As you wander through the town and the streets, there is always somewhere to look and see something cool.
There is a big hill in the town, and a lot of stuff is built into the side ofit.
Working our way towards the museum.
Ooooh. A most renaissance ticket booth.
The house in which the museum resides is quite nice.
You first walk through this walkway where the rich people fired down upon the huddled masses when they started begging for food.
This is where the huddled masses ... uh ... huddled.
The place has a lot of nice gardens and ...
.. a gift shop/restaurant. Alright!~
You're not allowed to take any photos inside (the fascists), so we had to content ourselves with lots of photos from outside.
Hahhahhahahahah! More huddled masses waiting in line.
You then walk around the gardens and park, where they have exhibits and replicas of Leonardo's inventions.
This was the prototype of the helicopter ... riiiiigghhtt.
This is the little creek that runs through the park that is cool. Except for the giant ROUSes.
This is a tank. Really.
This is the missile launcher. Really.
Inside of the tank.
Closeup of yon missile launcher.
Holy crap! Rats can swim !!!!
There are these neat little painting/tarp thingies all over the park. It's quite interesting.
Uuuuh. A weird catapult like thing.
This didn't work, and we don't remember what it was.
Here is where you rent the little paddleboats.
Leonardo's giant paddleboat prototype.
Leonardo's water mill. It was having some balancing problems.
That teeter-totter doens't look like it would actually support two full sized adults.
The ancient renaissance A series Mercedes-Benz cars (these things are totally teh sweet!)
After the museum, we worked our back into town, next to see the castle.
Here comes the choo-choo train for the people who don't want to walk the 1 km to the museum.
Once you're back in town, it's hard to miss the castle. It kind of dominates the syline.
Most of the interesting shops and restaurants are right next door.
The Royal Gift Shoppe
It's really more of a palace than a castle.
Here is where the royals went to pray.
When you're this loaded, you get your own church.
The views of the town are pretty sweet.
Inside the swanky dedicated church.
This is apparently where Leonardo was buried.
Holy crap, that's ornate stone.
There's another one of Leonardo's "Tanks" here.
Dorky tourists
Hey, THERE's the sun!!!
These are some of the homes down below. Swank-y.
Spoooooky gargoyle water drains.
It's always obvious there's a huge river next door too.
These kids were having some trouble posing for this photo. Their father had a manual camera from 1900, apparently, and it took him a while to set it up.
The gardens here are totally teh awesome.
This was some sort of interesting Muslim cemetary. Apparently, there were some cultural exchanges with Persians and the like.
Back in town, we wandered around some more, where there were some pretty talented kids performing (making bacon too!)
Here is one of the big churches in town. It was pretty sweet.
It was pretty cool, there were some local kids inside offering us closer looks at all the artwork, and wondering if we had any questions, etc.
Must have been some sort of church group, or maybe they were just jealous of the central cathedral in town taking all the glory.
The day before, London had been announced teh winners of the 2012 Olympics. The healdines are pretty histrionic and funny.
"France knocked out. Paris's shock about the Olympic Games is a dirty blow for an already depressed country."
Some others: "Rage and Sadness", "WHY LONDON?", "Shocking in a Shock!"
We were wondering why more people didn't go walk down by the river.
Uuuuh. This is why.
The main cathedral in town was very closed.
The hotel we stayed at in Amboise (Manoir St. Thomas) was teh awesome. Really nice place, excellent service, and just awesome rooms.
With good beds. In France!!
Breakfast room
They even had a pool, but it was pretty chilly and not optimal swimming weather.
