Once Upon a Time in a Châteaux

Thursday and Friday, May 23rd and 24th 2013


We got up really early today to start our trip to the Loire Valley. Our bullet train left at 7:45, so we had to be at the station by 7:30 and that meant leaving our house by at least 6:30. This was my first time on a bullet train and it was really nice. It was only an hour drive but the seats were comfy and it was a little roomier than an airplane. Once we got off the train, our bus driver was waiting for us with a hand held sign that read "Brigham Young". So cool! I've always wanted to have a sign from a chauffeur! I guess I can technically check that off my list. And our driver looked so French he could have been straight out of a cartoon! He was a shorter stockier man, maybe 5'7" around age 60, with a beige sweater and slacks and one of those little golf caps. His face was round and his cheeks were actually a ruddy complexion reminiscent of Santa Claus. But the ultimate cherry on top was his large, full, mustache. I mean it actually looked like the end of one of those square brooms had been placed between his nose and mouth so that both were slightly obscured. It was the most magnificent mustache I had ever seen. As I said before, it was as though he had popped out of a cartoon. 

The agenda for the next two days was châteaux sight seeing. This region of France has so many châteaux (over 1,000) that the name of the region is often les châteaux de Loire, essentially the mansions of the Loire. We saw seven in total over the next two days! It was overwhelming. On thursday we saw the Châteaux de Villandry, a castle my teacher said inspired the design of Sleeping Beauty's castle, and the Blois châteaux. At the first châteaux we only looked at the gardens because they are some of the most famous out of all the châteaux. They were so beautiful! And nearly no one was around so we had them all to ourselves. I walked around and was surrounded by these gardens without a soul in sight. It definitely became one of my favorite places in France. Although it's too bad my pictures won't capture all the life and color that they had. 

The place was just so beautiful I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather/background

See what I mean about beautiful? That was all one garden. Sorry for the photo overload. So then we stopped and looked at a castle that supposedly inspired the design of the Sleeping Beauty one (but I hear that the true Sleeping Beauty castle is one in Germany so I don't know what to believe). 

Does this look like Sleeping Beauty's castle?

After that, we went to another - you guessed it - châteaux. First we ate lunch at this delicious little French café before heading to look at the inside of the Blois castle. This one was fairly small and not a lot to talk about for the inside. It had a couple of cool historical stories, like the assassination of Henri III. But it did have an amazing view of the city and the Loire river, which is the biggest one in France and runs through the center of the country. 

The view was worth the wait

Queen Kiana - who else wants to jump on board with that?

The cute little neighboring town

So that night we stayed in one of the old châteaux. It wasn’t at all big like the other ones, it was just one of the many that the nobles had built. It was pretty neat – but I gotta say, trying to make a 12^th century castle into a hotel doesn’t make the comfiest accommodations. I mean the floors were all old old stone and the other décor seemed nearly as old – but it was cool. 8 of us girls all stayed in one room (with multiple beds of course!) and it was fun to have a “sleepover” in an old castle!

This was our hotel for the night

Complete with its own courtyard

And mini moat

The next day was the close to the same. We saw the famous Châteaux de Chambourg as well as the Chateaux de Chenonceau. The first one was this huge palace built by François I to use as a hunting lodge/getaway. Ironically he never lived to see it completed but a lot of other kings did reside in it from time to time including the famous/infamous Louis XIV, le roi soleil (the sun king). This one truly lived up to the grandiose reputations of the châteaux. It was four stories tall and had a large number of spires/chimneys that rose from the roof. I could probably tell more about the history but I’m sure that wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as beautiful pictures.

Taken from the roof of one of (many) the spires on the roof

The last châteaux was by far my favorite. It was this beautiful white castle that stretched across the river and had these nice gardens. It looked like the opening scene of a fairytale. And the path that ran up to it was lined with cottonwood trees and their little cotton puffs were flying in the air so it looked so magical raining down white fluffs. As we left it started raining and you could look over the castle in the drizzling rain. It was one of those dream-about moments.

Tell me this doesn't look like a fairytale!

You can't see it but cotton puffs were floating all in the wind here. Like warm snowflakes :)

 That was the last châteaux for us so then we hopped on the train and came back to Paris. It was only a short trip but it was nice to be home again and not living out of a bag! I didn’t realize until then that Paris really had come to feel like home to me – not like some puzzling vacation city any more. We had mastered the metro, could stare down the grumpiest parisien and at this point avoid the pickpockets and thieves. Oh, Paris je t’aime.