The Loire Valley

First of all, I am sure you are all wondering why I have not updated you about Carcassonne. That is because my mom's camera died so I can't get the pictures off of it to show you, so I will do a catch-up post about it tomorrow when I am in Le Havre and have my camera charger. So yesterday, after an exciting day exploring the medieval city of Carcassonne (and a museum on the Inquisition and medieval torture which was just a little beyond) we headed to the train station at 7:30pm so that we could catch our 10:30pm sleeper train from Toulouse to Blois, which is in the heart of the Loire Valley. Everything went quite smoothly except that 1) I forgot to take a picture and 2) I was a little "train sick" while I was initially trying to fall asleep, but eventually everything worked out so that I made almost the most of the 7 hours of sleep available to me.

Today in Blois we discovered that coming to visit the châteaux of the Loire Valley when it is out of tourism season is not a good idea because there is almost no transportation to the castles, and literally none at all directly between the castles. Therefore with our limited amount of time we had to skip out on two of the castles we were planning on seeing and just focus on the biggest and best (Château Chambord) and the closer one that we could walk to, Château Royal de Blois. This means that we have nothing left to see tomorrow so we are gong to try and catch and earlier train back to Le Havre which will actually provide us with a well-appreciated time of repose.

Up until today in our journey, we have brought fantastic weather with us wherever we went, but today it was extremely cold with an icy wind and no sun all day. Fortunately no weather can make the Château Chambord look unimpressive. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy, and as I said before I'll get our awesome Carcassonne pictures up tomorrow when I can revive mom's camera.

Me in the Château Royal de Blois. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture in front of the château so mom and I are going back tomorrow morning to get another one since it is about a 3 minute walk away.

Me at the Château Chambord: Is that not the most amazing castle you have ever seen?  It is 156 meters long and 56 meters tall, it has 77 staircases, 282 fireplaces, and 426 rooms. I can assure you that whle tourng my mom and I ended up lost and turned around on several occasions, but we are fairly confident (I'd give it an 85%) that we saw all the areas that were open to touring. It was really awesome. Definitely the most awe-inspiring building I've seen so far. Ohhh... maybe not, that Carcassonne castle lit up at night was spectacular...

This is me on the roof of the château, amongst the decorative spires and chimneys. The view from here was amazing and I have quite a few pictures that may or may not make it unto facebook depending on how much time I have.

For those of you that don't know, the Château Chambord was constructed as a hunting "lodge" (I use the term lightly) for François I, and so today there is a wing dedicated to hunting trophies. I included this picture specifically for David, Josh, and Ohio Dad who I thought would appreciate it the most. 

Mom and I posing in front of what is actually the back side of the castle. The fall foliage provided us with many beautiful pictures in addition to its harsh, chilling wind and cool temperatures. 

A little bit of fun? Me running/jumping across the back field while enjoying the view of the grandest château I have ever seen. I still can't believe that was a hunting lodge....