We had a small "petit dejeuner" with Jerome - he wanted us to have a GRAND one for our last day with fresh goat cheese, but we resisted. Guignon (not sure of the spelling) joined us at breakfast - he is a curious dog as he loves to hold his head over the fire in the fire place.
Guignon enjoying the fire in the fireplace during our last breakfast in Loches
We packed the car and walked through Loches one last time to the marche. I was surprised Tim wanted to go but this time he didn't have to maneuver through traffic since we were already parked.
We headed to Blois, easily found a park at the Chateau parking and took the tour. We loved the tour and the displays in the chateau.
The back side of the Chateau Blois
Entry side of the Chateau Blois
Beautiful carved stone at the entry to Chateau Blois
The inner courtyard at Chateau Blois
Tim acting very "kingish" at Chateau Blois
I had to try my hand at being King (for a minute) too!
Beautiful fireplaces and painted ceilings
Fabulous hall with tile floors, beautiful walls and ceilings and portraits (a la Beauregard!)
A wonderful wood paneled study with hand carved wooden panels
The Kings bed - or was it the Queen's? I think this is the room where Catherine deMedici died
The chapel as seen from the Chateau Blois
A strange sight - this was the Magic Musee - and they had dragons coming out of the windows.
We decided not to do the tour there and opted for lunch instead!
We walked around the city a bit - there is a huge pedestrian walking area with lots of shopping. We stopped and had a great lunch outside - pizza, pasta, and salad with some wine. We then walked to the large cathedral.
The cathedral in Blois
Front of the Blois cathedral
We got our car and headed the final 2 hours to Paris. We had planned to arrive about 3 to beat the rush-hour traffic. James (the GPS) got us through the traffic and I think I had only 3 or 4 heart attacks - I was glad Tim was driving. We only almost took out 2 or 3 old ladies and a few bicycles and motor scooters!!!! Death defying! But we made it.
James took us to the Caron de Beaumarchais in the Marais and fortunately the loading zone out front was open so we unloaded all of the luggage and left it in the lobby while we returned the car. But we needed to gas the car up first. That was an adventure of its own. We set James to find us a gas station and most were in the opposite direction. We set one for Total (they have always accepted our credit card) that was about 1 km away. Oh my - it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride all over again. I just knew that we had hit this old lady that stepped out in front of the car but Tim screeched it to stop just in time and she didn't even look. Whew. Well, the gas station was exactly where we had just arrived into Paris but the petrol station was INSIDE a parking garage. We did a U-Turn (I still don't know how he did that) and got to the pump and filled up.
Then to Gare de Lyon. Well, Tim missed a turn on the GPS, but it was actually good that he did. The detour showed us where the ONE entrance to the Enterprise Rental Car return was. And it was on Level -5 - with little teeny, weeny turns for our car - I just knew we were going to scrape the sides but we didn't. We got to Level -5. parked the car, put James in his carrying case, got the km reading, recorded the parking space and went upstairs to turn in the keys. We were glad that no one was in the garage to see how dirty the car was. The attendant took the contract, the keys, and James. I showed him where the car was and the km reading and the petrol was full - and we left. I couldn't believe it. No checking the car together or nothing. So long James - it was a grand time!
We left and walked into Gare de Lyon - and it was chaos. The trains are on strike and there were people everywhere. We found the Metro station and took a train back to St Paul and walked to our hotel - about 2-3 blocks. We checked in and I took a much needed nap to rest my nerves after Mr. Toad's Wild Ride!
Al Stewart came to our hotel at 6:30 and we had 2 bottles of wine in the little café downstairs. The woman at the hotel had been so nice to set out 3 wine glasses for us and we had a good time enjoying the French wine and catching up.
At 8 pm we headed to the restaurant that was just around the corner and it was delicious. Tim had another fois gras burger and I had fish.
Al walked us around Le Marais and made several restaurant recommendations for the next 2 nights. My feet were killing me by the time we got back to Al's place. We bid him good night and headed one block to the Hotel Caron de Beaumarchais and went straight to bed. Tim commented on my feet and ankles being so swollen so we propped them up for the night. Tomorrow, I'm going back on the good medicines to knock this foot and ankle problem out so I can enjoy Paris and Reims. We both went straight to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment