The Loire Valley

I spent the past weekend wandering around centuries old buildings that are teeming with history. But first, I got drunk...

Our very first stop was a visit to Marc Brédif wine caverns. I had told my friend I would try to drink some Loire Valley wine after he insisted that I do so. Little did I know I was going to do just that. Our site director apologized for the visit to the caves, since it was barely after 10 in the morning - she figured it would be difficult to drink wine in the morning, to which my friend JP said, "...hair of the dog, man". The caverns held over a million bottles of wine, some dating back to 1874. At the end of the tour, we were given wine glasses and encouraged to try a few different specialities. After roughly a glass and a half, pens and clipboards were distributed. I should listen to my intuition when it tells me that something is about to occur that might not end in the best way (or turn out hilarious at my expense). There were more empty glasses spread throughout the room at stations, where there were a total of five "drinking games" set up. We had to determine which wine was what from the options we had on our paper. One game consisted of trying to discern which wine was a Sauvignon and which was a Chenin. Another was a bit harder: guess the year of the wine, followed by 8 year options, all within the last 30 years or so. At one point, there was a disagreement among my group of which wine was which (this game consisted of 3 different wines) and they looked to me for my opinion. By that time, I had forgotten and after a pause, I uttered the words, "Crap, I'm going to have to drink more wine". We came in second place in the game, so I guess the hangover I received from the countless glasses served it's purpose. Regardless, I bought two bottles of wine that I had tried.

  While perusing the town after the tour, I spied hot air balloons taking off a few fields away and rising over the ancient buildings of Amboise. Something overtook my fear of heights (vertige in French) and said, "Sam, you're going to go in a hot air balloon one of these days if it kills you." - it would have been right then if circumstances hadn't been so unfortunate.

Château d'Amboise

A beautiful castle atop a hill, and the resting place of none other than Leonardo Da Vinci. This is a combination of renaissance and gothic style architecture. My friend and I had wonderful kebabs for lunch before we ascended the stairs leading to the château. Our guide was amicable and kept the group entertained with fun facts about the history of the building. I never realized Da Vinci was buried in the chapel of the castle, and when I found out I immediately became gleeful. I'm a big fan of Leo. He's the bee's knees.

Château Chenonceau

The Ladies Castle. It housed 6 important women over time. Spanning the river Cher, it is flanked by two gardens, one of which was from Diane de Poitiers and the other from Catherine de Medicis. This has to be one of my favorite châteaux. It's gorgeous and has an intriguing history. After the death of her husband, Louise de Lorraine became incredibly upset and retreated to one room in the house. She locked herself in her bedroom and painted mourning symbols on the black walls. This lady (who might have been off her rocker, in my opinion) wore only white - the color of mourning for royalty. She was referred to as "The White Queen". 

Loche

The medieval stronghold of Loche stands high above the centre ville. I was fortunate enough to visit the donjon or the keep as well as the torture room. They preferred to call it "la salle de la question". Among the torture methods, they forced anywhere from 9 to 18 litres of water down ones throat. My personal favorite was this: they put salt on the prisoner's feet, and had a goat lick off the salt. It tickled like hell, but after a while became painful because a goat tongue can be rough, not unlike a cats. 


Enjoy some photos from the weekend, day two I had an amazing hairdo courtesy of Clara, a friend from Oregon.....

This looks photoshopped to me..

Note: My languages are starting to blur together. Some words that I know should be correct just don't look that way, and vice versa. I'm also becoming more fluent in oral comprehension (even surprising myself at how badass I am).