Loire Valley!

Outside the Chateau de Chambord!!


On the little boat in the moat!


View of the rooftop terrace


Me and Bay in front of Chateau de Chambord


Outside of the Winery


One of the many wine cellars


The gardens at Leonardo da Vinci's mansion


Leonardo da Vinci's House


Chateau de Chenonceau (the whole grounds)


View of the front of the Chateau de Chenonceau

This past weekend we went on a program trip to the Loire Valley. I was a bit skeptical and almost didn't go because I'm not the hugest fan of my program, but I'm glad I did. We left Saturday morning at 8 am and got to the first Chateau at 11. This Chateau was the Chateau de Chenonceau. It was a little castle on fairly small grounds, but it was so pretty! It was built in the 11th century and King Francis I, King Henry I, and King Henry II all lived there during their times. The gardens were beautiful, to the right of the castle was the garden of Catherine de Medici and it was really pretty. We spent three hours there before boarding the bus to go to "Le clos Luce" which is the house of Leonardo da Vinci. His house was really interesting and it overlooked a HUGE garden with a river. The best part of the house was the basement level. IBM took all of da Vinci's plans and used materials that would have been available to him during his time to build all of his designs. The basement housed all of these inventions and it was really interesting to see the plan and then the final product. Its amazing how someone can come up with the things he did at the time he lived. We learned that he was an estimated two centuries ahead of his time (scientifically speaking). After touring his mansion we were taken to a winery and we were treated to a free wine tasting, which pretty much consisted of an entire bottle of wine each once you added everything up. We tasted two different reds, two whites, one rose, one prestige, one rose champagne, and one regular champagne, and were able to have more than one sample of a few of them. Needless to say we were all in great form boarding the bus to head to the hotel haha. The winery was really pretty and it was awesome to get to see the different stages in the process and learn a little bit about how each kind of wine or champagne is made. The winery we went to has used the same recipes for the last 500 years, so they must be doing something right. We also learned that you can tell what part a wine is from just by looking at its bottle because each region has a different shaped bottle. I never would have noticed that unless someone told me, I had no idea the shape of the bottle had any significance. After that we headed to our hotel (The Holiday Inn) and we all showered and got ready to go out to dinner. Cory ended up splurging a bit and splitting profiteroles for dessert which were SO good. We were all so tired from the wine and from all the traveling that a few of us didn't go out and headed back to the hotel around 11. I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 1115 haha. The next morning I was up and ready at 8, grabbed breakfast, and was on the bus by 9 am. We were off to the Chateau de Chambord (in the region where the Chambord liquor is made). This castle is the biggest one in France and it was BEAUTIFUL! We had the entire day there and even though it was a bit windy, it was still nice out. The castle was started by King Francois I in the 1500's, but he never lived to see its completion. It is perfectly symmetrical and houses over 400 rooms! Complete with a hunting wing and a wing to park the carriages in. After our tour of the castle we ate lunch and were given tickets to rent little boats to drive around the moat in and we could also rent what looked like golf carts with pedals to drive around the grounds. This was a lot of fun. Afterwards we were told we had a surprise waiting for us, which was another wine tasting (this one not so big, thankfully). We got to try two different white wines, and they mixed one white with some chambord. We were given an assortment of six different types of cookies that they eat in that region and I probably ate 10 of them...oops haha. We left there at 3 and I was back at my apartment by 6. Overall it was a really good weekend. Now I have two exams and a quiz standing in my way of two and a half weeks of spring break starting on friday! Then we're off to Dublin until monday and Mom and Gram and Grampa come on tuesday!! I can't wait...only three more days until it begins. Now back to studying...bummer...