Chenonceau Chateau

The second castle we saw was Chenonceau.  This chateau is not huge but I like it because it is over the water, more quaint and more feminine.  It also has a lovely path of trees that leads to it.  This was actually a chateau that was given to the king's mistress (Diana) but when the king died his wife (Catherine Medici) took it back, lived in it and built her own gardens.  Diana was 20 years the king's age...and known for her beauty.

 The woods surrounding the grounds were beautiful!

We only had one small incident...poor Jim!

This was the hall that led over the water

This was some of the original tile, but has worn out.

My favorite part of the inside is the kitchen area.  If I had been a cook in that time, I would have loved to work here.

There was a fun labyrinth on the grounds.

The Loire Valley - Chambord Chateau

We thought as part of Jim and Lyndee's visit we would take them outside of Paris, first stop the Loire Valley!

This is Chambord.  It is HUGE!  It used to be a hunting lodge for the King of France.  The coolest part is the staircase through the middle of the castle that was designed by Leonardo da Vinci.  It is actually two staircases that never meet so that someone can be going up and another going down and you never cross, only see each other through the cutouts in the center.  My favorite part of the chateau is going up onto the roof.  Jeremy, Lyndee and Jim even snuck into a part of the castle that wasn't on the tour...but it wasn't locked either!

Cool staircase!

This is what you see from the top of the roof

 There must be 50 staircases throughout this place, inside and outside.

Even the gutters had character

 The chateau had its own chapel...apparently only very small people could sit!

Jeremy ate a hotdog from that....notice the grenade-shaped baguette hole makers?

I thought this translation was funny, a literal translation of the french.  They meant that you had to pay for your parking here at the machine.

Lyndee and Jim Visit - Part Deux

We did a lot of fun things while Jim and Lyndee were here.  We had some nice weather and also got rained out at Sacre Coeur, but it is Paris.  Here is our neighborhood...don't you just love all the trees?

We decided to go to see the Catacombs and while waiting in a pretty long line we watched this man cutting silhouettes of people with nothing more than elementary school scissors.  He was fantastic and got every detail.  I thought about telling him of a place he could charge $30 for this and be rich....Disneyland!  Oh, he also did it in 2 minutes or less!

One of my very favorite non-tourist spots that I have blogged about before is the Albert Kahn park.  I think Lyndee and Jim loved it, how could you not?  I thought it would be not as pretty since the season is almost over but it was just as beautiful as the first time.  Lyndee also liked all of the fish!