 Trail Ridge Timber Frames, Inc. France Tour 2007 (the mystery of the famous peg burglaries)
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Blois, Chambord and the Strange Dormers of Chateauroux |
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The
final destination of our trip was the town of Blois -
pronounced "Blah", which it wasn't at all. It
was a wonderful town full of windy cobblestone streets,
old buildings, a large castle, and best of all, it was
from there we ventured over to Chambord. Chambord is one
of the largest Chateaus in Europe and was another trip
highlight. It is also the place where the nasty business
of the peg bandit came to its exciting concludion. This is the Blois castle ballroom. |
All this nice stonework came from the quarries above the river. This is the inner courtyard of the Blois castle. |
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Here is a happy fellow. |
| The castle sits on the hill and looks over the lower, older part of the city. Here is the view from the castle courtyard toward the church. |  |
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Built
in the 1500's as a hunting lodge for the king, Chambord
was used very little. On one occasion the king in hurry
to go hunting raced into the stairway, hit his head on
the stone above and died on the spot. Lesson here: curb
your enthusiasm. Chambord barely survived the anger of the revolution, mainly because the revolters ran out of money. Their desire was to destroy all evidence of the aristocracy but by the time they got to Chambord they no longer had the funds. The Bastille, however, was one of the early buildings destroyed when motivation and funds were ample. Chambord was thought to be designed by Da Vinci. Here we see the moat, and plenty of boats. Apparently the king had row boats, a power boat and if you look closely you'll see a submarine - also designed by Da Vinci. |
| Atop the castle was this terrraced space that was surrounded by the towering turrets all around. In Chambord we, again obtained special permission to tour the roof structure and turrets like the one in the background. It was also a clever ploy on the part of Greg the international peg bandit detective to flush out the peg bandit from among our midst. |  |
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Two French lovers kissing in the rain. They kiss anywhere here. |
| Within the expansive roofs and turrets of Chambord we roamed at will. The carpenter's used a forest of 8x8x60' long oak timbers throughout. When building for the king, overkill rules; overkill or be killed. I've had a couple clients like that. |  |
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Here again we see the 500 year old layout marks and two temptingly loose pegs. If the others weren't here I'd..." |
| Deep in the bowels of one of Chambord's largest turrets I was able to hide in the shadows and extricate a peg. Just as I did... |  |
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Caught!
...just as I did Greg stepped out from the shadows and took the picture of me. Yes, I admit it, it is I - I am the peg bandit. |
| Here is our happy group - well, except for me. I was feeling guilty, and relieved - I had been pardoned. On the trip were, standing from left to right: Myself (the guilty, goodlooking one) Allen, Greg (the peg slueth), Bruno, Chris, Mike, Tommy, Michelle, Jason, and Mark; and kneeling, sitting, and partially falling over, from left to right: Deane, Tim, Will, Dennis, Billy. |  |
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Before heading back to Paris and going our seperate ways we headed to the town of Chateauroux to see the eccentric and strange dormers there. All of these were on the same street. Was this an example of "one-upsmanship"? I call this one "Askew". |
| Siamese twin dormers "joined at the hip". |  |
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"Joined at the head". |
| "Happy and together". |  |
That's all folks!
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