Last day of the bus tour! It was bittersweet for me. Lol. Unlike everybody else in the group, I wasn't sick of castles yet. They weren't all blending together for me, either. Each one looks so different and has such a different history! But not everyone shares that view with me. Lol. And so I just ignored all the complaints from everybody else on the bus. I was lovin' life (so long as we weren't at the nasty hotels). I guess I just need to do the castle tour again with people who like castles or at least like making me happy/humoring me. That would be way more fun. Lol. Although, I've loved being on the bus with the Le Bras. They're so funny, as I've said before. All their jokes are hilarious! J I think they make up for the complaining fellow classmates.
Our first stop was the Blois castle. Each wing of this castle was from a different time period and a different architectural style, and it was fun to compare all the styles. I really liked our tour guide, too. She was really impressed that we wanted her to speak French. Lol. She was pretty interesting to listen to, too. One of the most interesting things about this castle was that the Duke of Guise was murdered here at the foot of the king's bed! On orders of King….Henri? The….III? IV? I can't remember. One of the sons of Catherine de Medicis, so probably the III.
This was another one of Francois 1er's castles, so there were salamanders everywhere in the decoration. I think the salamander is kind of a weird animal to pick for your symbol. (You can totally see one above the thrones in Ever After, though! That was cool.) It's little and not very powerful. Lol.
Catherine de Medicis had secret cupboards in her study, and I thought that was awesome. Lol. And you opened them with a little lever kind of like a trash can. That sort of thing would be so nifty! I kind of feel bad for Catherine de Medicis. I think she had it rough with the whole Diane de Poitier thing.
Then we saw the huge hall where the balls and big feasts took place. J As I said before, I love ballrooms. This one was cool, because there was a throne that tourists could sit on and take pictures! Lol. Our group had so much fun with that. Lol. Listening to Dr. Le Bras was the funniest part. He made a comment about every photo taken in that throne. Lol. On of my favorites, "Is it proper to show your legs at the court?" and his comments about Ryan "l'abeille" and "ses fleurs".
The last stop on our bus tour was to one of the biggest castles we've seen- Chambord! That thing is a beast! And it was supposed to be a hunting castle. Lol. The funny thing is, Francois 1er only stayed there 75 days in his life. The chateau was surrounded by woods and fields, much more natural than most castle gardens. The grounds were just as beautiful as any other castle's, though. I loved standing on top of the castle and watching the breeze ripple through the green and gold and orange grass.
Chambord also had so many towers! The huge towers were the coolest, though, because inside were the great staircases. These staircases were unique, because they were two staircases intertwined! Apparently the king wanted to be able to sneak down one staircase "unseen", so he'd have one of the intertwining staircases blocked off for his personal use. I don't know how you'd be unseen when you're the king, especially because people would know you were doing something if you had one of the staircases blocked…. But whatever.
This was the home of some of my favorite beds. J The queen's bed was so beautiful! It was blue with white designs. And of course, it perfectly matched the walls and had curtains. Another cool thing was the children's study! It was so cute. J The room was little, and there were two tiny chairs and a tiny desk. J Precious!
After touring the castle, Paris and I stopped for lunch. She got a sandwich (which I'm sick of. Lol. No more sandwiches!) and I got a crepe. Then we both got ice cream. J I definitely didn't need it, but the day was so warm and it tasted so good…. Mint chocolate chip. Mmmmm. J
The rest of the day was spent driving back to Paris and packing. That was stressful! Ah! We had to be under 20 kilos, so we had to leave as much behind as we could. I actually didn't end up leaving that much behind. But the other thing was, we could only have one carry on! Not a carry on and a personal item. One carry on period! I kinda cheated though…lol. I stuffed all the stuff from the bag I was originally going to have as my personal item into my backpack, and then I carried my raincoat and hid my purse, which wasn't fitting in my suitcase or my backpack, under my jacket. Haha, you Easyjet people! I fooled you! J
That was our last night in an Etap hotel… Which didn't even have that great a view of Paris, sadly. But we were too tired to go anywhere. And had too much to do as far as packing went. And we would have had to buy more metro tickets, and that would have been annoying. Lol. I know it sounds lame for my last night in Paris. Lol. But everybody in the group did that. Except Ryan, because he finished one of his walks that night. lol. But he didn't see any of the museums or go inside anything, so it wasn't much of a walk. Lol.
The night was interesting, though, because Paris and I were staying on a floor with all French high school students. A kid without a shirt on knocked on our door a couple times before he finally realized that we weren't anyone he knew. That kid should not go shirtless…. Just saying. And Paris said that while I was in the shower, there was this ear-piercing scream from somewhere down the hall. Weird… Why we got separated from the group and put with a bunch of teenagers, I don't know. Lol.
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