Castles: Part 1 - Chateaux

Good Morning Room 3

France is a very old country, much older than Australia. Way, way, way, way back there used to be Kings, Queens, Princesses and Princes that would travel around the country. They would travel to the various parts of the country that they ruled. So where do Kings and Queens live? That's right, in castles! The french word for a castle is a Chateau (you add an x to make it a plural instead of an s - Chateaux). It is pronounce shat-toe (like the toe on your foot).

There are so many different and wonderful things about each chateau. This is part 1 of a series of posts about the various chateaus that I have been lucky enough to visit. Each chateau has it's own special thing about it.  I can just imagine little princes running about the halls and causing all sorts of trouble - just like little Vinsons and Dylans.

Here are some of the Chateaus I have visited so far and some information that is unique to each. Most of the castles are named after the towns that they are in but there are some exceptions.

Quick french lesson: ch is pronounce sh in French. A good example of this is a french word that we use in our everyday language - chef. We would pronounce that shef not chef. 

Okay, on with the castles.

Château de Chambord

Chambord is best known for its size. This is a big castle with a lot of space. There is a large double staircase at the centre of the castle, which they believe Da Vinci designed, although there is not clear evidence. The rooms are enormous and when I say enormous I mean the size of your whole house!

Château de Chambord

Double helix staircase

Miss Stinson on the top balcony of Chambord

View from inside the staircase

On top of Chambord

Chambord was so impressive because it was so big! I wanted to visit a castle that was beautiful that's when we headed to Cheverny.

Château de Cheverny

Cheverny is a fairy tale castle. As soon as you enter it feels like you are a princess. There are actors roaming the grounds dressed like they have just attended a royal ball and classical music playing throughout the grounds. The actors will dance and prance about and ask you questions (in french) and they create a very magical atmosphere. This castle is also well known for being the home of Tin Tin. Cheverny is popular because there are no empty large spaces like Chambord, the whole castle is filled with furniture, clothing, artworks and the house is set out as if there are still kings and queens living there. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos on the inside of the castle but if you visit the website it has some photos there.

Some of the actors in the gardens

Some of the actors in the castle. Their costumes were so lavish.

A photo of Cheverny from the gardens

They keep hounds on the grounds that are still used for hunting

Some of the hounds were so tired they were taking micro naps on the others' backs.

One of the pictures inside the house on website

A basic map of the Cheverny grounds from the website

When we arrived it was a bit overcast and we couldn't get the real fairy tale photo but...

...just before we left the sun came out and we got this beautiful photo.

Cheverny was my favourite castle, we had seen about 5 castles but then I we visisted Chenonceau.

Château de Chenonceau

This castle was by far my favourite of all the castles. This castle is known for its feminine touch. That means lots of ladies (most of which were queens) either designed the house or had a big say in the structure and interior of the house. This was a beautiful castle. The most outstanding feature was the river ran right underneath where the queens used to hold grand balls. There is a tall tower at the front of the castle and it reminded me so much of rapunzel.

I felt like I was in a fairy tale at each castle. My question for you this week is to choose a favourite castle, it can be one in this post or any others in the world and use the internet with your parents to find out some more information about it. Remember you can post comments and questions at the bottom of each of my posts.

Au revoir 

Miss Stinson

Money Money Money

Good Morning Room 3

Welcome back to Term 3! I know you have all been learning about Australian money in class so I thought I would do a post about the money used in France. French people used to use francs until 2002 when the francs were replaced with euros. Euros are used in many countries in Europe, which is how the currency got it's name. Currency is a grown up word for money.

Use this map of Europe to find out which countries use the Euro as their currency.

The symbol for Australian dollars is $. The symbol for euros is €. It kind of looks like a curly E with two lines in the middle instead of one. You would use the word euro instead of dollars so you could say something like "Mum can I pppplllleeeaaassee get that lollie, it's only 2€?" Unlike the $ symbol that goes before the number the euro goes after.

The euro coins are very similar to Australian coins. The euro coins are 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, 1€ and 2€ but unlike Australia they also have 1c and 2c. The cents are said as 'euro cents'.

All the Euro coins, front and back.

The notes are similar too. There are 5€, 10€, 20€, 50€ and 100€ notes but wait... this is the cool part... there are also 200€ and 500€ notes! Awesome!

The coins and notes are really beautifully designed, just like Australian currency because they are both modern. 

I did go to a museum where they had some of the first coins ever used because as we all know money was original invented as a way of controlling trade and paying wages. 

I hope you have learnt some cool things about euros. Maybe you have seen a real euro before from your parents or grandparents travels? Do you know any other currencies from other countries? Ask someone in you family which different money they have seen or used and what it was called.

I hope you are saving your money wisely and didn't spend it all these winter holidays.

Au revoir

Miss Stinson

Castles: Part 4 - Gardens

Good Morning Room 3

Welcome to Castles: Part 4 - Gardens!

This is a short post about the gardens that surround most of the chateaus around France. The word garden is pronounce similar but spelt jardin. These gardens are often lavish and blooming with colour.

Beautiful garden. Notice the design, so organised. This garden is huge, see the tiny people walking around it.

Bird's Eye view of the gardens at Chateau Chenonceau.

They are often arranged in a repetitive or organised pattern. These gardens are, like all other things at the chateaus, huge! You can walk among them for hours.

