My So Called Parisian Life: Loire Valley

It was another busy weekend! We met up with ISA early on Saturday morning and took the bus to our first chateau, Chateau de Blois. Our tour guide was from Italy but also had a bit of a Scottish accent so it was kind of hard to understand him. After the chateau we walked around the little town. One of the buildings was actually really weird. When the windows were open, these big snake things would come out. Well I don't know if they were snakes or like dragon things. Regardless, it make me think of Harry Potter. We got lunch from a little sandwich place which was actually pretty good. Then we went to the next chateau, Chateau de Chenonceau. It had really big fireplaces and fresh flowers everywhere. (I got a ton of pictures of the flowers!) After we walked around the inside, we went out to the little gardens in the back. It was really fun. There were big pillars which we climbed on and then jumped off. I don't think we were supposed to do that, but we did it anyway! We got back on the bus and had a surprise visit to a winery. I think we all had a little too much wine because we all got a little rowdy on the bus! It was 30 minutes from the winery to the hotel and I think my friends and I literally laughed the entire time. We got to the hotel in Tours and put our stuff down. Then we heard the chime of the train station right outside our window. It was a fun night's sleep.... A bunch of us went to dinner that night and it was soooooo much fun! I actually slept pretty well that night. Belly laughing basically all day long really takes it out of you!

On Sunday we went to Chateau de Chambord which was my favorite one. It was huuuuuuuge and again, there were really huge fireplaces. It was pretty barren on the inside but there were a lot of ways to get outside. It was another gorgeous day so we got some sandwiches and sat on the grass. Then we wandered around the grounds a little bit to find the horses. Again, I don't think we were supposed to go back to where they were.... Oh well. We all got some ice cream and sat on a ledge over looking a big pond. After that we all went to a cookie tasting at the chateau. They were so good! In the shop they had all the samples out so we basically ate our way through the shop. Oops. Then after that we got on the bus back to Paris and I pretty much slept the whole ride home.