Hey everyone! So these latest pictures below (which are quite out of order, Im sorry) are from this past weekend where I got to go with all the people from my program and see four castles in central France!!! Yes, I know, there's only pictures of three castles and its all because I left my camera on the bus by accident at the second castle, so Ill try to steal some friends' facebook pictures of it and upload them to the blog, but until then, you'll just have to imagine it! Ok here are the details...
Brissac - First stop on the list, a quaint little chateau, which actually looked more to me like a manor or a large English estate. It was a nice place to start off and the guided tour was actually really interesting. The Duke and Duchess who curently own the chateau are too old to keep it up and navigate the grand scaircases, so they've left it so generously to their nephew - the Marquis no less - and his wife and children, who do currently reside there. I don't know about you, but I think it would be awesome to be ten years old and living in a castle filled with secret passage ways, secret rooms, and even a dungeon!! When King Henry resided there for a short while, he even installed a panel that slid open to a secret room with a door that led outside for his mistress. Seems a little overkill to me considering every king at that time flaunted their mistresses about...but to each his own.
Next we were off to Villandry, the castle with the most beautifully and maticiously groomed gardens by far, and consequently, the one I forgot to bring my camera to...The castle itself wasn't too extraordinary, but the gardens just went on forever and they were hedged into little mazes and shapes that you could see perfectly from the walkway above that allowed a bird's eye view. No one was even allowed on the dirt path around the garden because it had been combed with large rakes into beautiful patterns as well! It was breathtaking! There were also some woods near by so me and my friends took a stroll through the woods pretending to be fairy tale characters in search of a dragon hiding treasure, it all got very complicated and in the end we never found the treasure, but at least I got to be a rogue theif for a good two hours - and at a castle no less!
Then the first day came to an end and we settled into the adorable town of Tours, where people were very friendly. We were so very tired we thought we would crash right away, but, unfortunately the hostel was very noisy all night and we all got quite a horrible sleep. But breakfast was good the next morning and off we went to the next castle.
Chenonceau - this is the castle that Beauty and the Beast is supposed to be based off of, but maybe they werent refering to the Disney one when they said that, because I really don't see the resemblance...but it was really cool all the same. Its hard to tell from the pictures, but the whole castle is sitting in the middle of a the Loire River. It's completely surround by water and has a long grand hall in back that travels the whole width of the river like a bridge. The kitchens are neat too because they're below the grand hall, closer to the water - I wonder what they did if the river ever flooded! Those kitchens would be underwater! The coolest part of this castle, though, was the hedge maze in the garden. My friends and I kept racing to the center. It was so much fun!
Amboise - After that, it was off to the last - and maybe my favorite - castle, Amboise. It rests on a small hill, but once you go up the towers, you have a gorgeous view of the whole town of Amboise and the Loire river. It was so beautiful!! Unfortunately, we were all exhausted and there was a mandatory hour-long tour about the castle. I don't think I could focus on a single thing our tour guide said, I was like a zombie. My brain had stopped working by then. I liked the interior of the castle well enough even though I was constantly distracted by the beautiful view from the windows.
I got home in time for dinner with my host mom, Puri, and then went straight to bed - saving my homework for Monday morning. And, indeed, I've been doing little but homework this whole week (but I cant complain when I study all afternoon in the beautifully designed Parc du Thabor in the sunny, 75 degree weather, now can I??) But now all my exams are finally done and its time to start packing and printing directions and washing clothes and buying snacks for my TRIP TO ITALY WITH MOM!!! I cannot wait!! Say some prayers that all the transportation works out cause we'll be taking a lot of it!! Two weeks of Italy here I come!! (And luckily for 1 week I'll be in a part of Italy on the border of France, so maybe I'll still get to keep up my French!!) I'll get to see all the sights, then spend the second week lounging on the beach with my friends and reading my French novels!! YAYA!
Alright, well drop me a line - sorry if I dont get back to you til after vacation - but Ill try my best to keep in touch along the way! Enjoy the pics until I put up all the Italy ones!! All my Love!
~Ashley
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Brissac's Basement and Chenonceau!
I was cornered in the dungeon basement!!
This reminded me of the Beauty and the Beast Kitchen!
Chenonceau
The Gardens across the moat at Chenonceau
The gardens up the hill at Amboise
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Versailles!
(This is continued from the last post - so scroll down to read about the first part of my weekend...)
Ok, so after a great time in Germany with my friend Carly, we headed to the night train from Munich to Paris. She would get off in Bonn at 5am, while I got to sleep until I reached Paris at 930. By then I was so exhausted that I slept like a rock. The only hitches were that I lost my reservation for about 30 minutes because it slid down between the beds and then I also woke up sleep talking --- hope I didnt wake the person up on the bunk below me!! But all in all, the night train was great and I arrived very refreshed to a beautiful Paris morning. I met my friend Cate (who's studying in Rennes with me) at the station and we headed off to Versailles!
