Au revoir, Paris!

So I met up today with the rest of the USAC group, first running into Kate and Stephanie, who were the other students not on the group tour. We left Paris at about 9:00-ish and were on our way to Versailles. Versailles was interesting, but it wasn’t quite my style. I went through the palace pretty quickly, but still took the better part of an hour to do it. I got some pictures of the statues of famous Frenchmen (and women), and saw both the king and queen’s bedchambers. But by the time I was done in there, I only had an hour left before I had to meet up with the bus. So I bought a sandwich and headed out to the Versailles gardens.

There's a special kind of pretentious known only to the French.

 The gardens are huge. I took too much time in the palace and not enough time in the gardens, because I barely made a dent into them. But they were pretty damn impressive. They offered rental vehicles in the gardens, which included bicycles, golf carts, and rowboats, because of the sheer size of the place. The colorful flowery part was only the beginning of the gardens, before they gave way to orchards and park lands as well as the grand-canal. Somewhere out there were two more palaces and a farm which Marie Antoinette used to work on in her free time. But I didn’t get to see any of that, because I ran out of time.

I have two words for you, just two words: row boats.

 I got back on the bus and we headed off to Chateau Chaumont. Now, let’s first be clear, I had no idea where we were going. All that I was told was the name of the chateau, not where it was or what it was. I was pleasantly surprised to drive through the city of Blois, which was one of the cities I wanted to visit later during the trip, and to pull up to one of the most famous Loire Valley castles in existence. This was a place I wanted to go to on my own, but now I’ve made it here via the group bus ride, so scratch one thing off of the list.

In Blois they have elegant stone bridges, in Sacramento we're stuck with a giant, brown hunk of iron crap.

 The chateau was originally a small keep overlooking and controlling the Loire River. Late in the middle ages, Catherine de Medici, a queen of France, bought the castle for its value as a tax collection point. Starting at this point the castle began its transformation from a military outpost to a renaissance resort castle. The castle now has only three walls, the fourth having been removed to open up the view of the valley below. The castle was pretty cool, but it was missing the one vital element as far as I’m concerned. It was roofed, so there were no ramparts or battlements to stand upon. And to me, that makes the whole experience of being at a castle.

A little less castle, a little more giant mansion.

 After receiving a tour of the castle (which was in French, so I only understood half of it), we were able to explore the rest of the park that surrounded it. The castle had a separate stables which was pretty impressive. It even had its own indoor riding ring, which I thought was pretty unique. I could be wrong.

Fancier housing for their horses than there is for students in Pau.

 After exploring some of the lower garden and taking more pictures of the castle and valley with a pair of fellow USACers, we moved up to the “model” farm. It was a small village built at the beginning of the 20^th century basically for the entertainment of the owner of the castle. It looked very storybook-ish, but it was a cool place to hang out. Before we could explore more, we ran out of time and had to return to the bus.

 

One of the owners decided that a small village would make the perfect lawn ornament.

Continuing on, we made it finally to Tours, where we stopped at a hotel for the night. I went out walking in order to find the town’s cathedral, which happened to be all the way across the city. And right as I got to the cathedral, they closed the doors for the night. Figures, it’s just my luck. It was called the Cathédrale St.-Gatien, and I personally think that it was much more impressive than Notre Dame.

Better than Notre Dame? In a word, yes.

 I’m finally back in my hotel room for the night, and I find that I again have no internet. So this will probably be available sometime in the next few days, or maybe not. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy being in Tours while I can. For those who don’t know, one of the most famous battles of the middle ages took place near this city (called the Battle of Tours and/or the Battle of Poitiers because it took place at the halfway mark between the cities), when Charles Martel beat back an army of Muslim invaders in 732 AD. This led directly to the rise of the Carolingians under Charlemagne. Okay, enough of the history lessons. Good night all, I’m going to bed.