As I have heard many a time since arriving in Paris: “Paris is not France and France is not Paris.”
Pretty hard to believe after living in only the best city in the world for the past two months, but I guess I needed to get out there and see what everyone was talking about.
Last weekend, my parents came to visit. After 3 days of gorging ourselves on delicious meals and trying, but failing, to walk them all off, we decided to go out to Giverny for the day. For those of you who are not art fanatics like I have become, this is the place where Claude Monet lived and painted. This is the sight of the famous water lilies and garden. But mostly, it is just…. magical.
Walking through his house and gardens was truly surreal. I could quite clearly picture a little old white bearded man sitting by the pond, painting the scenery, and eating in his bright yellow dining room with chairs the size of baby stools. (People really seemed to be miniature back then). It is a very special place and you can certainly see where the man that coined the term “impressionism” got his inspiration.
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After such a lovely weekend it was difficult to go back to school while my parents were gallivanting off in Normandy during the week. I was mostly jealous of the cheese they were eating, not the historic sights. Then, on Thursday I met them in Tours for a weekend in the Loire Valley. This is the place with all of the famous chateaus and fairytale castles. They also have some pretty darn good wine! We stayed in an adorable little manor house-turned hotel in Contres, which was fairly close to all the places we wanted to see. The owners of the hotel were great and the chef, Victor, made me homemade vegetarian meals every night. Quite a treat except for the fact that every night he would tell me that I didn’t know what I was missing out on and one day I would have a lover that would make me eat meat. Interesting…
After some difficulties with navigation and a few stall outs in our European stick shift car, we finally made it to all the castles we wanted to see. We went to Chenonceau, Villandry, Cheverny, Amboise, and Chambord. These are some of the most famous in France and Chenonceau was definitely my favorite. It is truly straight out of a fairytale with its picturesque towers, moat, and French gardens. All of the places we visited were beautiful but that was definitely the most special.
Somehow my dad was able to drive us back in to Paris after the weekend. I was asleep and didn’t have to listen to the navigation troubles, but I think my mom had cookies to feed him for motivation. It was an amazing weekend and I was so glad to share it with my parents.
*Blog by Cary Sellers