Chateaux, chateaux, et plus de chateaux!

Just back from a weekend in the Loire Valley, bonjour!

I woke up super early yesterday (Saturday) morning to get to the Gare Montparnasse by 7:15am! We all met there and got on the train (it was still dark out!). Martine bought us all croissants and pains aux chocolats on the train which were, of course, delicious!

We arrived at the Tours train station at around 9am where we got on a bus that took us the Langeois -- a pretty small town! Our guide, who is actually my architecture professor!, gave us a brief into to the "chateaux" of the region, and we made our way to the Langeois chateaux, which is from the late middle ages. Pretty simple, but it was beautiful none the less!

From there, we took the bus to a "cave" and took a tour -- run by the Caslot family. Quite an incredible operation! Thousands and thousands of bottles and barrels in the caves underneath their property. We learned that they primarily make rouge and rose wines because the types of grapes that grow best there are red! Imagine that. After we took the tour (which was also a lovely 11 degrees celsius -- and remains that way all year round), we had a tasting! I know we tasted a rose and then two rouges, but then she just kept bringing out more from different years (I stopped after two rouges) and eventually tried to get people to guess what year the wines were from...I don't think anyone succeeded.

We were all STARVING because by this time it was about 1pm -- and yes, we started the wine tasting before noon....and so the bus dropped us off at the Cafe de la Promenade which was just about a pictoresque-French country as you can get. They just started serving us food -- we started out with a bowl of salad which consisted of lettuce, wonderfully sweet red grapes, carrots, and a tangy dressing (not sure what was in it). After that, they started bringing out what looked like pizza -- and I think I've finally realized my worst enemy among French foods (because it lurks everywhere) -- creme fraiche! Each 'pizza' had a thin crust and then was topped with a 'healthy' coating of creme fraiche, followed by ham and then covered in cheese. They were brought to the table essentially right out of the oven. Yum. After that, they brought us platters of chicken skewers and then scallops paired with a piece of sausage -- delicious. We then proceeded to the cheese course -- where I stuck to the harder cheeses and thoroughly enjoyed one that tasted like a mild parmesan, and then FINALLY, they brought out apple tarts -- which were the same thin crust, then topped with creme fraiche, thinly sliced apples, and then covered in sugar....Need I say more?

From there (yes, long day), we drove to the chateau at Villandry -- which obviously, was incredible, but it's known mostly for its spectacular French gardens! So we actually didn't get to go into the castle, but we wandered through the gardens -- some of which has been turned into a vegetable garden -- and it was nice to be able to be out in the countryside for a change!

After Villandry, we went back to Tours to settle in at the Best Western (how francais) which was lovely -- I shared a room with Emily Heckman and Jennifer and we had an ENORMOUS suite, even by American standards. Which was wonderful -- and because of the heat, the air conditioning was a huge plus too.

For dinner! We walked over to Le Singe Vert where Martine had preordered dinner for all of us -- the first course was a salad with thinly sliced apples on a bed of lettuce and then finished with a poached egg and light dressing -- so so good. THEN (this is for you Allan....), we had confit du canard (!) which a little side of potato hash and a small salad. Ridiculously. Delicious. Of course there was bread throughout, but the dessert was heavenly too -- a piece of apple tart/pie/crisp with a cherry sauce drizzled over it. The cake was a wonderful texture -- and the apples had been cooked just enough so that they were starting to caramelize, but were still firm and crisp. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

The group took a nice little promenade through the town after dinner which ended up with a photo shoot in front of the town's cathedral. Very fun! And then I headed back to the hotel and headed to bed!

Which I'm actually going to do right now -- I'll save today for tomorrow!  But I'll leave you with a picture of the "Jardins de Villandry":

A demain!