Monday, October 26, 2009

Weekend in Loire Valley


Saturday morning I went with the CEA Study Abroad group to the Loire Valley. After a three hour bus ride, we arrived at Château d'Amboise for a guided tour. Afterwards we were free to explore the area on our own for an hour before we needed to meet back at the bus to depart for another château tour. Unfortunately our bus wouldn't start we so were left waiting quite a while until another bus showed up. By the time it came we needed to head to the hotel Château de Razay to check in for the night.


Myself and three friends were assigned the Chambord chambre, which was very elegant. It was the perfect place for a romantic get away. In the morning they provided us coffee, chocolat chaud, croissants, bread and cereal for breakfast. (Very typical French breakfast.)

Then we headed to visit Château Nitray, a privately owned château that produces wine. We had a short tour of the area and demonstration on the process of making wine followed by a wine tasting.


Immediately after, we quickly loaded back onto the bus and headed to Château de Chenonceau. We were able to explore this château and garden on our own and thankfully the weather was surprisingly nice. After a couple hours we all met back at the bus and left for the final Château of the trip.

Château de Chambord.
My friends and I decided that with the weather being so nice, we rather rent bikes and ride around the château instead of walking around inside. So we slipped away from the group and headed to rent some bikes. Lucky for us, they had the 4-person "bike" for 10 euros for 30 minutes. So we all pitched in and rented one. It was definitely worth it! We had so much fun riding around the château and got a good work-out from it as well!


It was a really fun weekend and so nice to get out of Paris and see more of France. It really is enchanting in the countryside.

1 comment:

Jenn said...

Those are amazing! I'm so glad you are getting to do so much while you are there! What an adventure! I love seeing all your pictures of where you are going and what you are doing!