Chateau de Villandry

The afternoon visit was to the Chateau de Villandry, where our primary goal was to visit the gardens. Mission accomplished!  

Look at this fantastic dog statue!  I loved it. 

We didn't actually end up visiting the Chateau itself because we were there too late in the afternoon.  But the gardens were our goal to visit and they were amazing!

Chateau d'Usse

There are many chateaux in the Loire Valley that are open to visitors, so we narrowed our list down to visit three.  The first was Chateau d'Usse.  Wikipedia was not very clear, but it looks like the Chateau was originally built in the 11th century, but the current version was more from the 16th-17th centuries. Similar to the B&B, the back part of the Chateau was built into the hillside and there were tunnels underneath used for safe escapes into the forest several kilometers behind the Chateau!

Finally, Usse is renowned for being the inspiration behind the story of The Sleeping Beauty, written by French author Charles Perrault.  It does have a certain Disney-ish quality!

We were able to climb one of the towers...

And tour a portion of the interior.

This was the view down to the nearby Village of Usse.  I was sorry it was so overcast, but at least it wasn't raining and you get an idea of how charming it was!

The courtyard of the Chateau...

And the gardens down in front.

There was also a small chapel to the left of the Chateau and some caves used for wine storage.  We were there about 2 hours and the rain held off until we got back into the car.  Onto the next stop!

Chateau de Perreux

The two days we stayed in the Loire Valley at the Chateau de Perreux.  Check it out...

It is an actual Chateau!  There are so many of these smaller chateaux in the region that many are now hotels or B&B's.  This was actually quite small, only about 12 guest rooms.  The manager, Francois, greeted us when we drove up.  He gave us a quick tour of the house and grounds before showing us our room.  Here I am on the balcony - ours was just above the front door.

Inside our room...

It would have been a really nice romantic getaway.  But Lizzie and I still had fun!  Aside from the general awesomeness of the Chateau, our favorite feature was this..

Lizzie called it the Bat Cave and that was kinda what it felt like!  So it is a little hard to see in the first picture, but the back side of the Chateau was built into the hills behind it.  There actually is no back side to the house, just caves behind it.  So this tunnel was built between the main part of the house and a cave over on the side that they use for a parking garage.  And when you walked into the "Bat Cave", all the lights automatically came on!  It was very fun.  :)

This picture is taken from the terrace on the side of the house and shows the build into the rocks behind.  Also, there is an old run-down greenhouse up there - you can see the windows.  

We highly recommend the Chateau if you ever need a place to stay in the region.  It was beautiful and easy to find, but just outside of town, so very quiet and relaxing for a weekend away from the city.  And Francois was a great host and the breakfast every day was fantastic!

Chartres en Lumiere

We happened to arrive in Chartres late on Friday night and during the summer months, they have a night festival called "Chartres en Lumiere" or Chartres in Lights.  They have projected light displays on the more important, historic or beautiful buildings all over town.  

I debated whether to even post these photos because they don't even begin to do it justice.  But it was one of my favorite things about the entire trip, so I felt remiss in leaving it off the blog.  So just imagine these pictures, but brighter, more colorful and with a nice music in the background.  :)  

Here is an example of what one building looked like at night with the lights as compared to the daytime. 

Chartres, France

We had an end-of-summer bank holiday weekend, one week before Labou Day in the US.  Its funny that we have these bank holidays with no real title for the holiday!  Anyway, my friend Lizzie and I took the Eurostar to Paris and rented a car to visit the Loire Valley.  Our first stop was in Chartres, where they have a Cathedral that is supposed to be one of the best examples of French Gothic architecture.  The current Cathedral was built around 1200, but it was the fifth church on the site.

From the gardens behind the Cathedral...

We went inside but most of my pictures were lousy because it was very dark.  They had fully cleaned and renovated the forward half of the church, but the back half was still very dirty.  Here is a photo looking up at the roof where you can really see the difference between the cleaned and dirty sections!

Chartres has a really beautiful little old city center, full of shops and restaurants.  This building was in the city center with a full mural on the side.

Petit dejeuner en France

Cafe et un croissant?

Bonjour mes amis!