AMBOISE

The Château of Amboise on an overcast day.

Timand Anne-Marie wanted to see a château so we all piled into their rented Twingo for the long ride to the other side of Tours.
It was cold and overcast, not the usual château-purusing weather.
When we arrived in Amboise they wanted to get something to eat but we weren’t ready for lunch. We left them to find lunch and we went to have coffee before going to the château by ourselves.
The entry fee was steep, 9 euros, and no teacher discount. That always annoys me. After that I was grumpy and not disposed to see the château in the best light. Anyway, I didn’t like the experience. I find these château less and less interesting. Most of the time there is a Disneyfied reconstruction and an emphasis on the high muckity mucks who lived there without any context for understanding what life was like for ordinary people. Some significant events took place at Amboise but you would be hard pressed to understand them from the weak “guide” that you get for your 9 euros.
(1500 Protestants were murdered in the château and the adjoining village after a failed plot to free the king from the influence of his wife’s family, Mary Queen of Scots).


Saint Denis holding his head.

I escaped from the château and walked down the main street to the Plac Saint Denis. Up on a hill there was a church that had originally been built by Saint Martin at a pagan site. The church was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. Inside there were various statues on the high altar. This one in particular caught my attention. Saint Denis was martyred by decapitation. He is reputed to have carried his head until he arrived at the place where he wanted to be buried.
This church was also the place where the queen Jeanne of France heard the decree read from the pope dissolving her marriage to Louis XII who needed to dump her so he could marry Anne of Brittany. French history is a bit like the last episodes of Melrose Place before it was cancelled.


Excavations of a Gallo-roman temple.

I walked back up the hill past the château in search of Leonardo DaVinci’s house. I found it easily but there was a 13 euro charge to see the house and life sized reconstructions of some of the machines he imagined. I decided not to bother with that. Instead I continued up the hill to look for a Gallo-roman temple that I had seen signs for. I walked past les ramparts gauloises, the remnants of earthworks that are thought to have been started before 400 BCE. Finally I found the site of the temple where a team of students were hard at work excavating. One of the students was designated to come and talk to me. He was very relieved when I told him that he didn’t need to speak to me in English since I could understand French.
He told me that there had been a Roman temple on this site. They believed that it was dedicated to a goddess but they weren’t sure which one. They had identified the part of the temple where secret religious rites took place and also the part of the temple that was for public worship. They also believed that there had been a forum below the temple with a marketplace and small shops but they hadn’t begun to excavate that part of the site yet.
I must say I was far more interested in this part of French history than anything I learned at the château. I guess there was an attempt to understand what life was like for ordinary people that interested me more the carrying-on of the rich and famous. I would like to check back in on the progress of this site in the future.