My Weekend as a Princess

I visited four of my châteaux this weekend, and was happy to see that they were all in good repair and looking as enchanting as ever.  First I stopped off at Cheverny and said hello to the hunting dogs, then I dropped by Blois where I passed a pleasant night with friends.  There were some rather pleasant people at these two châteaux who guided us around and showed us all the beautiful decor and recounted the history of the structures.  Sunday I took a turn around my beloved Chenonceau, and finished up the day by popping over to Amboise before returning to Paris in time for dinner.  It was a perfectly lovely weekend for this little excursion into La Loire, with sunny cloudless skies and comfortable temperatures if one took care to stay out of the shade.  The company was exquisite as I was accompanied by three friends from the IES programme: Mlles Chrissy, Amanda, and Lindsey.  We had a simply fantastic time taking photographs, lunching by the river, and sampling the local cuisines.  We even ordered a bottle of red at dinner from Cheverny after having spent a good part of the day there.  Quite excellent indeed!

Château Cheverny

Cheverny hounds

Château Blois

Château Blois

Overlooking Cathedral St. Nicholas from the walls of Château Blois

Cheverny wine at dinner that night!

Chenonceau

la galerie de Chenonceau

Château Amboise

On the banks of the river Loire with Amboise in the distance

The doors of old are too small for the likes of me :(

Blois

Chenonceau

                                                               

Amboise

So this was a trip run by a program called CIJP (le Club International des Jeunes à Paris--Club for Young People in Paris), of which I am a member.  They also lead conversation groups on Tuesday nights, and I plan on attending some of those after this week of mid-terms is over.  I am signed up for two more excursions with CIJP: one to Mt Saint Michel and Saint Malo that is at the end of March and another that is to the châteaux Fontainbleau and Vaux le Vicomte at the end of April.  I will be going on the Mt Saint Michel/Saint Malo trip with my friend Chrissy, but so far I'm going stag on the April trip, which is totally fine because there are lots of interesting people to meet on these trips.  There are people from all over the world, all under the age of 35, and all living or studying in Paris.  I met a guy from England, a girl from Canada, a man from Brazil, a girl from Romania, and a guy and a girl from Switzerland.  There were lots of other Americans on the trip too, but we didn't really talk to them.  The four of us were American enough without all the others chiming in!

The first day involved two guided tours, which was a bit exhausting, but extremely informative! I learned that when you paint directly on the ceiling it's called "à la française", the animal of King Louis XII was le porc-épic (the porcupine), the animal of François Ier was the salamander, and château Blois was never finished.  People still live in château Cheverny, and they're descended from the original owners.  The part of the château in which they live is kept private, but still, their house is half museum.  Weird.  We spent the night in a hostel in Blois where I shared a room with a very sweet Romanian girl named Anna.  After going out to dinner with my IES friends (Anna opted out unfortunately) I returned to the hostel for an early bedtime because I had to get up for breakfast at 7:30am.  Oh, and this is after having to wake up at 4am, yes 4AM! to be at l'Opéra Garnier for the bus at 6:30am.  I slept very well in a bunk bed in the hostel (keeping up my loft-bed tradition haha!) and had a lovely dream that my mom was with me in Paris!

The next day was by far my favorite because we visited Chenonceau--the most magical magnificent château of them all! It's half bridge (over the Cher river which is a tributary to the Loire river), how can it not be the coolest château in the Loire valley? There may be bigger ones, but are there bridgier ones? I don't think so.  We didn't have a guided tour, but with a little info pamphlet and 2 hours, I discovered plenty about this château.  For example, the kitchen was equipped with every single cake mold you could possibly imagine:

This château was probably my favorite because its chief inhabitants were always women, therefore it was decorated by women.  All the other châteaux are beautiful, don't get me wrong.  This one just matches more.  Finally we landed in Amboise, where an absolutely ginormous château is located.  It used to be a fortress, so it's walls are Medieval and large, while the bits that were added on later are much more detailed and delicate looking.  We didn't go in and instead opted to take a stroll over to Clos Lucé, the château where Da Vinci lived and died after he came to France with King François Ier.  

Clos Lucé

Chrissy and me in front of the gardens of Clos Lucé

We did not go inside here either (although I kind of regret that upon hearing from another participant who did that they had all sorts of inventions of his realized in the gardens).  Instead, we walked up to a overlook that gave us a fantastic view of the fortress and the town, then payed a visit to a nearly 100 year old chocolatier.  We ate our chocolates by the river in front of château Amboise, then explored some more of the town before getting back on the bus to return to Paris.  By the end of the trip I had a sense of extreme fulfillment as I knew that I had just spent two very successful days in a beautiful part of the world.

But my weekend was not limited to La Loire! Oh no! I also visited Balzac's house with my literature class and finally went to Montmarte! Not a whole lot to tell about these visits, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

La maison de Balzac

The garden is public and therefore an excellent picnic spot!

View of the Eiffel Tower from Balzac's garden 

(keep in mind that it was not around when he lived here)

When we took the wrong turn out of the metro, 

Anna and I discovered the bridge from Inception!!!

Apparently a total rip-off, but famous nonetheless.

The café from the movie Amélie! We stopped there for a drink after touring the area.

Which brings me to...

My gigantic glass of wine at Café des Deux Moulins!

And a graffiti cow.

The original moulin of Montmartre

After lots of hill climbing, we finally reached Sacré Coeur.

We went inside and there was a mass happening.  I was a little uncomfortable because I felt like I was watching the re-inaction of some ancient religious ceremony as the people went up to take communion.

Random art expo between two buildings.

Now that I've been to Montmartre once, I have made a goal to go again. (I don't know why it is so hard for me to think about getting up there! It's really not that far.)  I need to go back to a honey store that I saw across the street from the Amélie café, and I want to go up to Sacré Coeur to watch the sunrise.  Hopefully I can report the fulfillment of these goals in a future post!

For now, it's off to study for midterms.  Midterms? In Paris?? Unfortunately, yes.  But my reward for making it through the week will be a weekend trip to Amsterdam with my housemate.  Your reward will be a fun-filled post about said weekend at the beginning of next week!