The best weekend!

This weekend was one of the best yet! I realized that one of my best decisions I’ve made in Paris was to get out of Paris. Michelle, Emily, and I had signed up to take a weekend trip to the Loire River Valley with a group called Club International des Jeunes a Paris, which is essentially just a club for people—French or foreign—in Paris, and they plan events and excursions all the time. It was a really great price for transportation, chateaux entry, and a hotel for Saturday night so we snatched the opportunity up! And hence I had the most incredible, beautiful weekend.

We had to leave Opera at 6:30 in the morning on Saturday so I woke up at 5. I’m pretty proud of my packing ability to stuff everything into just my backpack—including a towel. Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a feat, especially for such a short trip, but if you know me and my packing abilities, it was pretty impressive. Emily and I took the metro to Opera and there were actually a lot more people riding it at 6 in the morning than I would have expected. All the streets were eerily deserted, which was kind of cool. Michelle met us on the steps of the Opera and when all 50 or so of the group were there, we got on the bus. We left Paris by way of the Champs Elysees, and it is probably the only time I will get to drive down it in a car. The Arc de Triomphe was gorgeous and pleasantly deserted. I sat next to Michelle and Emily was in front of us and a really nice German girl sat down next to her. Her name is Melanie and she speaks French very well and she is so incredibly sweet! The four of us stuck together for the rest of the weekend, and it was really great to make a new friend :)

I really didn’t want to sleep on the bus for fear of missing the beautiful countryside, but I was just SO tired, so I had to nap for a little. I still got to see the rolling hills and valleys and mountains and it was like I was in a different world! We went to a rest stop about halfway through the ride and I bought a pain au chocolat and a hazelnut espresso. I hate coffee and the espresso tasted horrible to me, but I needed something to keep me awake. I was wide-awake for the rest of the trip, let me tell you. We got to Cheverney, the first chateau, around 10/10:30. My first chateau! How exciting! It was huge and white and very symmetrical and had acres and forests and rolling green lawns. We had a guided tour of the chateau, in which a family is actually living! Well, in one part. I can’t imagine living in a huge estate like that. Besides the beautiful grounds and lawns of the chateaux, what really blows my mind is that kings and queens once lived in these places that I’m visiting. I was in the bedrooms of ancient rulers—how amazing! And in Cheverney, all the furniture was original, centuries and centuries old. We had time to explore the grounds ourselves after the guided tour so the four of us walked to this lake and through a garden and to this area where there were a ton of hound dogs. I’ve never seen so many dogs in one place, howling like that. They’re the kind of dogs that were used for hunting way back in the day. We got really lucky with the weathe this weekend because it was sunny, clear blue skies and warm, all weekend! The perfect weekend for a trip to the chateaux.

We boarded the bus for our next stop, Blois, which isn’t too far from Cheverney. There are actually so many more chateaux in the Loire valley than I imagined. I would love to see them all, but I think it would be impossible. Blois is in a really cute little town (or city?) and it was so quaint! I loved that it was a city with shops and cafes but it wasn’t nearly as built-up as Paris. Much smaller and quieter and more intimate, but not old-fashioned. Paris really is a one of a kind on France, I think, and I don’t think there are any other cities really just like it. We had time to get lunch and walk around before our tour, to Michelle, Emily, and I treated ourselves to lunch at a café. It’s only the second time I’d been to a café all month. It’s just too expensive to eat out in Paris. But I had a delicious salad and it was really nice to sit and take our time eating and talk. The guided tour of the chateau was very nice, too. Blois is unique because each of its four walls/sections is from a different century and has a distinctly different style. For example, one is from Louis XII and another from Francois I. One thing that was a little different was that there were no records of how the chateau was decorated, so historians and people who reconstruct the house had nothing to really go by, so they had creative liberty to make it look like how they wanted. This makes the present décor unauthentic and kind of tacky. The tile floors were reminiscent of 1970s floor work.

Our hotel for the night was in Blois, down the street from the chateau so we went there next and got settled. Since Michelle, Emily, and I booked he trip together, we got put in the same room. It was small (re: cozy) with one big bed and a smaller bunked bed on top. Always an adventure. :) We didn’t stay in the room long because we met Melanie in the lobby for dinner. It was really nice to just walk around the city and explore, and we wound up finding a really great Italian place, kind of hidden from the main street. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was wonderful. We ate outside in a little square where there were colored lights intertwined in the tree branches…beautiful. We were really tired so after dinner we just went back to the hotel and went to bed early. All in all, it was a great day! Everything is more beautiful than I imagined and I never realized how much I needed nature. I love Paris and the city, but I think I can say that I much prefer life in the countryside.

Sunday: We woke up at 7:30 to have breakfast at 8 downstairs. It was actually a pretty plentiful breakfast, and I had a lot of bread and nutella. I’m so glad it’s a staple here! At home, I would never eat chocolate with breakfast—ok not NEVER—but here, it’s just another part of any complete meal. We got on the bus for…dun dun dun…Chenenceau! The mother of all chateaux. It’s one of the jewels if the Loire River Valley, and I was excited beyond words to see it. All the pictures are incredible, but it’s really more amazing in person. We didn’t have a guided tour of Chenenceau, so we got a lot of time to explore on our own. It took a while to move through the house, but I was really interested in seeing every room, like Catherine de Medeci’s bedroom! The chateau is on the river Cher (not Loire) and the reflection off the water is really something special. We took a ton of pictures! :) We also walked through a labyrinth and saw the vegetable garden and farm. There aren’t any animals on the farm anymore. But the apples in the vegetable garden were fresh and ripe and delicious! Don’t worry, we only took ones that were already on the ground.

You really need to spend a whole day at Chenenceu, more so than at any other chateau. I hope I can get back there someday to really explore the gardens. Oof, I am in love with it!

Our final stop, very close to Chenenceau, was Amboise. This one was not included in the price we paid for the weekend, which I didn’t know. But Le Clos Luce, where Leonardo lived for three years (the last three years of his life, in fact) in Amboise so we chose to go see that instead of the proper chateau. It was a little expensive and I was a little miffed at first because the house itself was not very impressive, and there was nothing really authentic about it. I mean, it was still awesome to be in the rooms where he lived, but I guess I was just expecting something else. It was much better when we explored the property ourselves outside. I think all of us just really enjoy nature and need to be around it. It was beautiful.

The trip back to Paris took over 3 hours, especially due to traffic driving into the city. I was feeling a little “le sigh” coming back to Paris because I missed the countryside. Wow, that makes me sound like a brat: “Oh, such a tough life, I have to return to Paris.” It’s not like that AT ALL. I just mean to say, I loved being in nature and I miss it. I think I’m going to try to get out of Paris more this semester. You really don’t have to go far outside of the city to see hills and greenery. I’m going to make an effort to take advantage of not only the city, but the suburbs, too.

All in all: incredible weekend! I’m so glad the three of us had the opportunity to explore the Loire River Valley and take in its beauty and history. :)

Until next time!