Castles and mustard and trains, oh my!

As before mentioned, I spent the last few days of October and the first few of November enjoying a delightful French invention called "La vacance de toussaint". It's a toss-up whether this is a good trade-off for halloween - I definitely miss seeing kids in costumes, carved pumpkins and even hearing "the Monster Mash", but who can argue with a week and a half of vacation? At anyrate, in this country they opt for days off over candy, and being that I'm hear to embrace the culture - I went right along and vacationed with the rest of France.
My roomie Alyse and I started off the vacay by taking a five hour train trip (plus an hour or so of layover) from Quimper to Amboise, in the heart of the Loire Valley. Amboise is an adorable and very touristy town located smack dab in the middle of all the must-see castles of the Loire. It also has it's very own castle, and is where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last days. We toured the castle and Leo's old home - both of which were really interesting (especially Leo's house - they've turned the grounds into a huge park with several life size, working models of his inventions).

Here's a pic of Alyse and I outside le Château Royal d'Amboise (it's just over my left shoulder)
Our second day in the Loire Valley, we decided to take a train to nearby Blois, where we visited it's local "chateau royal" in the morning. That afternoon we boarded a bus to take the thirty minute ride to quite possible the most incredible chateau. Ever. Now, I haven't seen a ton of castles in my life time, so maybe I'm not really the most qualified to call Chamobrd the most incredible chateau that ever existed, but I mean come on...just look at it!

Yeah...that's what I thought. Walking up to this castle is an overwhelming experience. It is absolutely vast and despite it's enormity (I'm quite sure that's spelled wrong), it's also quite intricate. It has somewhere near 400 rooms and 300 fireplaces (like I said, it's big - can you image heating that place?). It was built mostly for use as a hunting retreat for Francois I, although it was mostly his sons that used it (umm, I think Louis XIV and Henri something...I'm pretty sure I should know that for certain as a French major...). Anyway, it's absolutely enormous and is situated on the largest game reserves in all of Europe. The entire city of Paris could fit inside the walls that delineate the outer reaches of Chambord's grounds! What's more, the day we visited was the quintissential crisp fall day - gorgeous blue sky, trees all shades of orange and yellow, and a fantastic sunset in the evening that only hightened the golden hue of the foliage. C'était magnifique.
Our final day in Amboise happened to fall on November 1st - Toussaint itself. Because of this, there are very few public transportation options available anywhere in France. This posed a problem as the final castle, Chenonceau - and apparently the ultimate, must see chateau of the Loire Valley (I know what you're thinking, how can anything surpass Chambord?...just you wait...) - was not in Amboise, but was a 25 minute bus ride away. Now, we had originally planned to see Chenonceau the morning of our first full day in Amboise. Having read that there's only one bus a day to the castle and that it leaves around 10, Alyse and I were ready to go at 9, just to play it safe. We asked the woman at the front desk of the hotel if she knew anything about it, to which she replied, "I think it leaves around 10, but check at the tourist office". No problem. We make our way to the Tourist Office, but find that it doesn't open until 10. Again, no worries. Why would the ONE bus to the MOST VISITED CASTLE IN FRANCE leave before tourists have access to information like where and when to catch it? Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Well, that's how it worked. While Alyse and I leisurely whiled away the time in a café waiting for the office to open, our three euro, round-trip, method of transportation was on it's merry way to Chenonceau. This wouldn't have been a big deal, but if we wanted to visit Chambord, it was an all day afair that had to occur on Wednesday - and like I said, Thursday was Toussaint, which conveniently meant NO BUSES. We were to leave for Dijon Thursday afternoon. Lovely. So, we ask if there are ANY other alternatives. "Of course!" was the cheery reply from the kind office of tourisme employee, "a taxi, 20 euro's each way". Suddenly, our 3 euro visit (not including chateau admission) had just skyrocketed to 40. "Oh, you want to go on Toussaint? Well, they'll be an extra fare since it's a holidy." Nope, not 40 euros now...we were going to have to pay nearly 60 euros to go see Chenonceau. But you know what? We were on vacation, we had just received our first salary, and when-the-hell-else were we ever going to be back in the middle of France to see the most visited castle in the country? So we went right ahead and paid that 60 euros. And it was worth it.

While Chambord is absolutey stunning for it's size, Chenonceau hit's you with it's beauty. At Chambord, I could picture royal courts returning from the hunt, and important historical figures doing important historical things. Chenonceau is much more whimsical. It's the kind of castle that makes you feel like there's probably a dragon living in the woods, and a troll that hides beneath bridge over the moat. It's a castle that makes you think of princes and princesses and white horses and all those stereotypes bred into our minds by the fine people at Disney. And it's wonderful. Historically, it was called the "lady's castle". It's where King Henri lived with both his wife, Catherine de Medici, and his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, (although not at the same time...I don't think...). They both have gardens dedicated to them and their influence is felt throughout the tour of the castle itself. Again, we were blessed by INCREDIBLE weather, which only added to the peculiar magic of the place. All in all, it was an excellent way to end our tour of the Loire Valley.
From Amboise, we jumped on the train once again (I think at this point we were on # 5) and headed further east into the Bourgogne region of France - more specifically Dijon - known primarily for its mustard and its wine. We spend the first day of our time in Dijon touring the city. It has a very quaint style of architecture in it's centre-ville, as well as a very unique style of roof tiles on several of the buildings

Voilà the architecture, and I'll post a picture of the roof tiles in just a moment. As far as major sites to see, Dijon is like most other french cities. It has a Cathedral, Palais de Justice, Hotel de Ville, some nice squares and a lovely market, all of which we spent the day leisurely touring through. We also spend our fair share of time pouring over the vast varieties of mustard offered in Dijon, and ended up with the regional specialties "cassis" (black currant) and "pain d'épice" (gingerbread). Determined to treat ourselves to an all-out authentic bourgognian meal, we dined on escargots, coq-au-vin, beouf bourguinonne, a delicous apple tarte, and of course, red wine that night. It was delicious, and well deserved after our whirlwind tour of castles.
The next day we took (you guessed it!) another train into a smaller nearby town called Beaune. It was your typical super touristy, super quaint little French town. We happened upon it on market day, and spent a good chunk of the morning exploring the stands which took up the better chunk of downtown. After wandering for a while, we made our way to the towns main tourist spot, L'hotel Dieu. Basically, it was a hospice for the poor, in which the owners and nuns who worked there tried to give as much dignity to the dying as possible. The fanciest room was reserved for the poorest patients and instead of the standard set of wooden bowls and plates, they received their own set of pewter dishes. This is also the building that demonstrates most impressively the unique style of roof tile common to this area of Burgundy.

Impressive, isn't it? Exhausted from our nonstop trip, we spent a quiet evening in once we returned to Dijon. The next day we went to mass in one of the local Cathedrals (yep, there's more than one - this IS France, after all) and then spent the afternoon touring the art museum. We caught our train back home early in the evening and just barely (with minutes to spare) made our connecting train in Paris. We arrived back to home sweet home in Quimper at around 1 am, exhausted, but satisfied.
It was a good vacation.