Tours

Saturday afternoon we embarked on our tour of three French chateaus in the Loire Valley. Our tour guide was a friendly French man that drove us around between the chateaus in a diesel VW minivan. First we visited Chenonceau or 'castle of the ladies'. The chateau is actually built like a bridge over the Cher River (a tributary of the Loire). The chateau was quite impressive, as were the gardens and woods that surrounded it. We had nearly 2 hours to visit, which gave us plenty of time to tour the castle and walk on a few of the trails. Once again we managed to luck out with the weather. It had been raining on and off all day, but managed to be perfect whenever we wanted to be outside. After Chenonceau we drove to Amboise to see Close Luce- the last house of Leonardo da Vinci. We were able to tour his house and even see the bed where he died! Most of the exhibits within the house focused on him as an engineer rather than an artist (which Nick really enjoyed, of course). In the basement of the house there were several replica models of many of the machines or tools that he designed. After visiting the house we walked through the gardens that also included some larger working models of his inventions. Next we took a short drive to the royal castle in Amboise. Since all the royal palaces were starting to look the same we opted not to pay another 7 euro to go inside. Instead we walked around the medieval town, took some pictures of the outside of the castle, walked down by the river bank, and most importantly- bought some delicious ice cream with the money we saved! There was also a bit of wine tasting at the conclusion of our tour- neither of us will ever be wine drinkers, but at least we can say that we have had some of the famous Loire Valley wine.

For dinner last night we decided we were up for a taste of Europe (fast food style) and tried out the local Nabab Kabab. The kabab is a really large hunk of what we believe to be pork that spins around under a heat lamp all day. When you order, they shave your portion of meat off of the kabab and put it on a toasted bun with white sauce, chili sauce, or ketchup- delicious!

Today (Sunday) we rested up a bit from our long day we had yesterday. We enjoyed a new type of pastry for breakfast from a local bakery- paille- a crunchy layered pastry with some kind of jam in the center. Then we walked around the old part of Tours that consisted of a gothic cathedral and several medieval buildings. We even stumbled upon a large street market, which was really more like a town yard sale. We decided that the random junk they try and sell in France is remarkably similar to that of yard sales in the US. The season 2 Friends VHS tapes were pretty tempting, but we were able to restrain ourselves (plus we don't have that kind of room in our backpacks). After wandering through the market we walked over a bridge to whatever small town is across the river from Tours. The bridge offered some great views of the river and the houses that are on the hills.

Once our walking tour of Tours was finished, it was time to tackle washing our clothes in a French laundromat. Doing laundry here was incredibly expensive (over 4 euro to wash and dry!) so we settled on doing only one load to get us by until we find somewhere cheaper. So to everyone for gave us a hard time about how much stuff we brought... we are really glad that we aren't going to have to do laundry as often! We managed to figure out the odd assortment of knobs and buttons, and we also had our first experience in using the small free washer that is located in the sink :)

We leave on the train for Madrid in less than an hour. Going to Madrid includes a nearly 3 hour trip back to Paris, a 8 hour ride to the border city of Irun, and a final 6 hour ride to Madrid. On the bright side- we are getting all of this travel through the beautiful countryside for only 24 euro a piece with our rail pass. We will update again from Spain once we recover from our journey. Adios!