Bonjour! Today was the day #1 and chateau #1 of our tour of the Loire Valley. We left Dijon this morning and ate lunch en route. We arrived at Chambord at around 3:30pm and spent two hours exploring it on our own. Sometimes its nice to see a sight without a guided tour, you can spend more or less time on the things that are more or less interesting for you personally. I had never seen Chambord before and it is magnificent. Construction began under François I, who wanted somewhere to stay when he went hunting (this is 1519). It was not finished within his lifetime, nor within that of his son Henri II. Louis XIV, who also loved hunting, spent plenty of time there when he reigned later. Leonardi da Vinci designed the double spiral staircase in the center, which allows two people to walk upstairs simultaneously without seeing each other.
The second double spiral staircase (I'm pretty sure this one, which is on the exterior, was added later when Louis XIV moved his royal chambers to another wing of the chateau). But it's modeled after the one Leonardo da Vinci designed, which is in the interior of another wing.
A portrait of Francois I which is located in his bedchamber. The stripes on the walls are narrow tapestries. 
Moi, on the ramparts surrounding the top of the chateau. The view from the top was stunning. I would have loved to take a horse-back riding tour of the land surrounding the chateau. There is a huge park surrounding the chateau (almost 1,360 acres) and the longest wall in France encircles it.
These are 17th century tapestries. The pic on the left gives you a sense of how big they are, the pic on the right gives you a sense of the detail.
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