We went to the Loire because.. well, we’d never been and we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. We’d heard that it was very beautiful; we knew it was very famous; we thought we might take in a Château or two.

A friend had mentioned that the Loire Valley is also full of nuclear reactors. Sure enough, as we drove into the region we were greeted by this forbidding sight:

There are seemingly hundreds of Châteaux and other interesting sights to see in the Loire. Realising that our three-day stopover would be pathetically inadequate, we ruthlessly narrowed our choices down to two key monuments.

First on our list was Leonardo da Vinci’s last home, the Château du Clos Lucé. This charming mansion was owned by Francis 1, who in 1516 invited Leonardo to live there on a pension of 1,000 gold crowns per annum and bestowed upon him the title of ‘King’s First Painter, Engineer and Architect’. Leonardo found the King’s offer too good to refuse: he promptly crossed over the alps on the back of a mule, with his three best paintings (including the Mona Lisa) rolled up in his saddle bags, and lived happily in the Château until his death three years later.

While the Château itself is very beautiful, the main attraction (for us) was the Model Room containing working replicas of Da Vinci’s many inventions. It was astonishing to see the many devices Leonardo conceived which could not be realised for centuries afterwards as the necessary materials did not yet exist – for example: a parachute, a flying machine, a car.

There are 20 or so giant interactive machines scattered through the grounds and the boys had great fun with these. They were able to turn paddle wheels, rotate gyroscopes and clamber over extraordinary objects. Probably the best fun was to be had working the fan- shaped machine gun which let out some very loud bangs and a puff of smoke; little WB jumped a mile and big WB was delighted.

Our next stop was the famous Château de Chenonceau, a much grander residence on the River Cher. This is the most visited palace in France after Versailles. It’s been beautifully restored and maintained and every room is decorated with fresh flowers from their own gardens. The WB mamas were very interested in the history of the house – the Château actually spans the river Cher and, during World War II, the Résistance smuggled many people through the Château from the Nazi occupied zone at the front door to the ‘free’ zone at the rear, on the opposite bank.