Versailles (aka most incredible day ever)
This incredible day started off with me and Cate looking for the line to print off our electronic tickets. (We had both bought our tickets online, but there was a printing problem so all we had were our confirmation numbers.) So we asked a worker passing by which line we should get in, and in her uncertainty, she took us straight to the front of the line of people who had also bought electronic tickets. The worker at the front of the line said she would just take us right away and that we could go on in. Thanks to these two super awesome employees, Cate and I skipped an hour-long wait in line!! We had only been at the Palace for 10 minutes and there we were inside of it! We were so flabbergasted!
The palace was beautiful, just like I remembered, everything was so ornate and rich-looking. But the real wonder of the palace is the backyard. The grounds strech for miles and miles and include: hedge mazes, beautiful fountains, two other smaller palaces, gazeboes, a canal to replicate venice, hundreds of statues, flowers and sculted shrubbery, and a replica of an Austrian village where Marie Antoinette would pretend to be poor. We could have been there for ten hours more and not seen all of it. The sky was a cloudless blue and it was sunny and 70 all afternoon. It was so indescribably amazing. To top it all off, every Sunday the fountains go off and look so majestic and beautiful, some fountains even have little shows that cordinate to music. It was so magical! There were so many people just picnicking, playing frisbee, and sunbathing in the endless gardens. I wonder what King Louis XIV would say if he could see all these peasants enjoying his estate! All in all it was so wonderful and the only thing that finally convinced me it was time to go home was my aching feet - that were stupidly adorned in little slippers instead of good moutain-hiking and palace-strolling tennis shoes. I could barely walk by the time we got to McDonalds for dinner and practically passed out into my bed once we got back to Rennes. It was so tiring, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!!
Ok well that was my weekend, next week I should have some more stories because we'll be visiting the Loire Valley castles this upcoming weekend with my program! Hope you like the pictures (they're way below if you scroll down) and I hope you are all doing well! Drop me a line sometime! I love to hear how y'all are doing!
Ok, til next week!
Ok, so after a great time in Germany with my friend Carly, we headed to the night train from Munich to Paris. She would get off in Bonn at 5am, while I got to sleep until I reached Paris at 930. By then I was so exhausted that I slept like a rock. The only hitches were that I lost my reservation for about 30 minutes because it slid down between the beds and then I also woke up sleep talking --- hope I didnt wake the person up on the bunk below me!! But all in all, the night train was great and I arrived very refreshed to a beautiful Paris morning. I met my friend Cate (who's studying in Rennes with me) at the station and we headed off to Versailles!
Versailles (aka most incredible day ever)
This incredible day started off with me and Cate looking for the line to print off our electronic tickets. (We had both bought our tickets online, but there was a printing problem so all we had were our confirmation numbers.) So we asked a worker passing by which line we should get in, and in her uncertainty, she took us straight to the front of the line of people who had also bought electronic tickets. The worker at the front of the line said she would just take us right away and that we could go on in. Thanks to these two super awesome employees, Cate and I skipped an hour-long wait in line!! We had only been at the Palace for 10 minutes and there we were inside of it! We were so flabbergasted!
The palace was beautiful, just like I remembered, everything was so ornate and rich-looking. But the real wonder of the palace is the backyard. The grounds strech for miles and miles and include: hedge mazes, beautiful fountains, two other smaller palaces, gazeboes, a canal to replicate venice, hundreds of statues, flowers and sculted shrubbery, and a replica of an Austrian village where Marie Antoinette would pretend to be poor. We could have been there for ten hours more and not seen all of it. The sky was a cloudless blue and it was sunny and 70 all afternoon. It was so indescribably amazing. To top it all off, every Sunday the fountains go off and look so majestic and beautiful, some fountains even have little shows that cordinate to music. It was so magical! There were so many people just picnicking, playing frisbee, and sunbathing in the endless gardens. I wonder what King Louis XIV would say if he could see all these peasants enjoying his estate! All in all it was so wonderful and the only thing that finally convinced me it was time to go home was my aching feet - that were stupidly adorned in little slippers instead of good moutain-hiking and palace-strolling tennis shoes. I could barely walk by the time we got to McDonalds for dinner and practically passed out into my bed once we got back to Rennes. It was so tiring, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!!
Ok well that was my weekend, next week I should have some more stories because we'll be visiting the Loire Valley castles this upcoming weekend with my program! Hope you like the pictures (they're way below if you scroll down) and I hope you are all doing well! Drop me a line sometime! I love to hear how y'all are doing!
Ok, til next week!
Monday, April 11, 2011
What a Weekend!
