Chateaux of the Loire: Take Two

One of the sort of downers about doing two quarter programs with the University of Chicago in Paris is that I have to redo some things. The Chateaux trip was one of them. Don't get me wrong, I was actually really stoked to go again, and it wasn't a complete redo. Last quarter we went to Chenonceau and Chambord, and this quarter it was Blois and then Chambord. And Chambord is my favorite anyways...

We started out ungodly early in the morning. The sun doesn't rise here until about 9:00 AM right now, so it's a bit difficult to roll out of bed and be somewhere at 7:30 when it's still quite dark outside. My program and the Social Science kids all jumped onto a nice bus and were chauffered to the city of Blois. I don't really remember the ride, I was asleep the whole time.

We got into Blois a little before 10:00 AM and my History of Paris professor took us on a tour of the chateau. The chateau is strange because it's a jumble of different styles of architecture quite literally shoved together. It is one of the best examples of the differences between the styles in France and probably the world. I like the classical stuff the best, it looks really classy... think Versailles. Some of the Renaissance stuff is a little ridiculous, but generally it's all quite nice. The tour itself was interesting. My professor really knows his stuff, and he knows how to convey it to college students. And of course it had to do with La Reine Margot, a ridiculous film I watched last quarter...

We had lunch at a really really fancy restaurant in Blois. I'm not really sure what I ate, but it was pretty tasty. It may have included rabbit. I'm not exactly sure. And I'm not sure I want to know. But it was fun, and that's what counts.

After we went to Chambord. I literally went on the same tour as last time, but it was in english so I caught a little more information. It was cool to see it again. And I spent less time listening to the tour guide and more time actually looking at the place. It's incroyable. Incredible.

After we jumped on the bus for a long ride home. I slept again. Hah.

Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011066&l=5c1d1&id=1599570086