Friday, last day in Paris :-(

We were up early to get to our tour of three French Chateaus--a 12 hour trip to the countryside. At the travel agency we met our traveling companions, a 30-ish couple from Italy who spoke some French so their tour was in French, our travel guide, a young Frenchwoman named Caroline who spoke French, Spanish, English and a little German. I almost think our Italian couple would have done better if the tour were in Spanish, because whenever they did not understand the French, Caroline would put it in Spanish for them. The wife sometimes explained the French to the husband, so her grasp of French was somewhat better.

We left Paris at 7:15am, fortunately heading opposite the direction of the stop and go traffic heading into Paris. I am not sure what the French call their freeways, but it was a similar to what we have (divided highway with multiple lanes) and we passed through a tollbooth soon after leaving Paris. Spring had arrived in France--they appeared to be about a month ahead of us in Minnesota. Some crops were up and we saw a few tractors in the fields from the highway. We passed through several quaint little towns on the way and I would have liked to know more about the people and what they do-something for the next trip?

It was after 10am when we arrived at our first chateau in the picturesque Loire Valley of France. Chenonceau Chateau was built over the River Cher in traditional Renaissance style, (complete with moat and towers) and is known as the Chateau des Dames (the Ladies' Castle) because of the influence of the famous women who lived there. The chateau was built in 1513 and King Henry II gave it to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers whose goal was to turn it into a showplace. Catherine de Medicis, King Henry's wife, was very jealous of it and when the King died, she ousted Diane and took it over for herself. It is a very beautiful place, fit for a queen, I would say.

The next chateau was Cheverny Castle which started out as a private home, but ownership came to Henry II who gave it to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. However, she preferred Chenonceau so she sold it to the Huralt family. It has had many owners over its history but now is again owned by the Huralt family. In 1914, the owner opened the chateau to the public, one of the first to do so. The family still operates it, and Château Cheverny remains a top tourist attraction to this day, renowned for magnificent interiors and its collection of furniture, tapestries, and objets d'art. A pack of some seventy dogs are also kept on the grounds and are taken out for hunts twice weekly. We saw the dogs but missed their daily feeding when their trainer puts a line of meat through their pen and they wait for him to signal that they can eat it. When we were there, the dogs were all crowded in a small pen and the trainer was pulling some out before the feeding. There was quite a din from all those baying hounds! This castle castle is entirely surrounded by a stone wall.

Our last stop for the day was Chambord Castle. It is the largest of the Loire castles, built for King Francois 1st as a hunting lodge. The château features 440 rooms, 365 fireplaces, and 84 staircases, including a spectacular double-helix open staircase that is the centerpiece of the château. The two helixes ascend the three floors without ever meeting--it is suggested, but unconfirmed, that the staircase was designed by Leonardo da Vinci. This castle was in the poorest condition. It is just so huge and was abandoned for 80 years during its history so I don't think it has ever been full restored since then.

We spent about an hour at each castle and enjoyed our tour immensely. Rosie still loves the idea of a castle, but I think those giant stone rooms are just too darn cold for anyone to enjoy living in them!

We hit some traffic heading back into Paris but again, most of the traffic was heading out of the city, so it wasn't too bad. We noticed that the cars on the inside lane hugged the outside white line and that motorcycles roared between us in the next lane like it was their own private lane! Our tour guide was nice enough to drop us off right across from our apartment or I would have used one of Metro tickets for sure.

Back at the apartment Lynne had some wine waiting for us (surprise, surprise!) and for supper, we followed a tip from our tour guide. We had pitas and falafal from a nearby stand-very tasty but kind of odd in our eyes for Paris.

We packed and arranged our wakeup/bathroom schedule. The lady upstairs was playing music quite loud until at least midnight, but I went to bed anyway and was asleep shortly.