Our last few days were spent in the Loire valley where the main attraction is culture, small quaint villages, and historical cites. Our very own Countess Marnie had laid out a nice plan for us to tour.
We saw many chateaus, specifically one where Napoleon's governess grew up, then it was on to a poets birthplace (which none of us thought was to exciting) and then to a tiny church where there were still original 12th century frescoes on the walls. That was amazing to think that the paintings had made it that long. But what Lynn and Bob truly loved was the troglodyte houses! They've actually decided to ditch the new house in Venetian Estates and build their very own cave house. Yeah right!!! Since prehistoric times, people have lived in these caves. Now it's very chic to have a cave house. Artists and models from Paris come to the the village of Troo on the weekends to have parties in the caves!
After our culture tour, we embarked on another adventure. The Countness and Count cooked a wonderful 5 course dinner to celebrate our anniversaries. Here all of us, minus Lynn, discovered our love of cheeses. We must have had three rounds of cheese between the three of us, especially the homemade goat cheese made on the farm next to the chateau. We also both ate salmon and duck a la orange! We're all turning into food snobs. So, one bottle of champagne, five (yes five one with each course) bottles of wine and an after dinner, "illegal" cocktail of homemade pear liquer, we had a very nice rest for our last night in the chateau. The count is a bit of a "young at heart" playboy and loved a type of music called "Dub" so the count and I jammed out to this reggae music and he was really getting into it, headbanging and all. So there I am jamming in his study with a count to this techno/reggae music. Yeah, that's something I'll never forget.The next morning we took off for the quaint village of Amboise to have lunch with Lynn and Bob's friends Denise and Jack. Denise is a renowned Opera Singer who worked with Lynn at HCC. They cooked for us in their home and we had another lovely meal and enjoyed hearing Jack fill us in on the history of the two chateaus we were about to visit.
We visited the most beautiful chateau, Chenoceaux, and the biggest Chateau, Chambord, in all of France! Chenoceaux straddles the river Cher, and Chamboard is by the village Blois (pronounced blwah)... and yes, we said that all day.
After seeing Chambord at sunset (or less romantically in the dark), 
we headed off to the airport in Paris for the end of our trip. And that led to the aforementioned driving experience which we will no longer speak of. We've had a great trip and look forward to seeing you all soon!Au Revoir France!
