René Descartes, as the street sign says, was a philosopher, mathematician and physicist. He is remembered for many reasons not least among them for saying: ‘I think, therefore I am’ (cogito, ergo sum). Known as The Father of Modern Philosophy, his writings are still in vogue. He is also famous for stating that the mind is separate from the body. He identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness separated from the physical brain. This is known now as Cartesian Dualism. Humans have a mind (non-physical) and body/brain (physical). The mind and body are separate. It was Descartes who made the connection between geometry and algebra to solve geometrical problems with algebraic equations.

Jean Racine (1639–1699) was a gifted playwright. He is not given nearly enough credit for influencing playwrights Henrik Ibsen, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Racine was the first French author to live entirely on money earned from writing. How many plays, apart from those of Shakespeare, are staged three hundred years after the playwrights death? Racine’s are.

François Rabelais (1494–1553) was, and still is, a much-loved eccentric thought of with affection. He was a writer, doctor, philosopher and monk.

Rabelais was born near Chinon, not far from Amboise. His father was a successful lawyer. You do wonder what he thought of his son who was famous for dirty jokes and bawdy songs. No-one was safe from his funny, mocking, provocative satires. An avant-garde inventor of fantasy and of the grotesque, his laugh out loud crude language still shocks five hundred years later. His comic masterpieces are about two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel whose adventures are littered with crude scatological humour. Rabelais gave the world its ‘gargantuan’ appetite and its ‘Rabelaisian’ sense of humour.

The best part of writing a book is the research. It takes you on a journey of discovery to places you would never have heard of and therefore would never have seen.

A good case in point is Romorantin in France. Researching for Leonardo da Vinci: The Amboise Connection I found out that once upon a time royal plans were afoot to make Romorantin the new capital of France.

The wonderful library was built by Charles Bedaux for his American wife Fern who was a voracious reader. Every balustrade on the gallery is hand carved with a different pattern. Some of Madame Bedaux’ books are still on the shelves. One is a biography of Queen Mary, Edward’s mother. He was heartbroken when this cold, unforgiving, woman refused to receive Wallis into the family.

The balcony at Château de Candé is surely one of the most famous in the world. This is where, on 3 June 1937, a groom and his bride posed for wedding photographs, the most scandalous wedding in history, it sparked a constitutional crisis which changed the British monarchy forever.

Château Chenonceau is also known as Le Château des Dames (the ladies’ castle) because of the remarkable women who owned it.

Just down the road from Amboise Station, next door to Aldi, is a fine old factory with fine old gates. In the forecourt are fine old machines which, when built, were things of engineering beauty, with age are works of art.