Jenny, Danielle and I started our trip in Tours, a small and charming French city an hour away from Paris by train. Tours is in the Loire Valley, an area known for the purest French language, wine vineyards and our biggest selling point, chateaus. When we had arrived and settled into our hotel in Tours we took a walk around the city and I have to say I was taken a back by how FRENCH everything was. Name a French stereotype (well the positive ones) and we saw it, the best example being a stylish French woman riding the streets with a baguette in her bicycle basket. After wandering and cooing over the beautiful streets and gardens like the tourists we are, we had a lovely dinner in a restaurant terrace on the street. Our cultural ignorance became apparent though as we struggled to get the check. We played a coy cat and mouse game with the waiter trying to get the check and pay for our meals for over and hour and half. I guess we lost as I had to go find him in the restaurant and hand him the money so we could get change and leave. We looked up french restaurant etiquette afterwards and according to google the french really dont want you to feel rushed out so you have to be insistent about the check or even make moves to leave. Very polite, but to quote a wise American woman, "aint nobody got time for that."
On our way back to the hotel Jenny stopped in confusion as she caught sight of her local news station in a restaurant. We looked at the caption and saw Boston Marathon explosiones and rushed back to our hotel in a panic. Marathon monday is one of the most anticipated and celebrated events at Boston College and in Boston in general. It was something we had discussed regretfully missing that day. In our hotel we were able to get updated on the terrible event but thankfully we were able to confirm the safety of our friends in Boston. We spent the rest of the night in the hotel keeping updated on the news. Definitely a sobering and frightening moment on our trip, but we could only send our thoughts and prayers to the city so close to our hearts and be thankful of both our friends safety and our own safety.
The next day we had booked a chateau/wine tasting tour, but had a couple of hours to kill before so we explored the medieval section of Tours. Bakeries, flower shops, creperies, narrow cobbled roads, it was hard not to fall in love. Tours was another city leveled by WWII, so half of the city is very industrialized, but the touristy section maintains its charm. We stopped for a light lunch and then met for our tour. Because we were there on a Tuesday in the spring we had the privilege of a private tour van with a petite tour guide with a whole lot of energy. She spent the drive telling us the history of the chateau of Chenonceau, our first stop. It was most famous for being a gift from Henry II to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. Henry's wife Catherine de Medici didn't like that very much so upon his death she made poor Diane swap her for a different chateau: bad deal. The chateau built over the River Cher had it all; gardens, extravagant rooms, a hedge maze, donkeys. Basically I was ready to move in.
But alas we had to move on and we stopped at the Chateau d' Amboise where Leonardo da Vinci is supposedly buried. We opted out of the tour of this Chateau as views were better from the city (and it gave us the opportunity to get gelato/coffee). The last stop on the tour was at a winery in the valley. We were able to go into the cave where the wine is made and stored and see the process for making sparkling white wine. We then got to sample all types of wine made in the winery. I expected a big to do on the proper way to taste wine, but when I asked our tour guides response was, "drink it." So much for french propriety! Two things I learned that I found fascinating were that they grew the grapes for the wine for a minimum of four years and also that the business had been in the family since 1508. The owner even told me his son or daughter (who were little) would take over after him. As a side note, the winery also had a a huge, wrinkly, loving dog so I spent my time evenly between wine tasting and rubbing its belly. Danielle and I ended up buying one of their white wines and splitting it on our hotel terrace later that night.
Tours was lovely and we were sad to leave, yet the next leg of journey was Paris which I will leave you in suspense about until my next post!
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