Dave and Teneille's Excellent Adventure

TALE AS OLD AS TIME

Yesterday was our last booked thing in Paris and it was a day trip to the Loire Valley castles about 2.5 hours outside of the city. Today's blog title comes courtesy of our tour guide who spent most of the day regaling us with France's history.

But before that... some drama. It was an early start for us because we had to meet the coach at 7:15am but also because we had to meet outside the catacombs entrance which is too far to walk from our place. We finally figured out how to use the train system and got to the meeting point easily. "Name?" the tour operator asked. "Campbell, David," I replied. "Sorry, I don't have you on the list," he said. Turns out someone - who shall remain nameless - booked the Loire Valley trip for Tuesday last week when we were at Disneyland. Seeing our phones are cactus, no-one could contact us (not that we would have made it anyway) and we missed our tour. There was space on yesterday's tour though and the operator was able to smooth things over at HQ to get us on the coach seeing we'd already paid for a Loire Valley trip and hadn't used it. The coach left on time and we weren't 'those people' who hold things up.

Teneille fell asleep on the coach.

Our first stop was a beautiful building 1.5 hours outside Paris where cars and people could re-energise themselves alike. The architecture wasn't much to look at but it did add a splash of colour to the dreary landscape. It was just a service station. Nothing to see here except strange men trying to shower themselves using the sink in the bathrooms.

Another hour down the road we reached our first castle - the Beauty and the Beast castle - Chateaux de Chambord. The castle is quite striking and has an interesting history from its construction right up to World War II when it was used in a network of other Loire Valley chateauxs to hide France's most precious artworks and cultural relics from the Nazis. The gardens were beautiful and it was easy to see most of the castle because the rooms are unfurnished. This is because when kings came to stay they brought their own furniture with them to suit a season. As the furnishings changed so often no-one saw the point in trying to recreate the castle's interior for tourists. Chambord is also known as the Beauty and the Beast castle because of the way it looks. Luckily, Teneille had decided to wear her Belle cloak although I was disappointed she didn't break into song.

Chambord is tres pretty.

We left Chambord 20 minutes late due to a trio of Mexicans who decided to stop for ice-cream rather than honour the deadline given by our tour guide. It was ridiculous. Our tour guide was literally running around trying to find these people and they simply stroll in 20 minutes after we should left, nonchalantly eating ice-creams.

Belle and I.

Gotta love that mid-18th century graffiti...

Our next stop was a small chateaux that was owned by a family of four generations who operated a vineyard out of the property as well. We had a fabulous cooked lunch there as well as a tasting of the various wines they produce. We were then free to roam the grounds before hopping back on the bus.

Lunch.

Our last stop was a short distance away at the Chateaux de Chenonceau. This castle isn't as big Chambord but the gardens are far more impressive as are the water views. This castle - after an already colourful history - was purchased by the king's mistress before later being taken over by the queen. Its history also stretched in WWII where it was often times used as a base to smuggle refugees and Jews out of Nazi-occupied territory. We toured the grounds and the castle - which was furnished - before another wine tasting in one of the cellars. Teneille also took the opportunity to climb a tree despite a clearly marked sign saying she shouldn't. She then blamed the wine.

We got back to Paris about 7:30pm and headed to a nearby Australian bar for dinner. We made some friends on the day trip so were joined by Jon, Sara and Kellen who were all visiting Paris from the US. The bar didn't offer much in the way of food so Teneille and I had a Fosters each just because and left. Fosters is gross people.

We wandered up a small street near the catacombs for dinner where I successfully required a table for five in French at an Italian restaurant. The food was lovely but the service was strange. We were looked after by three different people at varying points throughout the night. One spoke French, one English and one Italian. It was all very confusing.

We didn't get home until after midnight so we were thankful Sunday is a free day.

The second castle also had donkeys...

Interesting facts we learned from our guide:

• Leonardo da Vinci is buried in the Loire Valley. We would have loved to see that but, alas, it wasn't part of the tour.
• Catherine de Medici only wanted to murder 30 protestants at the Louvre wedding when she locked the gates but catholics inside and outside the Louvre didn't get the message so 30,000 got the bullet... I mean blade.
• To clink your glass with someone else and say "cheers" doesn't mean you like them. It was a way of testing the other person hadn't poisoned your drink because the act of clinking glasses was meant to exchange liquids between both glasses.
• The central stairwell at Chambord is a double helix so the queen could have her own stairs and never risk running into the king's mistresses.
• King Francois I never thought he'd be king so didn't bother learning Latin or court etiquette so when he did in fact become king he made French the national language. French was essentially a language without rules so any mistakes Francois made in laying out the new language were incorporated into it officially.
• Francois really wanted the Mona Lisa but da Vinci said he could only have it when the artist died. When da Vinci died Francois got his painting and hung it in a bathroom where it stayed for 200 years.
• To be considered a beautiful woman back in the day you needed to be extremely pale, flat-chested and have a big forehead and brown eyes.
• One of the miracles performed by the patron saint of France St Genevieve was that when she was a child she went to church like three times a day. Her mother thought this was too much and tried to stop her going so much. Genevieve slapped her mother in the face and made her blind for a year. This was our favourite.
• It's widely believed da Vinci was gay but the king turned a blind eye because of how amazing he was. Some old ducks from the US on our tour didn't like that one.
• When Henry II got a lance through his eye in an ill-conceived duel his queen told people that if they didn't find a cure they could choose between ex-communication or also getting a lance in the eye.
• Henry II had a misshapen penis which is why he struggled to produce an heir. He had a painful surgery before going on to have like 10 kids.

Drinking all the wines...

Teneille climbing a tree...