Chateau Excursion #2

So yesterday was, of course, the second half of the chateau excursion. Katie stayed the night again since there wasn't an early enough bus to take to meet in the morning. On Friday night we ended up eating out at a Chinese place in the Centre Ville.

Let me tell you: French Chinese food blows American Chinese food out of the water! They served us these crispy little chip things followed by our appetizers--I ordered "nems", which are eggrolls. Of course, I didn't know that at the time; I just wanted to try something new. I'm not really a big fan of eggrolls, but these ones were amazing. They were piping hot, and I was provided with lettuce to roll them in and a sauce to dip. And that wasn't even the main course!

For dinner, I got pineapple chicken with Cantonese rice. I think the dish speaks for itself. And then there was dessert. Since I've come to France, I have become rather accustomed to having a dessert with meals--most of the time, it's just a piece of fruit or some yogurt, but I have also had crepes, ice cream and mousse from time to time. So ordering dessert was not really as big of a stretch for me as it once was. What was the dessert, you ask? Pineapple beignets. You might think that that is a lot of pineapple for one meal, but after all, it's one of my favorite fruits! And they were amazing! I got two, and I ended up taking one home for breakfast the next day.

But I digress from the original subject of this blog--the trip. This time, we visited four chateaus--Amboise, Clos Luce, Blois, and Cheverny. Of the four, I liked the outside of Amboise the best. It had these amazing gardens, complete with a statue of Leornardo Da Vinci that was pretty cool too. The Clos Luce was the chateau where Leonardi Da Vinci lived, but unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside! It was really too bad, because there were statues of all of his inventions and personal quotes on the walls. Katie got very excited about this one, as she said that "this is the closest I'm going to get to real science while studying French in France!"--she's a chemistry major.

The one that I liked the most of all--for that day--was Cheverny. While Amboise was beautiful and Clos Luce was interesting and Blois was impressive, Cheverny seemed more...classy. It looked like it could actually be lived in during modern times--which it has been. As strange as it seems, this actually added to the charm of the chateau itself. Not to mention, the grounds of Cheverny also included a chenil--a kennel where hunting dogs are kept. I got several pictures of the dogs themselves--they resembled beagles, only much bigger.

The only complaint I have about yesterday is the weather. Though the forecast was for sunshine and warm temperatures, as usual, the weatherman lied. Not only was it cloudy and gloomy, but it even started raining a little bit in the late afternoon. Not the best weather to be walking around outdoors.