A view of the chateau from the garden.

Garden at Chateau de Chambord.

You can just imagine the royals walking, no no, strolling throughout the gardens. Dane you would adore all these gardens. Lots of different trees, plants and flowers to admire.

Even when it is a bit rainy it is still beautiful.

You are very lucky to have trees and gardens to play amongst at school. 

I hope you are all enjoying the first days of the school holidays!

Au revoir

Miss Stinson

Castles: Part 3 - Medieval Fortress

Good Morning Room 3

Bienvenue (Welcome) to Part 3 of the Castles posts. Part 3 is about Medieval fortresses! Boys ready your swords and girls grab you bow and arrows because it is time to protect the castle.

I have been lucky enough to visit two medieval fortresses in France and they were both amazing!

These are a special type of castle because within the huge castle walls is also the town. Many of these are now named 'old cities'.

Aigues-Mortes 

Aigues-Mortes is just outside the large city of Montpellier. The huge walls of this fortress have been well preserved. Inside the city walls is a town, this town is like any other with restaurants, shops and people. 

View of Aigues-Mortes from above. You can see the walls and towers surrounding the city.

We went up the towers and walked around the whole outside (perimeter) of the city's walls. It was really fun to imagine when these walls would have protect the castle and the people that lived in the townships. Along the walls there are small slits where guards would have keep watch with their weapons.

One of the famous towers of Aigues Mortes. The french word for tower is tours. This is Tours Constance.

At the top of the tower it can get a little windy.

Gates protecting the entry.

These were made from iron - they would have been very heavy the lift.

One of the canon balls

One of the specially designed holes that they would drop the canon balls into.

If they were under attack they would use these weapons to defend their land for their king. One of the interesting weapons were huge canon balls. They drop these huge balls, some weight more than 50kg over the walls. Sometimes they would drop them down specially made holes in the castles that were before the gates.   

I really enjoyed learning all the medieval history of this huge fortress. 

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is another medieval city that has been well preserved and it is huge!

View from above of Cite de Carcassonne

Carcassonne had huge walls protecting it's city and castle. You could walk on top of these walls too.

Miss Stinson in front of Carcassonne. It is 9.30pm. The sun is just starting to set.

 The towers to go into the castle are huge! They used to have a draw bridge that would be lowered and raised for people to enter and exit the castle. Now they have built a bridge so people can get in and out easily.

This is the basic design of a drawbridge on a medieval castle. It helped stop the enemy from entering the castle.

I am standing where the old drawbridge would have been. It has now been replaced by a permanent bridge.

 Inside this castle it had many facts about medieval times. One thing that I found fascinating at Carcassonne was there was a real mile stone. Back in the medieval times they didn't have road signs like we do now telling us how far to the next city or town. They used mile stones on the side of the road. Nowadays we use the term mile stone for when someone reaches an important time in their lives. For example, losing your first tooth, riding a two wheel bike with no training wheels, or your birthdays are all mile stones.

This is a real mile stone!

One last thing about this city that was really cool was everything was set out like an old medieval style city. All the cafes and restaurants had medieval style names, you could buy wooden swords and shields and you could ride around in a horse and cart. One of the coolest things was the lolly shop. All the lollies were in big barrels! 

Barrels upon barrels of lollies

More barrels! 

Aigues-Mortes and Carcassonne were both very cool medieval cities. Could you imagine if Camboon Primary had to turn into a medieval fortress? The office would become the castle and we would have to fight to protect it! We could build up and protect the walls!

I hope you are all enjoying the last couple of weeks of Term 2 - holidays soon!

Au revoir

Miss Stinson

Castles: Part 2 - Bedrooms

Good Morning Room 3

Welcome to Part 2 of the Castles series in this blog. Part 2 is focussing on bedrooms throughout these famous chateaus.

The bedrooms are huge and when I say huge some of the bedrooms are the size of your whole house! Yep, believe it.

Here are some of the beds in the castles. The beds are all four poster beds which means they have large wooden posts are each of the corners of the bed. They have large thick hand made canopies that hang from the top of the bed. At night they closed the curtains on all sides of the bed and there were 2 main reasons for this.

Reason 1: Warmth. The castles had very large rooms, often with no carpeting or heating so it would get very cold. Closing the curtains maintained warmth in the bed.

Reason 2: Privacy. They also closed the curtains on the beds for privacy. Often rooms were shared and people working in the castles would walk in and out the rooms so those that were asleep did not want to be disturbed. Think of it like closing your door to your bedroom at home.

The details on the canopies and linen were amazing.

These beds were mainly for royalty, royalty means kings, queens, princesses and princes. Nobility may also have slept in beds like these, so lords and ladies. These were not beds for the average commoner like you and me.

True or False question. People slept sitting up?

That is actually true! Many people slept in an upright position with their legs out straight (like some of you do on the mat at school). They did this because they believed laying down was only for people that were no longer living. They thought it would be creepy to lay in a position like you are dead. Weird! I could not imagine having to sleep sitting up. Do not try this at home!

This is the bed that Leonardo Da Vinci slept in while he stayed in France.

The bedrooms were truly fascinating. 

I hope you are all enjoy the cold winter months. maybe you can try and make a canopy for your bed this weekend!

Au revoir

Miss Stinson