On Friday, we discovered Tours and had an amazing dinner. We both had poulet au miel citronné (Chicken cooked with honey and lemon). Tom had rillettes (a type of pâté special to the area) as his entrée and he actually liked it! He is very picky, so I was happy.
The restaurant, Grill du Roy (with the old spelling for king- Roy instead of Roi):
On Saturday we visited two châteaux near Tours. The first was Chenonceau in the village of Chenonceaux.
This castle's history is dominated by women: Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medici, and Louise de Lorraine. My favorite room was Louise's just because it was so interesting. She was in mourning when she lived at Chenonceau, and she went beyond black and white morning clothes. Her room was solemn, with painted crown of thorns and silver tears on the walls.
The second castle we visited was Amboise. And we just realized we didn't take a picture of the outside of the château. Oops! However, by visiting the chapel of the castle, we stumbled across the (presumed) tomb of Leonardo da Vinci, who spent his golden years in France.
We also had a great view of the town of Amboise that we visited briefly after the château. We also found a place to déguster (taste) and buy some Loire Valley wine.
Despite having a terrible headache on Saturday, it was great. Sunday, we weren't sure what to do. It was Toussaint (All Saint's Day) and everything was closed in Tours and busses weren't running to castles. At the Tourism Office we found that there was a guided tour of Tours. Tom, being the great husband that he is, accompanied me on the two hour walking tour in French. I loved learning about the architecture of the town. We saw the place where Joan of Arc got her armor before heading to Orléans, another city in the Loire Valley where Joan had her great victory. The houses where you can see the wood are from the Middle Ages- at least the style is, and they've been restored. I don't know pretty much any architectural terms, so I can't really describe it, but I enjoyed hearing about it anyway. The guide talked a lot about how dangerous this style of building was for fires, and how the more affluent Tours residents reconstructed their homes (back in the day). Luckily for us, some weren't able to and we still get to see the original style.
WOW! those houses look incredible!
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