Amboise with Mini-Châteaux and Wine Cellars

Begin at Mini-Châteaux Park, where over 40 Loire Valley castles are reproduced at 1:25 scale amid 2,000 bonsai trees — a playful introduction to the region's heritage and a hit with younger visitors. Continue to Château du Clos Lucé, the manor where Leonardo da Vinci spent his final years, exploring his bedroom, invention models, and a 7-hectare park with life-size machines you can operate. Walk through the medieval Clock Tower arch on Rue Nationale, pause at the Church of Saint-Florentin to admire Max Ingrand's postwar stained glass, then climb to the Royal Castle of Amboise for panoramic Loire views and the adjacent Chapelle Saint-Hubert with its Flamboyant Gothic carvings and Leonardo's presumed tomb. Wind down with a stroll across the Golden Island's plane-tree promenades facing the château, before ending at Caves Ambacia for a sommelier-led tasting of Loire wines in troglodyte cellars dating to 1463. Mini-Châteaux is seasonal (April–November) and Caves Ambacia is closed Mondays and Tuesdays; book Clos Lucé tickets online in summer to skip queues.