Loire Valley - Day 3 - Zoo de Beauval

 We ordered the salmon, salmon tartare, and chicken breast for supper on Day 2. The salmon tartare was very good - at least I thought so. We also shared a bottle of Lorenzini, an Italian pre-dinner drink that is stupidly cheap here - I paid something like 4 or 5 euro for a 1 litre bottle. I checked saskliquor.com and something similar at home is $17 on sale. We also had a local sparkling wine that was also really cheap.

In the morning we took a train to St-Aignan-Noyers, then a shuttle to the zoo. Thankfully that worked out or we would've been sort of stranded.

The zoo was really good. It was quite hot (around 31C), but there was a lot of available shade as the zoo has been around for decades so it has lots of mature trees from all over the world. There was pretty much every imaginable type of animal to see, including some we hadn't ever seen before such as weird little monkeys and things from australia and asia. I would say the place overall was comparable to the Calgary Zoo in terms of the diversity of animals and cool factor. 

After the zoo we caught the shuttle which appeared on time and then the train from a different town, Blois, back to Tours. On the train ride back we saw several chateau in the distance, including one that we'll go see tomorrow if everything works out.

We ordered 2 duck breasts, 1 steak, and 1 salmon, but received 3 steaks. It took us a minute to notice but at that point it was already late in the evening and we just ate them. After the meal we made plans for tomorrow to see a chateau in another nearby town that we saw from the train. We also enjoyed a different local sparkling white wine from Amboise. It kind of kills it to drink it out of hotel cups, but that's all we have available. Can't really complain for a few euro per bottle for something that would cost much more back home.

Loire Valley - Day 2 - Amboise

 On the evening of our first day in the Loire we walked around and saw the Tours Cathedral St. Something-or-other which had really nice stained glass. We also saw the Vieux Tours area and the kids had Crepes there.

Crepes

We walked quite a ways back to the hotel and then Tina and I went for supper. I had Steak Tartare and she had Grilled Steak. The tartare was good and it was my first time trying it (raw beef) and overall I enjoyed it but probably wouldn't go out of my way to make it at home. I got mixed up and accidentally ordered the tiniest bottle of orange juice I've ever seen for 4 euro too - there was maybe 200ml in there.

Went to bed and slept in before taking a train to Amboise in the mid morning. The town sits below the massive royal chateau. There is a tower with a ramp inside that could allow horses and chariots to go up to the terrace.

Once inside we took some ipad thingies and which gave us a tour. The kids liked them, they were interactive and worked really well.

For a time Amboise, like Tours, was the capital of France. I forget the exact date this was the case for each of them. 

Inside the tower / ramp entrance

There was a garden alongside the chateau that we checked out. Lots of plants. Grapes, lavender, flowers, apples, etc.

We found a restaurant, L'Epicurie, recommended by the Rick Steves guidebook to have a little lunch snack. I ordered Escargots, Terrine, and Cheese to share. Tina grudgingly tried the escargots and really liked them - in fact we all did. The terrine was also excellent as was the cheese. They brought out a cheese platter and told us about each of them and we chose which ones we wanted. It was in french and I was trying to pay attention to two things at once so really only got that a couple of them were local but we ended up taking the local ones and a few others that looked interesting.

We also bought gelato / ice cream "flowers" that were really good at a different shop.

We then realized it was either walk really fast back to the train station to catch a train in 15 minutes or wait around another hour and a half for the next one. We just made it.

After getting back I dealt with the Bull**** of trying to book tickets online and figure out schedules for the train to St Aignan Noyers, then the shuttle to the Zoo de Beauval, Zoo tickets, then shuttle back, then train back from a different station. It was really pissing me off as all of a sudden the credit cards wanted to text me (in Canada) to verify so I couldn't order anything. I was able to go to the station down the street and buy the train tickets, so hopefully it'll be easy tomorrow to buy shuttle and zoo tickets in person on the bus and at the zoo.

On the way back from the station I came across a Fiat 500 Abarth, which is basically the "sporty" / rally version of the Fiat 500. They are really rare in Canada. Jay Leno loves his.

we bought a local wine after Tina tasted it and gave the thumbs up in Amboise also. Her and Pieter are having Mimosas right now with a different wine we bought last night.

Hopefully the trip to the Zoo goes well tomorrow. It is France's best zoo and "4th most beautiful in the world", whatever that means. It appears to have a lot of them crazy critters to see so we'll check it out.

Loire Valley - Day 1 - Chenonceau

 The train from Gare Montparnasse to Tours that was booked left at the disgusting early time of 6:02am. Luckily there was a helpful worker at the station or we maybe would've missed it since the departure board we were looking at was the wrong one and she pointed out that we had to go to a different floor.

A lot of the land between Paris and Tours looks like Saskatchewan, lots of farmland and hayland. The station in Tours is quite nice compared to others we've been in.

We dropped off our bags and junk at the hotel which is down the street from the station and then went back to have breakfast at a Cafe in the station before catching a short train to Chateau Chenonceau (basically pronounced Shhh-None-So).

The chateau straddles the Cher River and has an interesting history both of Royals, Nobles, and use during the two world wars.

There was a painting in a bedroom of a king's three favourite mistresses:

The gardens were really nice, and there were a number of other areas including a labyrinth.

After the chateau we walked into the little town across the river and had some quiche and bread for lunch before catching the train back to Tours to check into our hotel. The rooms in this hotel are basically the same as we would see in Saskatoon at a normal hotel.