Chateau Day

Today we went to two French castles (chateaus), the chateau de Chenonceau and the chateau Cheverny. The first one we saw was built on a river and the other inspired Captain Haddock’s house from the Tintin series by Herege. The one over the river originally belonged to Henry the 2nd’s mistress’ (illegitimate wife). It has many rooms, in one a lady lived the last 11 years of her life mourning her husband’s death and doing needle point. The grounds consist of two flower gardens, one vegetable garden, a 16th century farm, a donkey pasture and a maze in a forest. It was very interesting and in every room, there was a large basket of real flowers. It was beautiful.
In the Chateau Cheverny, we went to the Tintin exhibition; it contained rooms of the house that Captain Haddock lives in. There were seven rooms. One was the crypt as seen in “The Secret of The Unicorn.” Another was the lounge in the Calculus Affair. Then there was Calculus’ laboratory, Tintin’s bedroom, Abdallah’s gallery and the Super-Calaculor.
After that we went in the actual chateau and learned that people still live on the third floor, and that it is open 365 days a year. It was very beautiful and a favorite hunting lodge of King Henry the 2nd. Did you know people of the medieval times slept sitting in their beds, because lying down was a position reserved for the dead. No wonder the bed’s where so small! After we went to see the 100 hounds kept there. We where shocked that they all did their business in one spot! We waited the 45 minutes in order to see them fed, but they weren’t fed on time so we left the dogs to wonder where their meal was and went the three hours back to Orbec.

Josephine