Hey everyone! So this weekend I was very busy traveling to southern Germany on Saturday to see the castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenshwangau in Fussen and then spending the day at Versailles on Sunday! It was such an incredible weekend! So here's the details...
Transportation
The craziest part of this trip by far was the trnsportation. I decided to go to Germany in one weekend despite the fact that 1) It required over 30 hours of travel. 2) I would be in Fussen for about 5 hours before turning right around and heading home. And 3) Everything was timed to the minute, so any late bus or train or metro would shorten this time in Fussen. Yet, here I am to testify that it was totally worth it!! But since travelling was the majority of my trip, let me give you the layout...
Friday = 1. Go directly from teaching to train station, 30 minutes to get to the station, and catch the train from Rennes to Paris. Got there, got on, no problems.
2. Arrive in Paris at 830PM and have two hours to take the metro to the outskirts of Paris where I have to find the bus station and take a bus overnight to Stuttgart, Germay. The metro took longer than I thought, but still no problems UNTIL I get off the metro in this shady part of town with lots of barred up motels on the outskirts of Paris and realize that my google map has no more idea than i where the bus station is. After thirty minutes of trying to figure out the map to the bus station, I look at my watch and realize I have five minutes 'til the bus leaves for the night. This is made more terrifying by the fact that I don't know where I am, I'm obviously not in the best part of town, the metro has stopped running for the night - so I cant get back into Paris if I wanted, and my whole trip is down the drain before I even start. In this panicked state, something inside me snaps and I pitch the google map and just start running aimlessly through the shady streets of Paris. I'm all out sprinting and praying when suddenly this sign appears out of nowhere for the bus station, I sprint faster and more and more signs keep leading me around the town for a good quarter of a mile and suddenly I'm in the parking garage for the bus station. I sprint like mad looking for my bus. I finally find it, 30 seconds before its departure and the driver says I have to check in downstairs. I sprint downstairs and there's long lines to check in for every bus except mine. No line for me, so I throw my confirmation at the cashier, he throws me my boarding pass and goes, "You better run" , and I just think, "What do you think I've been doing??" and I make it to the bus and take my seat one minute after it was supposed to have left. I was shaking so bad, I didnt know whether to laugh or cry. In the end I decided to fall asleep and woke up the next morning in Stuttgart.
SATURDAY = We arrived an hour late to Stuttagart, so I missed my direct train to Fussen. Just glad to have made the bus, I walk around the S-bahn station at 700am eating my oranges and soaking up the morning sun. When the S-bahn arrives, I hop on and go right to the Stuttgart train station where the desk worker tells me that the next train to Fussen will arrive only an hour later than the one I missed. Not bad. EXCEPT - I have to take 3 trains now, instead of one. Each has a ten minute layover in a very small German town. The train I'm departing from is roughly 10 minutes late. 1st train of the day - Stuttgart to Ausburg. I am three minutes late for my connecting train (Ausburg to Buchloe) but at this point I know the benefits of sprinting and praying. So I do just that and find that my connecting train is by some miracle still there and I fly onto it one minute before it departs. Same thing happens in Buchloe, sprint to my train, make it by seconds. Is God good or what???
So there I am, able to breathe at last, on my way to Fussen. I spend a fabulous day in Fussen, take the evening train to Munich, take the night train from Munich to Paris and Saturday is suddenly over.
SUNDAY Get in to Paris at 930 after a good nights sleep on the train. Take the RER to Versailles with my friend, take it back at the end of the day, and catch the TGV back to Rennes. What a weekend for traveling!
NOW THE CASTLES!!
In Bavaria, I met up with my friend who's studying in Bonn, Germany. it was so great to see her!! So first we saw Hohenschwangau, which is the yellow-ish one in the photos, unfortunately at Neuscwhanstein and Hohen. we couldn't take pictures of the inside of the castles, so the outside is all you get...but the insides were very cool. We had a great, funny tour guide for the first castle, even if it was rather short, and then we had a bit of a break before the Neusch. tour, so we had lunch at a little cafe where I had my first Bavarian sausages! They were really good! Then we hiked up to Neusch. and admired the cliffs for a bit before joining our tour. The inside of Neusch. was sooo amazing, even better than I remembered!! I'm so glad I got to see it again (I went when I was 11 with my Nana and Baba) because everything had gotten all muddled on my mind. Every window had a view of the mountains or the countryside way below and it was so magical! Just like a fairy tale! Ludwig even built his own manmade cave right in the castle! Incredible! After that, we hiked back down and I was definitely sad to leave the mountains.
Ok well I have way more to tell you but its very late here and Im exhausted, so you'll just have to wait til tomorrow to hear about Versailles and the most perfect day ever!
Enjoy the pictures while you wait!
