chateau, but it was weird because no one really ended up living there. The last picture of the post is some random chateau we stopped at on the way back to Nantes to take pictures of. Apparently it influenced Sleeping Beauty. Next post will be about my classes!

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