For our second weekend with Michael's mom here in France, we headed to the Loire Valley to explore the chateaux and wineries. To start, we took a train from Paris to Tours, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes south on the high-speed train and is a great base for exploring the Loire Valley. Tours is a pretty amazing city in and of itself, which we didn't actually know too much about before arriving last Thursday night. On Friday, we braved some dense morning fog to visit the chateau at Chambord, which is everything you would want a French castle to be, complete with a fire place to beat the chill! A few fun facts about Chambord: some experts think the incredible central staircase may have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci; during WW2, the art collection of the Louvre was moved to Chambord (including Ms Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo); and the chateau was the inspiration for the Beast's castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. We spent that afternoon at the chateau de Chenonceau, which is ridiculously beautiful and is also apparently the most visited chateau in France, following Versailles. Out of all of the chateaux we saw this weekend, I would definitely choose to live in this baby. On Saturday, we visited the chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau, which sits on an island in the middle of a river, similar to that of Chenonceau. We got into the habit of taking the audio guide along with the admission, which made our visits way more enjoyable, as we could actually understand what we were looking at, and the stories of the people who lived there. That afternoon, we found the Cave des Producteurs de Vouvray for some wine tasting (and buying), where they offer a tour of their Troglodyte cellars. Needless to say, we enjoyed it tremendously. We capped off Saturday with a joint birthday dinner for me and Michael (I am September, M is October) at a fantastic restaurant in Tours called La Deuvalière. We feasted. A huge thanks to Art and Sue for treating us to such a delicious and special dinner! We capped off our weekend on Sunday with a visit to the chateau where Leondardo da Vinci lived during the last three years of his life - the Château du Clos Lucé. Not only is the chateau beautiful, the peaceful gardens showcase many of his engineering inventions. You can see all of the photos from our weekend in our Loire Valley album.
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AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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