Watching the film Da Vinci’s Code made my Asian friends came to Europe to see all places, which related to Leonardo’s life. After their Leonardian pilgrimage in Italy, they came to Holland for tulip fields and invited me to join their trip to France’s famous Loire Valley. An offer I hardly refused as I wanted to see another world heritage site.

As the trip was mainly about Da Vinci, our destination was Amboise, the last home of this influential man. Amboise is a very beautiful town on the banks of the Loire with many pretty houses decorated with many flowers. The view from the north bank toward the south side is unbelievable as the beautifully chateau d’ Amboise perched on the hill above the whole town like a fairy tale. The exterior of the chateau is really nice and the interior also lovely with acceptable amount of furniture and interesting history. It is important to note that Chateau d’ Amboise is the first renaissance style chateau in France, so this place is quite important for architectural history. The Chateau also has lovely French style garden and nice chapel. This chapel was the main reason for this trip as the remains of Da Vinci were supposed to be here. The tomb of Da Vinci is just a plain white marble on the floor of the Chapel with some inscription, but for the fans’ emotion (my friends) this place was quite overwhelming.

Not only the chateau that has link with Da Vinci, but the manor name also Le Clos Lucé near Amboise town center was his home until his last day. This manor has nice museum and large park with many reconstructed Da Vinci’s inventions. My friends and I played all these replicas with great fun, and we were amazed by the genius of Da Vinci. As my friends are great fans of this man, their enthusiasm to explain everything made this trip became really fun and opened my eye on this region. I really want to come back again to this great place in the near future.