The Chateaux

Well passing to something I know is more interesting: THE CHATEAUX!

So after spilling my sob story I can now write about the better part of my holiday.
I went with a couple of the other students to the loire valley. I stayed in Blois a small city located equidistantly between Tours and Orleans. Sprinkled throughout the region is a large number of chateaux where the kings of a different era would reside.

I will now post and google image pics.

Day 1:
We arrived in Blois after taking the night train up to Paris from Nice and then from Paris to Blois. I must admit I did have slight reservations about staying in Blois. Originally we were wanting to stay in Tours because it was a bigger city but there were no cheap hotels. But Blois turned out to be a treat. There is a chateaux located right in city central. Also the hotel was 15 euro a night and came complete with a bed and toilet!!!

View from the gardens

From inside the walls. The famous staircase. I climbed it. nbd.

The Bird Eye View

Where Catherine de Medicis probably died.

Day 2: 

According to a brief study of a map we decided it couldn't be more than 14 km (8.7 miles) to get to Chambord and Cheverny and thus easily bikeable. Well in no case were any of the routes 14 km. We decided to go to Chambord first the largest of the chateaux by far. And it was enormous. So was the route to get there. We figured that 14 km would take us about an hour and a half to bike so after we had been biking for 3 hours ...something kinda seemed off. That's because we took the long route along the river...Well that route was about 40 km (24.85 miles) Needless to say I about died getting there. But luckily we took the short path back only 20 km...

I'd like to say it was worth it... 

i kinda can...maybe...

this is what i almost died trying to see:

Staircases seem to be the ancient equivalent of a stove.
A fancy chateaux is not complete without a solid marble staircase.

It was REALLY REALLY big.

Day 3:

We took a rest from the bikes for a day. Lucky for us it was the day it decided to pour. Actually it poured every day we didn't bike. I guess we got lucky. But we took a short train ride over the the most famous chateaux Chenonceau. The most famous owner of it was Catherine de Medicis who "traded it" with Diane Poitier, the mistress to whom Catherine's husband, King Henry II had left it to after he died. And by "trading" she more or less just took it and gave her the chateau de Chaumont. 

Chenonceau was hands down my favorite chateau.

This is why:

This is the hedge maze. The strategy lied more within getting to the middle without
stepping the parts that had flooded from the rain.

So there were the first three days of my break in google image form. I shall post this weekend the next 4 days during which I visited Cheverny, Chaumont, Amboise, and the Clos de Luce, where Di Vinci died.