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!

Helsinki

Before my flight home from Finland, I had about 3 hours to spend in Helsinki.  The weather wasn't great - it kept raining off and on.  But I was still able to walk around and see part of the city.  Here is a market I walked through - these were the BEST strawberries I've ever eaten.  No joke, they were amazing!  

This was also at the market - thought it was funny.

This is one of the famous landmarks, the Helsinki Cathedral.  It sits on a hill and can be seen all over the city.  The sun happened to be shining when I was here.  

This is inside the Cathedral.  While I was there someone was playing the organ - I love it when that happens in a church I'm visiting!

Another well known church in Helsinki is this Russian Orthodox church.  Apparently the inside is as elaborate as the Cathedral is simple.  But I wasn't able to go inside as it is closed on Mondays - bummer.

I took a 20 minute ferry into the harbour (and British spell check made me spell harbour that way) to visit Suomenlinna.  It is an island with a fortress on it that I wish I could tell you more about.  There wasn't much information there and when I got there it was windy and raining.  So I took a couple of pictures and came back.  I'd love to say I'm learning a lot about everything place I visit, but honestly, sometimes I just get a picture and get rained on and move on.  

The last thing I saw before heading to the airport was the Helsinki train station.  I saw this building listed as one of the world's top 10 train stations to see for the architecture...it was very art deco.

Day at the lake in Finland!

The day after Ryan and Liisa's wedding, Liisa's family was very kind to extend an invitation to our family to join them for the afternoon at their lake house.  Actually, the house wasn't just one large house - it was a set of small buildings.  The one on the left here is the sauna and a living room area.  The little building on the right is a kitchen.  Up behind both of them is a small building with a toilet and storage room.  Then they have a building to sleep up about 50 yards to the right of the dock.  

We went for a swim off the dock.  Although it was summer, the water was still quite cold!  We had the advantage of using the sauna before jumping into the water.  Most Finnish homes have a sauna in them and the lake house was no different.  So we would sit in the sauna until we were hot, then jump in the lake and swim a few minutes.  Then back to the sauna again.  It was surprisingly invigorating and fun!

Liisa's youngest brother is only about 8 years old, but he has his own little boat. He took us for tours around the lake!  Here he is driving the boat, next to Liisa (the bride), Aryn (my cousin) and another little girl who may have been a cousin or niece in Liisa's family.  

Uncle Randy and Aunt Jo, enjoying the afternoon!

It was a beautiful afternoon and evening!

Ryan and Liisa's wedding

The wedding took place at Kerimaki Church, which is the largest wooden church in the world.  

The church was VERY beautiful, but they had some odd little wooden statues inside.  They were everywhere - some looked a like little Frankensteins.  Uncle Randy spoke to one of the workers at the church and they said that some of the statues were hundreds of years old.  They all had a slot somewhere on them for coins to collect charity for the church and the poor.  

The groom's sister (also my cousin), Aryn and I have gotten to be great friends over the last few years.  She moved to Atlanta to work on her PhD at Emory University.  Its been really fun to have someone from my extended family so close!  But then I moved to London, so it was a super fun weekend for Aryn and I to catch up!

Here we are with Uncle Randy and Aunt Jo, outside before the wedding.  It was super windy - sorry Aryn's hair looks so bad.  I don't have a picture where we aren't blown away.  

The ceremony was part in English and part in Finnish.  But aside from that, it was a very traditional Christian ceremony.  

 

Leaving the church for the reception - Mr. and Mrs. Price!

I don't have any good pictures from the reception, but it was very traditional as well.  Receiving line, a buffet dinner, toasts, cake cutting, a band and dancing!  It went quite late - the couple left the reception after midnight.  Then after the reception, everyone who was left (the entire wedding party, all the younger guests and the bride's family!) went to a club and danced until the club closed at 4am!

This was on the screen at the club - I'm pretty sure that's "Congratulations Liisa and Ryan" in Finnish!

Then this happened with me and Aryn!  I had to make the picture black and white so you can see our faces.  This was close to the end of the night after wedding all day, reception all evening and dancing all night!