Nouvelles Aventures: Welcome to the Country

This past weekend I was lucky enough to travel a little bit south to the Loire Valley with two wonderful companions and see what life in the French Countryside is really like. Let me tell you what, it couldn't get anymore opposite of Paris and I loved every second of it (and not just becuase I ate like a champ all weekend with homemade quiche, pasta, roasted chicken, pizza, omlets and desserts like you would not believe). After taking the TGV only 1 hour south it was like we entered an entirely new world. It looked different, smelled different and the people were totally different (by different I mean super friendly, they offered directions, said hello with a smile and even the man making the crepes at a street side stand refused to let me go without having a crepe sucre "on the house"!!!!). Everything about it had my head turning to look here and there, I really did not want to miss a single thing. Although on a side note - I did try out the local Monoprix becuase some genius packer (c'est moi!) forgot something really important - pajamas!! Upon our arrival we explored the town of Tours and then picked up the rental car to make our way to our final destination. Once we realised that GPS is not always the smartest thing ever, we made our way out of the city and ended up in Amboise, a sleepy little town where Da Vinici is buried...Where we were lucky enough to stay with two gracious hosts at their newly renovated country home. It was a three story, charming house that was built in the 1800's, a complete transition from the tiny cramped apartments of Paris. Being in this type of atmosphere just reinforced the fact that I am a country girl through and through at heart... I felt just a bit more at home being surrounded by trees and flowers and dirt roads. There were no cars honking and it just smelled fresh (and I don't mean fresh in that gross garbage been sitting in the sun all day fresh, I mean the fresh bread ad laundry drying in the sun fresh!) You can take the girl out of the country but not the country out of the girl... Even though the weather wasn't incredibly gorgeous (I think that Spring has gone on vacation and Winter is earning some serious time and half overtime pay because it has been gray, cold and rainy for weeks now...) we had a few brief moments of blue skies and sunshine and managed to stay dry enough to enjoy 3 Chateaus, an awesome little market place, a donkey park, a vineyard, a traditional French lunch in the middle of nowhere in a long house built next to an asparagus farm and some very breathtaking scenery. Walking through these castles and little towns brought an entirely new appreciation for France and made me realise what a young litte country the US is. The stories that have been made on these tiny country streets and within the castle walls are older than anyplace I have ever experienced. Of course the Asian Tourist part of me came out and I clicked away like these castles and towns were going to dissapear and I needed to have proof they once existed. So for your viewing pleasure, here is a SMALL sampling of the weekend...

DISCLAIMER: there are no wine tasting/vineyard photos because I think that deserves an entire post dedicated just to that!!!!