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Amboise-Clos Lucé and pagoda of Chanteloup

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City and chateau

Clos Lucé and Chanteloup

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Ascend the rue Victor-Hugo coming from the chateau. 400 meters and you are at
THE MANOIR DU CLOS-LUCE, a marvel of the Renaissance art, in red bricks and tuff, pure happiness accentuated by the playful game of red brick with white stone, was built in 1477. 

When Leonardo da Vinci arrivedin 1516, he brought with him, on the back of hiss donkey, three of his paintings. The Mona Lisa, Sainte-Anne and John the Baptist. In the castle a painting shows Leonardo selling his Mona Lisa to François 1er. It is said that Francois 1er came to Clos-Lucé through a secret tunnel from the chateau. 

Manoir de Clos Lucé

The Clos-Lucé was entirely at the disposition of Da Vinci thanks to this art-loving king. He could work, feast, and live without any financial problem.  Once you penetrate in the interior courtyard, you realize that everything here is made for "the pleasure of the eyes".. A 16th century oratory, added at the demand of Anne de Bretagne, is decorated by frescoes executed under the supervision of the master Leonard. Notice the splendid drape of the Virgin in the Annunciation and the wing movements of the angel. The whole art of Da Vinci is resumed in this room. The frescoes have been very well restored, since incompetent ignorants coated them in the 19th century. In Clos-Lucé you can not only breath the atmosphere of old times but look at a beautiful collection of small rough models scale projects of Leonardo da Vinci like a parachute, a helicopter and revolving bridge (realized by I.B.M. (following Da Vinci's sketches). The artist lived his last years at the manoir du Clos-Luce and died there in 1519.
The French word “poste” stands not only for “poste aux lettres”, mail, but also the old fashioned “poste aux chevaux”, halting-place where travellers could find fresh horses to continue their journey.
So the MUSEE DE LA POSTE is much more interesting than one could imagine. You will find there numerous models of stage and post coaches. Small rough models, documents and objects narrate the creation of postal exchanges created under Louis XI, from the horses, relays and messengers. Whet is less evident is you can also see the pistols of Alexander Poesjkin’s duel in 1837. Georges dianthus, adopted son of the Dutch ambassador in Sint-Petersburg, flirted with the beautiful woman of Poesjkin. The poet, getting very aggravated, called a duel by pistol and died two days after the fatal shot. But why are these pistols in Amboise? Because Poesjkin, like he writes in his book “the postmaster” was a great traveller and had criss- crossed whole Europe on post coaches. That was reason enough for the museum direction to buy in 1950 a small pistol set for sale at the auction house Drouot in Paris. Aerial postage has its department and another reminds the early days of maritime post.

A little tour in the neighbourhood of Amboise (follow the directions from the hotel de ville) brings us 3 km south to the PAGODE DE CHANTELOUP (1775). 44 meters high, its loony style reminds how much the 18th century liked the "Chinese look". That's all what's left from a splendid castle created in the 18th century of the chateau de Chanteloup of the duke de Choiseul, ministre of Louis XV, exiled after some scandal from Amboise. The architect who built it mixed French style of those days with Chinese forms. Standing there, in the middle of nowhere along a rustic pond, it’s an excellent place to pick nick.. You can visit a small museum telling the story of the chateau before ascending the steps of the pagoda to admire the view. The entrance fee might seem a bit on the high side but it includes authorization to picnic, to walk in the park and fish in the pond (carps, pikes..)

Bibliography

Regions Gourmandes: Les pays de la Loire, by H.Walden (Paris, ed.Hatier 1993)—Guide du Patrimoine, Centre, Val de Loire , by Perouse de Montclos (ed.Hachette 1992)—Het dal van de Loire, by A.Sperber (Brussels, ed.Harenberg 1992)—Par les champs et par les greves, by G.Flaubert (1885)—Guide du Routard 1998 (ed.Hachette)—de kastelen van Frankrijk, by L.P.Boon (1956)-Leonardo da Vinci en France, by J.de la Touraine (ed. Seuil 1987), Les rois a Amboise, by Paul Touvry (ed.Castellin, Tours 1978)