Apart from those who live in the area, very few have ever heard of Dampierre-sur-Loire, yet this is where one of the most astonishing Queens of England ended her days.

I became familiar with Château Saumur, or at least its image, in college many, many years ago (1972) while training to be an art teacher.

He imagined vertical flight long before the necessary technology to make it work saw the light of day.

It is not too fanciful to say that the world owes a huge debt of gratitude to Francis I, King of France for Leonardo's Notebooks, or at least some of them.

Francesco Melzi was an Italian aristocrat. His family took the name from their home town, Melzo near Milan (Francesco has a street named after him).

John Evelyn visited Amboise in 1644.

When was it built? No-one knows. Some sources say parts date from the 1100s. Others say that it was built in the 1300s as a Watch Tower. The consensus is the second half of the fifteenth century which makes it the oldest house in Amboise.

In 1494 Leonardo da Vinci started working for Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan.