There is a castle on a cloud...aka Le Loire Valley.

Joyeuse Pâques to all! (Late, I know.)

My friends and family have expressed that more photos throughout the blogs would be appreciated, so I am hopefully going to make them all happy in these next entries! Also, if you ever want to see a picture in a bigger setting, just click on it!

I just returned from my weekend, and it was such an amazing voyage! First in this blog entry, however, let me describe my Easter in Paris.

It was so great to be able to spend my Easter of 2010 in France! I went with my friends Erik and Amanda to Notre Dame for the international mass at 11:30, and it was a very memorable experience. We all, luckily, got seats within the main area of the church, and got to be a part of the entire service. It was so interesting to have church going on, and all the while have tourists taking flash photography on the side corridors of the church. Even though the crowd was a tad touristy, the atmosphere remained very reverent. I enjoyed trying to understand the priests as they spoke!

Outside Notre Dame after Mass.

After church, we went and had lunch and then broke our chocolate chicken! (In France, they have chickens, not bunnies as the Easter animal. It makes so much more sense, anyway.) Overall, I was very grateful I got to have such a great memory for the holiday.

My host mom found me a chocolate bunny!

Chocolate Chicken.

Sunny on Easter after having hail and storms...

This past weekend, my program gave us the opportunity to participate in another planned excursion! We visited the region of the Loire Valley, and stayed in the town of Tours.

The first day I woke up extremely early, as I had done for the Normandy trip, and met up with the rest of the group at the ISA offices. After our three-hour bus ride, we made it to our first location: The Chateau de Chenonceau. Having been occupied by many people of royalty, the Chateau de Chenonceau was like another world! Within the chateau itself, many rooms were full of tapestries and original tiling from its conception. We had a tour guide that showed us throughout the mansion, and she told us tons of interesting facts about the people who lived there, which made it easier to imagine what it would have been like hundreds of years ago! The full kitchen in the basement was one of my favorite parts of the tour, as we saw the cooking equipment and rooms that the servants would utilize for the meals.

Chateau de Chenonceau

Notice the facade portion of the Chateau where they were renovating. All over Europe you will find these when a building is being renovated to show you what it usually looks like.

The portion of the initial fortress that was where the Chateau now stands.

The remains of what the floor tiling actually looked like back in the day.

One of the most fascinating rooms of the Chateau. According to the booklet, after her husband was murdered by a monk, Louise of Lorraine stayed here in the "black room". While in mourning, she always wore white, which gave her the nickname of "the white queen".

Down in the kitchen!

The amazing road leading to the Chateau.

Lunch at the Chateau. First hamburger on a bun since I've been here!!

The gardens of Chenonceau were formidable! I didn’t even get the chance to visit them all, but my friends and I went into the labyrinth, and walked past the main gardens next to the Chateau.

Entrance to the labyrinth in the gardens.

After the Chateau, we boarded the bus and made our way to the home of Leonardo da Vinci. Known as the Chateau du Clos Luce, this Chateau with beautiful gardens was given to da Vinci by the King in exchange for his thoughts and works of art. The King loved the guy! Going throughout the house, they had sample drawings and written thoughts that Leonardo had produced during his life. I was in awe at how many inventions he had going through his brain, long before some were actually invented!

Da Vinci's house!

Home next to the Chateau du Clos Luce

View from Leonardo's Chateau.

The gardens of the Close Luce contained lots of interesting facts on da Vinci’s works and ideas, as well as life-size models of his inventions. We could have spent a lot more time at the house, but we had more of the region to see!

Pigeon House!

We got the chance to see where a company makes their wine and cheese in the cellars of the town! According to my director, the limestone used to create the Chateaus were taken from these areas of the earth, where large holes were obviously left. What did they do with the huge holes in the ground? Made cellars! It was a very interesting tour, and awesome to go into where they had mined for the stone.

I have pretty good balance...

Angels in the ashes.

Being exhausted, we got a quick bite to eat in the center of the town, and headed to bed. I might add that I had the best gelato of my life that night. It was raspberry macaroon flavored, with chunks of real macaroon in it. Wow.

The next day I was ready to see more of the area! We arrived at the Chateau de Chambord, and I was instantly blown away. The sheer size of this castle was enough to be a photographer’s dream! Once entering it, however, the real fun began! Something about the construction and design of the entire Chateau was so creative and what I would imagine a castle form a fairytale book to look like. It was originally created as a hunting lodge for King Francis I, who had a great love of the sport. It was crazy discovering all the rooms and staircases in the massive Chateau!

View from the top.

Gotta love those french kids.

Look close: that's me! (plus some stranger, but don't mind him)

One of the main spiral staircases.

Had to pinch myself and remember that it wasn't a dream, it looked so cool!

Interesting fact I read about the Chateau: the initial King who decided to build it only lived long enough to see the main royal room and one wing be built, and only spent a total of 72 days there in his 32 year reign!

After roaming through some of the many staircases, balconies and rooms of the Chateau (77 staircases and 426 rooms in all), we all got to ride bikes and drive boats around the estate!! After riding bikes solo for a minute, my friend Kiyomi and I hopped on a double cart sort of contraption, and made our trip around the main area of the premises. Of course we couldn’t get through the whole place, considering the entire site is a total of 5440 hectares (the same area as inner Paris)!

Kiyomi and Felix!

My cannonball pose.

Beyond being a beautiful location, the great weather just added to the perfect day outside. We ditched the cart (named Felix the Chateau Carriage) and headed for the boat. It was great to get a view of the castle from the water, and also really relaxing to not be peddling our brains out.

View from the boat!

Three short hours later, we boarded the bus one last time, and traveled back home to Paris. Of course when we arrived, it was cloudy and cold. Alas, one weekend of sun and nature was great for me to have. It was sad to leave such an amazing place so quickly!

This week I have three days of school, and then early Thursday morning I leave for Morocco!! Six days in the great, warm weather! A blog will be coming after that!

Please pinch me!

Affecteusement,

George