Loire Valley

Top to Bottom: Outside of the top of the spiral staircase at Chateau Chambord; Beautiful garden at Chateau Chenoceau; Chateau Chenoceau; Inside of the chateau at Amboise; Part of the group at the bottom of the spiral staircase at Chambord

Day 9 and 10: This weekend we went on an excursion to see the chateaus in the Loire Valley! It was a great trip. On Sunday, we had to wake up really early. I only got 3 hours of sleep because I had to finish up my presentation I had to give on the history of the chateaus. The presentation went great though. One of my teachers said it was the best of the day. First we went to the chateau in Amboise which is the town where Leonardo Da Vinci spent the last 3 years of his life. It was nice but not as pretty on the outside as the rest of them. The town around it was adorable though. The next chateau was Chenoceau which is considered the most romantic of Loire's chateaus. It was gorgeous on the inside and out. All of the girls were thinking about being princesses when we were walking through. The gardens around Chenoceau are beautiful too. After that chateau, our program director Gabriel had a little surprise for us. He took us to a winery to see how wine is made and have a wine tasting! The Loire Valley has incredible wine. It was really interesting and a lot of fun. I even bought some wine to take home Those may also be gifts if I can let them go! Just kidding about that one :) We went to these caves where they store the wine and they just went on forever with crates of wine all around. It was awesome. For the night, we stayed in a town called Tours at a Holiday Inn. I'm not going to lie, as much as I love my host family, it was really nice being at a hotel. Today we went to the Chateau Chambord which is by far the grandest of the chateaus were saw. It was over 400 rooms! We had a lot of fun taking pictures on the double spiral staircase that Da Vinci helped design. At Chambord, we were supposed to take paddle boats out onto the river that surrounds it and ride bikes but the weather didn't cooperate (rain again!) so we got a free lunch instead. I was OK with that. Then we were eating lunch Ali and I ran into a friend from high school! (Michael Hoag for those of you that know him) He was visiting Europe with his family. I mean it would be weird enough running into someone from Farragut in Paris but even crazier at this chateau in the middle of France! Its such a small world and we have had a couple other instances like that. We asked one guy to take a picture of us and started talking to him and turned out he goes to Harvard and knows a friend of mine from Farragut, and also, one day when we were eating lunch at a cafe we sat next to some people from Johnson City. It just shocks me when stuff like that happens! Anyway, I could go on and on about the Loire Valley but my pictures will probably tell it better. I am trying not to put too many pictures up here because I already write so much so just keep an eye out on Facebook for my photo albums! Until tomorrow, Au Revoir!