Tours after touring

22 March 2009- My friends from Arizona rock! Excellent bringers of all things Americain like green chiles, black beans and Coffeemate creamer. They brought the best weather with them, sunny and bright with minimal clouds. We saw so much in Paris. Utilized the Museum pass again (worth every dime or I guess centime), joined my tour group for a lecture on large format paintings from the Flemish and French schools, saw my favorite location: Basilica St. Denis and it was their favorite as well, rode all different kinds of transportation, made friends at several patisseries and chocolatier shops. Even with my stumbling french and the workers-fantastic spoken english, we managed to try almost every pastry and goodie known to the French.

We even managed to find an obscure chocolate shop referred to by a friend who visited like 15 years ago. No directions, just the name BON. Turns out they are just down the street! I mean the chances are minimal, slim to none. Similar to trying find that cute little cafe on the corner next to the bookstore and flower shop.

We even walked on the transportation strike day, defiantly! We found my scarf guy and made him very happy with large purchases. They are armed and ready to return to real life with plenty of sweets, chocolates, cheese and goodies.

We managed to get a French countryside trip in as well. I booked us on a weekend break to Tours. Tours is the center of the Loire Valley also known Chateau Central. I was no longer the tour guide so nice and relaxing. Just had a snafu getting us to the first meeting but after that, just sit, listen, learn and visit this amazing section of France.

Here we are in the new location of Chez Nickell. Hah, we wish. More like the Chateau Chambord, yes like the liqueur. Francois 1st had his hunting shack built and then Louis 14th improved up on it. 440 rooms, a double helix staircase credited to Leonardo da Vinci, 365 chimneys for a hunting shack. The grounds are still royal or presidential hunting grounds. Sarko isn't much of a hunter unless you count his trophy wife. A wall surrounds the property and it is 23 miles long. You could run a near-marathon around this place, how insane. As the driver said, it really wasn't a wonder that the revolution took place to remove the monarchy, just that it took until 1789 to get it started!!!

This was Chateau Azay-le-Rideau, nice new digs for us if we could dream. Surrounding the fairytale castle on the river was huge romantic gardens with trees, greens, and flowers. So nice to stroll around and see the layout of the grounds. And dream.

If only the balcony of Chez Nickell could be like this! This was just the garden of Villandry. Love the sculpted trees, and perfect terrasse to view all from the back the shack, I mean chateau. Think of the tomatoes and other veggies you could grow from here.

Here we are in a house we could handle. The ground keeper house of Chateau Chenonceau. Unfortunately they are undergoing some restoration of the actual chateau and the lines were ruined by the scaffolding. Do your own search of the chateau and sit in awe at the beauty. Truly our favorite with a huge gallery and kitchen dripping with copper everything.

This was some ruins of the Basilica in Tours. Huge ruins that made you feel tiny and insignificant. This was one tower that is still remaining. The other tower was at the end of the block. Talk about feeling tiny.

I am sure to blog more about the trip to Tours but now I need to brag. Arizona has made it to the Sweet Sixteen. We just squeaked out an invitation (25 years running) and are making good on that now. I get another visitor this week but hopefully she will be okay with Chad as her tour guide if the Zona game is on when she comes!