Amboise Hotels

Amboise is a town in the Indre-et-Loire department of central France, 20 km east of Tours. Amboise is located 25 km east of Tours, going upstream on the Loire in the direction of Blois. It's a small town but it has a lot of history and there are a lot of things to see. The town is incredibly charming but also a bit touristy. It is dominated by the castle which is built on the site of a fort contsructed by the Gauls. The present castle was built by Louis XII at the beginning of the 16-th century. Other sights in town are the Hotel de Ville (datinf from around 1500) and the Tour de l'Horloge (14-th century), the Church of St. Denis, which was founded in the 4-th century and last but not least the Manoir du Clos Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci lived when he worked for the French king Francois I. The picturesque town of Amboise, nestling under its fortified chateau on the southern bank of the Loire, reached its peak during the decades around 1500, when luxury-loving Charles VIII enlarged the chateau and François I held raucous parties there. These days the town makes the most of its association with Leonardo da Vinci, who lived out his last years here under the patronage of François I. Amboise is protected from the river by a dyke whose flower-covered heights are a great place for a river¬side promenade. Amboise makes a convenient base for visiting the chateaux between Tours and Blois