chateaux de la loire

Oh my goodness do I have pictures for you.

We left at 7:22 am (7:22 am, the train, people, at 7:22 am; Skye and I woke up at five) on Saturday morning for the Loire valley. We spent two days touring chateaux, guided by the art history professor at Reid Hall, who seemed completely insensible to cold and to our waning attention span; so, since I don't particularly intend to come back to these particular chateaux (you only chateaux-see once?) I ditched him and toured myself around. It was lots better that way.

First chateau: Bloire. Honestly, not all that interesting except for its questionable melange of styles. Exterior (style 1, circa Louis XII I think):



Interior courtyard (styles 2, on the right, Italian; and 3, on the left, I forget):



An excellent view of Blois and the Loire (the most polluted river in France, rock on):





I rather liked the piano.



Next up, Chambord. It's a hunting cabin. No, really.



Chambord was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I don't think my pictures in any way convey the sheer awesomeness of Chambord. We were all in kind of a bad mood after Bloire, which was a) a disappointment, b) freeeeeezing cold, and c) unique in my willingness to listen to the tour guide for an hour in said freezing cold. But then we went to Chambord, which is in the middle of a park the size of the city of Paris, and it was like we were living in Beauty and the Beast. And we ditched the tour guide.



Interior courtyard: I am just giving up on making these pictures ever vertical. Help.



It was really cold. Andrea is a peasant woman warming her hands at the fireplace. We were so, so grateful for the fireplaces.



Let's be honest, I only included this picture because the shadow makes Francois I's throne super ominous.



The ceiling: carved salamanders. A king's emblem. Somehow I feel that salamanders are not the classiest choice.



View from the roof:



Lots of shots of the roof. It was just so cool. Also, looking down into the courtyard and one (one!) of the spiral staircases (the major interior one is a double helix, which I rather enjoyed).







Proof, for those of you who continually bug me about it, that I was actually there and am human and not just some phantom who flits about taking pictures that have no people in them.



These are, um, deer skulls. And antlers. I think the antlers were the point rather than the skulls.



(Actually, the point is that there is a Musee de la Chasse -- Hunting Museum -- inside Chambord, complete with a replica blind that was luxuriously furnished. Surprise. These are French kings we're talking about here. They have spending money on luxuries down to an art. They periodically lose their heads for it.)

These trees are everywhere and I do not know what they are. The stone wall on the left is les ecuries, the stables, but they were closed.



So that's day one. We spent the night at Domaine de la Tortiniere, a small chateau that has been turned into a hotel and restaurant. We stayed in guesthouses and had a fancy dinner and the best wine ever, it almost makes me understand some people's obsession with wine. Skye does not snore. I'm glad.

I will post Day Two tomorrow, but right now I have been sleep-deprived for a week and I am going to sleep in.