More Pics of Our Trip to France

The day after we spent one day in Paris and saw Notre Dame, we went out to the Loire Valley. Whoa, was is beautiful. The first chateau we went to was this one and with the exception of Versailles, it's probably one of the biggest chateaus in France. It's called Chambord and it is absolutely amazing. All of the different roof lines are amazing. There is a very cool spiral staircase in the middle of it where one person could go up and another person could go down at the same time and not pass by each other. It is speculated that Leonard da Vinci designed the staircase as he was asked by Francois the 1st, the king of France at that time, to come to France and Francois and Leonardo da Vinci were good friends and Leonardo lived close by this chateau. Anyway, here's a picture of the staircase.

A pic of the front, or in this case I guess it's the rear, of Chambord. This was probably my favorite chateau that we saw. Francoise the 1st commissioned this chateau and spent a total of like 22 days here. It was made to be nothing more than a hunting lodge. He never saw it completed however. This picture shows a little motorized boat in the lake that surrounds about 50% of the chateau. It's way big. You could put four or five waterski courses on it and still have plenty of room. Maybe they used it for fishing but I never really saw any references to fishing, but a lot of hunting.

Here's a picture of Chenonceau. My ranking puts it right up there alongside Chambord in it's coolness factor. This place has it's own beautiful gardens, big gardens and it's built over a river. Originally there was just a bridge crossing the river here and then Katherine Briconnet decided to build on the bridge. In France it's called Château des Dames as recorded in the French history books, Chenonceau owes a large part of its charm to women: it was built in 1513 by Katherine Briçonnet, then made even more attractive by Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Médicis, and saved from the rigours of the French Revolution by Mrs Dupin. No question it's very beautiful. Notice the french babe posing for a shot for me? Her name was Cherie and she's from Versailles - jk, don't know who she was but I got her in my shot while she was posing for her beau.

This shot is of the chateau out in Angers. It's different since it was built more of a fortress rather than just a hugh fancy house of the rich and famous. Here, Kelly is standing on the actual drawbridge. The walls of this place where several feet thick and way tall. Very different from the other chateaux that we saw so this one was fun since it was so different.
What can I say but "beautiful"! I picked this chateau, actually three of the chateaux that we saw, I picked since I bought pictures of them when I was coming home from my mission. I had never even seen them while on my mission so that has always been a goal of mine. I had them framed a few years after my mission. Jerrol's mom did it and it cost a small fortune. I had no idea they would cost so much but hey, they still look great and now I'm going to frame our photos of the same ones. This one is Saumur. It's way cool too cause it overlooks the Loire River. Here's a shot from across the river. Speaking of the river, here's a shot out of our bedroom window at our Bed & Breakfast. Yea, it was pretty romantic. I highly recommend a trip to the Loire Valley if you plan a trip to France. It was relaxing and very enjoyable. Rural France is very charming.


Our favorite day, however, was when we slowed down a bit and decided to spend the entire day in Amboise France. A big town/small city, it has a great little downtown area right by the Chateau. I think we had lunch and dinner on the same small street there in town. I think I could have spent three lazy and relaxing days right there. I probably will never get there again in my life, but I will return in memories. Here's a shot of the area from the cafe where we had lunch. Amboise happens to be where Leonardo da Vinci lived when he came to France and he's buried right there in the Chapel of the Chateau.

This is just a picture of the courtyard of the Louvre from one of the windows in the Louvre. It is so amazingly hugh it would take several days to see everything. We met another couple from Salt Lake that had spent several hours there and didn't see the Venus de Milo statue. The glass pyramid wasn't there when I was there last. I actually liked how they put it together like that. I was afraid I would think it looked stupid.

The first day back in Paris, Kelly and I took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. We got out of the Metro and were right there at the head of Champs-Elysees. We walked all the way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. This is where I took this pic of Kelly with the Eiffel Tower in the background. I really wanted Kelly to see this area since we get to see it every year in the Tour de France.
One of the few shots of me during our Paris trip. This is one of the fountains at the Place de la Concorde. The weather was really outstanding during our entire trip. It was pretty cool in the mornings but the sun came out every day and it was very warm in the afternoons. We had a little bit of rain the very first day we were in Paris before we went out to the Loire Valley. Enough for us to buy an umbrella but we didn't use it much.

On our trip back to Paris, we stopped first at the Palace at Versailles. If you've never been there, it's really hard to describe the enormity of it. The thousands and thousands of hours to build the palace is unfathonable to me. The craftmanship is perhaps unmatched in any other building in the world. There is so much gold leafing in the palace. They said that in one room alone, during the reconstrucion, it took over 5 lbs. of gold - just in one room.