Transportation
The craziest part of this trip by far was the trnsportation. I decided to go to Germany in one weekend despite the fact that 1) It required over 30 hours of travel. 2) I would be in Fussen for about 5 hours before turning right around and heading home. And 3) Everything was timed to the minute, so any late bus or train or metro would shorten this time in Fussen. Yet, here I am to testify that it was totally worth it!! But since travelling was the majority of my trip, let me give you the layout...
Friday = 1. Go directly from teaching to train station, 30 minutes to get to the station, and catch the train from Rennes to Paris. Got there, got on, no problems.
2. Arrive in Paris at 830PM and have two hours to take the metro to the outskirts of Paris where I have to find the bus station and take a bus overnight to Stuttgart, Germay. The metro took longer than I thought, but still no problems UNTIL I get off the metro in this shady part of town with lots of barred up motels on the outskirts of Paris and realize that my google map has no more idea than i where the bus station is. After thirty minutes of trying to figure out the map to the bus station, I look at my watch and realize I have five minutes 'til the bus leaves for the night. This is made more terrifying by the fact that I don't know where I am, I'm obviously not in the best part of town, the metro has stopped running for the night - so I cant get back into Paris if I wanted, and my whole trip is down the drain before I even start. In this panicked state, something inside me snaps and I pitch the google map and just start running aimlessly through the shady streets of Paris. I'm all out sprinting and praying when suddenly this sign appears out of nowhere for the bus station, I sprint faster and more and more signs keep leading me around the town for a good quarter of a mile and suddenly I'm in the parking garage for the bus station. I sprint like mad looking for my bus. I finally find it, 30 seconds before its departure and the driver says I have to check in downstairs. I sprint downstairs and there's long lines to check in for every bus except mine. No line for me, so I throw my confirmation at the cashier, he throws me my boarding pass and goes, "You better run" , and I just think, "What do you think I've been doing??" and I make it to the bus and take my seat one minute after it was supposed to have left. I was shaking so bad, I didnt know whether to laugh or cry. In the end I decided to fall asleep and woke up the next morning in Stuttgart.
SATURDAY = We arrived an hour late to Stuttagart, so I missed my direct train to Fussen. Just glad to have made the bus, I walk around the S-bahn station at 700am eating my oranges and soaking up the morning sun. When the S-bahn arrives, I hop on and go right to the Stuttgart train station where the desk worker tells me that the next train to Fussen will arrive only an hour later than the one I missed. Not bad. EXCEPT - I have to take 3 trains now, instead of one. Each has a ten minute layover in a very small German town. The train I'm departing from is roughly 10 minutes late. 1st train of the day - Stuttgart to Ausburg. I am three minutes late for my connecting train (Ausburg to Buchloe) but at this point I know the benefits of sprinting and praying. So I do just that and find that my connecting train is by some miracle still there and I fly onto it one minute before it departs. Same thing happens in Buchloe, sprint to my train, make it by seconds. Is God good or what???
So there I am, able to breathe at last, on my way to Fussen. I spend a fabulous day in Fussen, take the evening train to Munich, take the night train from Munich to Paris and Saturday is suddenly over.
SUNDAY Get in to Paris at 930 after a good nights sleep on the train. Take the RER to Versailles with my friend, take it back at the end of the day, and catch the TGV back to Rennes. What a weekend for traveling!
NOW THE CASTLES!!
In Bavaria, I met up with my friend who's studying in Bonn, Germany. it was so great to see her!! So first we saw Hohenschwangau, which is the yellow-ish one in the photos, unfortunately at Neuscwhanstein and Hohen. we couldn't take pictures of the inside of the castles, so the outside is all you get...but the insides were very cool. We had a great, funny tour guide for the first castle, even if it was rather short, and then we had a bit of a break before the Neusch. tour, so we had lunch at a little cafe where I had my first Bavarian sausages! They were really good! Then we hiked up to Neusch. and admired the cliffs for a bit before joining our tour. The inside of Neusch. was sooo amazing, even better than I remembered!! I'm so glad I got to see it again (I went when I was 11 with my Nana and Baba) because everything had gotten all muddled on my mind. Every window had a view of the mountains or the countryside way below and it was so magical! Just like a fairy tale! Ludwig even built his own manmade cave right in the castle! Incredible! After that, we hiked back down and I was definitely sad to leave the mountains.
Ok well I have way more to tell you but its very late here and Im exhausted, so you'll just have to wait til tomorrow to hear about Versailles and the most perfect day ever!
Enjoy the pictures while you wait!
Versailles!
The best part about Versailles is the miles of gardens and foutains! Verailles is composed of the main palace (the big one at the top of the hill), the Grand Trianon (the pinkish one), and Marie Antoinette's little replica Austrian village.
Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau!
Neuschwanstein is the big white one and Hohenschwangau is the yellow-y one. Both are in the Alps in the south of Germany! Enjoy!
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