The story of this place
Perched above the Loire, the royal Château of Amboise was a favoured residence of French kings and the childhood home of Francis I. Leonardo da Vinci, who died nearby in 1519, is believed to be buried in the château's chapel of Saint-Hubert. In March 1560 the castle was the scene of the Amboise Conspiracy, a botched Protestant plot to seize the young king Francis II from the Catholic Guise family; its brutal suppression saw hundreds of Huguenots executed, some hanged from the château's balconies and battlements—an early spasm of the French Wars of Religion. The Renaissance castle, though much reduced since, still commands the river valley.