Bonjour mes amis!
I have not posted in a while, and for that I apologize.
Suddenly all of my classes decided to become real and have midterms, so I have
been stuck studying for a bit. In fact, by writing this I am procrastinating my
photography midterm project. Oh well. A 10 out of 20 is a passing grade here,
and a 14 is an A, so I can’t find it in myself to be particularly concerned.
I spent last weekend on a planned program excursion in the
Loire Valley. I think it is important to note that I had to google what the
Loire Valley was immediately after ISA told me they were taking me there. It isn’t a
place that I have ever really heard of, which is such a shame because I
absolutely loved it!
The Loire River is the longest river in France, and most of
the country’s chateaux (royal mansions) are built on or around it. Therefore,
our trip to the region was primarily composed of seeing giant castles. Since
exploring castles is the thing I excel at most in life, you can imagine how
much I enjoyed this trip.
I am splitting this post into two parts because it is SO long! So this will be day one, and day two will be up shortly!
We left Paris at 7:30 a.m., which is impossibly early.
Landry and I were actually a few minutes late to our meeting point because we
got on the tram going the opposite direction of the way we needed to go …
whoops. It was entirely my fault and I blame it entirely on how early it was.
It took us somewhere around two or three hours to get to the
first chateau, Chateau de Blois, because the highways we intended to take were
underwater. We didn’t mind the long drive that much though, because we all took
much-needed maps.
Chateau de Blois was a bit of a letdown. We were supposed to
visit Chateau de Chambord instead, which I’m told is much more impressive, but
it is also flooded right now. SHOUTOUT TO FRANCE FOR TRYING ITS VERY HARDEST TO
RUIN OUR LIVES. Anyways, Chateau de Blois was fairly small and just honestly
not that cool. Well, it's not that it wasn't cool, it just wasn't as cool as I expected.
But I did take this cool pictures in a throne:
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| It was great practice for when Prince Harry comes a-calling for my hand in marriage. |
Then we ate a yummy lunch in the town of Blois, which was a
super cute little town.
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| except that ugly antenna. That's not cute. |
Because our drive to Loire took longer than anticipated, we
were a little rushed, so we hurried back onto the bus for our drive to Chateau
de Chenonceau.
Some of you may remember that I visited a very lovely place
called Villa d’Este when I was in Rome last summer, and I raved and raved about
how wonderful it was. It was probably my favorite thing I saw in Rome.
Well, it happened again. I just have a thing for beautiful
buildings secluded in magnificent gardens, and thus it is hardly a surprise
that Chateau de Chenonceau stole my heart. Just look at it guys:
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| It even has a MOAT. |
The only real bummer about this was that they have a
maze on the grounds and I couldn’t get lost in it because it was flooded. GO FIGURE
FRANCE HAHAHAHA YOU’RE THE WORST.
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| flooded gardens |
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| flooded maze. hashtag depressed. |
History lesson: the poorly lit office/desk above belonged to Catherine
de Medici, Queen of France. She literally ran the country from that desk
right there. Neat, huh?
More history: This chateau is also called the Chateau des Dames because
it is famous for having housed six women that were all very important to
France in their time. It all started when Henry II gave the mansion to
his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, as a gift. Naturally Henry's wife, the
aforementioned Catherine de Medici, was annoyed, so the second Henry
died she seized it from Diane. While Catherine lived there, she
facilitated the first-ever fireworks display in France in honor of her
son's coronation.
When Catherine died, the chateau passed to her daughter-in-law, Louise de Lorraine. Louise's husband was assassinated shortly after, and she spent the rest of her days wandering the castle in her mourning clothes. Her bedroom, shown below, was forever black.
Later on, the chateau was bought by Claude Dupin. His wife, Louise
Dupin, opened a literary salon there that included visits from such
famous writers as Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau.
The chateau changed hands a couple times after that. It was used as a hospital in World War II and served as the perfect escape from the Nazi-occupied zone to the free zone in World War II because it was situated right on the border.
History lesson over.
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| Maybe it's weird, but I was seriously in love with the kitchen. Most chateaux, castles, palaces, whatever don't let you see the kitchens because they think it won't be interesting. WRONG. It was so cool to see all the old appliances, the butcher table, the ancient pots and pans. It's just a neat side of history that we rarely get to see. There were probably more servants in this kitchen on any given day than there were royalty in the upper rooms anyways. |
Ireland and I had to rush through the gardens because we accidentally
spent too much time in the castle and our bus was about to leave. It was
leaving so hurriedly because we
had a very important appointment at 4:30 … a wine tasting!
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| "Cave Degustation Visite" |
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| #vineyardselfie |
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| sooo many bottles of wine. This is sparkling white wine if I remember correctly. It's basically champagne, but only sparkling wine from the Champagne region can be legally called champagne. The French are very serious about labeling their wine. |
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| They put the bottles in those weird boxes and slowly rotate them so that the sediment from the fermentation process falls into the neck of the bottle so they can get rid of it. |
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| We were at the Plou & Fils winery, which just means Plou & Sons. It has been passed down through the Plou family for generations. |
We dragged all our crap into the hotel and got sorted into our rooms
(Ireland was my temporary roomie for the weekend) and then we headed out
into the city.
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| These wooden buildings are neat because Paris used to be full of them, but its almost impossible to find one now. They were all taken down following the Great Fire of London in 1666 for safety reasons. |
We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant and it was delicious. I missed pasta. Then we got gelato because I’m all about those themed meals.
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| Ireland & Gelato & Me |
We walked around a little more and I took some photos for my
night photography assignment.
Then we headed back to the hotel, where I basked in the glow
of reliable Wi-Fi and endless hot water. (We’re only allowed 5-7 minute showers
in our homestay, because the hot water heaters in Paris are TINY.)
That was day one in the Loire Valley! It was a great great day. I will post my recap of day two shortly.
Au revoir!
Sydne
Read more from Sydne at http://theyesgirlwrites.blogspot.com/
To find out more about the ISA Paris, France: Arts & French Language at the Institut Catholique de Paris program, check out http://studiesabroad.com/paris
