Le Tour de France

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So our adventure began with a very very very long day of traveling. We picked up the car in Toulon and decided to get to the Loire Valley to do our castle tours we should drive as far as we could the first day. So we drove for about 8.5 hours with a couple of stops until we got to Tours, France. Rob was pretty happy to be driving on roads at about 130-150kmh. Our little car can go pretty fast... I was happy that it was turquoise like my car back home (a colour Rob for some reason hates...lol). Anyway so we stayed the night in Tours at a cheap hotel (36Euros a night...woohoo) it was a pretty random hotel but it did the trick, then it was up early and off to fit in as many castles as we could see. We picked a non major road to drive to Chenonceau a castle I have been dying to see for awhile and were pleasantly surprised to drive by some great towns and even an amazing castle in Amboise while enroute. We arrived at Chenonceau and did a tour of the castle, the grounds and even a little maze and then it was back on the road. We stumbled upon another little town Montrichard and stopped for lunch (Montrichard also has a castle...) and then back on the road again, we were enroute to see Chambord castle and we ran into Cheverny castle we stopped just quickly to take pictures before we were on the road again to Chambord. Chambord is beautiful and amazing... but soon we were back on the road again. We wanted to make it to Le Mans in time for some sort of historic light show of some kind. So we drove until we reached Le Mans and again saw some crazy castles and amazing towns on the way. When we got to Le Mans, we went searching for a hotel room for the night, found one then went to explore the Vieux Ville. I was amazed by the city, the streets were tiny, twisty and were fun to explore. It was also a bonus that it wasn't at all crowded like many of the cities we had been to. So we explored a bit then found a little bistro to eat at. We at at a little table in the middle of a great alley way with an awesome view of the town. Rob had a pizza and I had a savory crepe (yes, a thin pancake), it was delicious. We finished dinner just in time for the sun to have gone down and it be dark. We already saw some of the lights shinning down. It was spooky as we had to explore the dark twisted streets looking for each of the 8 light exhibitions. They were amazingly cool...so hard to explain but Rob took some pictures. The best was the light show on the massive church, they made the church look old, like a puzzle and even at one point like a comic book. It was such a neat discovery. We had a great time exploring the town.

Next it was off to Mont Saint Michel. We drove again through some amazing towns while on the way, it was nice to not have to worry about our luggage or trains to catch, just throw everything in the car and then you are on your way. It was rainy on the way which was a first for our whole trip. When we arrived at Mont Saint Michel, we changed our clothes but as we were walking up to the town (since we had to park aways away and saw signs that said we'd have to leave before 330pm or else the tide would come in and leave our car underwater). So we headed to the town, it was really really busy but so cool. The streets were so narrow and full of people as it twisted upwards towards the Abbey at the top. We explored the town and toured the Abbey, which had amazing views. Then headed to our car and hit the road, we wanted to get as close to the Champagne valley as we could so that our drive wouldn't be as long the next day. The day kind of became chaotic from there. We had some poor decision making skills as we decided to spend the night in Versailles. Well as we drove to Versailles not only was it very busy but we couldn't find a hotel as we were driving (actually I was driving at this point and became a little overwhelmed and decided to pull over so I could navigate and Rob could drive). We headed back on the freeway this time deciding on a suburb just outside Paris....well at this point it was pretty much a traffic jam to get to this suburb and we had no idea where we should stay, somehow we got to this weird area where we saw a hotel from the highway and decided to exit. We stayed at this amazing Premiere class (yep that is the name of it, and you know if it says, "good", "quality", or "premiere" in the title it is gonna be a great hotel :S, it was pretty much a motel but again was only 36 euros and was a bed for the night... so we stayed and rested before our day of champagne tasting!

We drove in the morning to Épernay (which was on the amazing race...for any fans). We headed to one of the Champagne houses which had a great tour, Mercier house. Their tour and tasting was awesome, we got to ride a train through the champagne tunnels and then taste test some awesome champagne. Afterwards (since most things are shut down between 12-2) we found a hotel to stay in...another Premiere classe...we just couldn't get enough after the first one. This one was surprisingly better quality. We then found a place for lunch and headed for another tour. This tour was very very informative on how champagne is made...wow what a process. After another tasting, yum more champagne... we explored the town and Champagne Avenue (my favourite) which is where many of the prestigious champagne houses resided. We visited Moet and Chandon and although we didn't do their tour we did do a little shopping at their boutique. We had a very relaxing rest of our day as we prepped for the return to Paris the next day.

More from Paris soon 😊 See below for more photos... there are a couple pages.

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Photos

Enzo's hair studio
this one is for Rachel and Tyler