To cap off our first week in Paris and of orientation, the whole group of semester students went on a weekend trip to the Loire Valley (Val de Loire). It was a nice way to spend the weekend together, even if it was tiring and rainy. The rest of this long-overdue post coming up!
I woke up around 7:00 am to make my way to the train station where we were all meeting. I ended up getting there a little early, so I had to wait around in the cold for everyone else to get there before we could board our train. When we finally did board, the train was pretty empty so I was able to get a group of seats near some friends and settle in for the ride.
Once we got outside Paris, the French landscape became surprisingly rural. We all remarked on how flat the land was (it reminded me a lot of the Canadian countryside between Vermont and Montreal) and how old and European the little villages we passed looked. About an hour and a half later, we arrived in Blois, where we would be spending the whole first day.
After checking into our hotel (above), we had two hours of free time to wander around the town, get lunch, etc., before we had to meet up again for guided tours of the town and the château. I got lunch almost immediately -- a standard formule ("meal deal") with a sandwich, Orangina, and pain au chocolat -- and spent the rest of the time walking around the streets with different groups of Tufts people. I was expecting it to be this tiny little nothing kind of town, and it kind of was, but it had lots of little boutiques, cafés, and since it was Saturday morning, a huge farmer's market with everything from fresh produce (I got a free clementine!) to raw fish, carpets, and cheese. The two hours ended up being a little too generous though, on top of the fact that it was quite cold, and so a few friends and I spent the last half hour or so in a café having a hot drink.
When it was finally time, we all headed back up the steps (it was also a very hilly town) and met in front of the Château de Blois. I won't go into too much detail about the tour of the town except to say that there were some great views,
a beautiful church,
and Joan of Arc.
The tour of the château was much more impressive. It wasn't built all at one time, so there are very distinct architectural differences depending on which side of the building you look at. The most famous part, though, is the large spiral staircase in the François I wing:
For the sake of time (and because I don't have a lot of pictures of it), I'll also skip the details of this château. When the tour ended, we had a couple hours of free time, and I spent them napping because I was exhausted.
When I got up, it was time for dinner at nice little restaurant right next to the château. Tufts treated us, which was great because I'm sure the meal we got cost a lot more than I would have wanted to spend. It was delicious, though, and very French. It started with a pâté of faisan (pheasant) and chevreuil (roe-deer), with a little bit of foie gras (liver) in the middle. I wasn't expecting much, but it was surprisingly good... The main course was salmon and carrots, and dessert was tarte tatin (like an upside-down apple pie), a French specialty. Accompanied with some white wine, it was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.
After a filling dinner, it was only about 10:00, so we didn't really want to go back to the hotel yet. Instead, all 22 of us headed out to find to night life in the booming town of Blois. Quite surprisingly, there was actually a little club at the top of the hill, but I wasn't really in a dancing mood and instead settled for a bar with three other friends where we split this:
The next morning, after a quick breakfast at the hotel, we all boarded a bus and drove to Chambord to see the famous château there. It was raining and cold, but even with bad weather, the castle was amazing -- it's the one pictured in my blog logo, and here it is again straight-on.
The crazy thing about the Château de Chambord is that it was only lived in for a few months total. King François I had it built as a hunting lodge, but didn't complete it, and the architecture made it impractical to live there for long periods of time. It's amazing that something that huge and intricate could be constructed and then pretty much wasted with no second thoughts.
After the tour of the castle, we ate another great meal a restaurant right in the square. This time lunch consisted of a poached egg and a strip of bacon with a sweet wine sauce as an appetizer, chicken and a potato dish for the main course, and a berry tart for dessert. Yes, it was as delicious as it sounds.
The next and last stop was Cheverny, home of the famous château that inspired the Château de Moulinsart from the Tintin comic strips. Cheverny as a town fully embraced the Tintin legacy, with a gift shop full of souvenirs and books, and even an exhibit featuring real-life re-creations of key scenes and settings from the comics.
The château itself (which is at the top of this post as the backdrop for our group photo), while not the most stunning architecturally, was still great inside and had some of the more interesting rooms and displays. Since this post is already way too long, though, I'll just leave it at that and post the pictures on Facebook eventually.
So after a long two days in the Val de Loire, we finally boarded the bus to take us back to the train station, and then got on the train to bring us back "home" to Paris. It was a tiring weekend, but it was great to get to see some history outside of the city, and even if the castles didn't do a lot for you, the trip was worth it for the food alone.
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