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Published: February 12th 2013
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Chateau de CruixToday we were leaving Paris, and heading south to the Beaujolais wine region! I had really enjoyed my time in Paris, but I was definitely ready to visit somewhere new. I was still feeling really homesick, but I tried to forget about it and enjoy my time on tour. Our group seemed really great so far, although it was a bit cliquey. Nothing that bad though!
I was up at 8 am today for breakfast, and we left our hotel at 9 am. Today we got our day song! It was by the Silversun Pickups - Well Thought Out Twinkles. I don't think everyone was a huge fan of this song at first, but we all came to love it by the end.
Before getting to services we did speed dating. This is exactly how it sounds - every one who is in the aisle seat moves back and chats with the person behind them for a few minutes. This is a great way to get to know all your fellow tourmates - it can be hard to talk to everyone when there are 50 of you! When coming on a tour alone, lots of people tend to attach
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Pool at the chateau themselves to the first person they meet (I'll admit, I tend to do this), and this was a good way to get everyone to branch out from their normal groups.
At services I stocked up on chocolate. This would be a running theme throughout the tour at all the service stops. I love chocolate! During our second leg of the drive we did coach intros. This is a Contiki ritual - basically everyone has a chance to go up to the front of the bus and introduce themselves to the group. You had to answer basic questions: Name, age, where you were from, what you were most looking forward to, most embarrassing moment, and your "stop light (green = single, orange = it's complicated, red = taken). I was third to go up and I was really nervous...I hate talking in front of big groups! I was the first person to state that I was a red light and there was a bit of a joke about it when I "apologized" haha! After our second services stop we listened to Seb talk about all the optional excursions we had the chance to go on throughout the tour. I had
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Our room researched most of them already, and some of them I had done last year, so I didn't learn too much.
We arrived at the chateau (Chateau de Cruix) at 4:30 pm. Contiki owns this chateau and it is one of their special stopovers. Often you will run into other Contiki tours while staying in these types of accommodations, and there are Contiki reps who work here as well. They welcome you, cook your food, clean up, and basically take care of everything, as well as party with you! The chateau was very beautiful, the grounds, the building, and the pool all looked very inviting. The weather was hot and sunny today too, which made it even better. I was rooming with Teresa, Chloe (from Australia), and Jill (from Canada) for the next two nights. We were lucky and got put in a corner room which was much larger than most of the other rooms. The chateau looks great from the outside but inside it is a little cramped. It is still an interesting and unique place to stay though, and there is a great bar in the basement.
After getting unpacked and organized, we went for a wine
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Whiteboard party! tasting. We got to learn all about the wines that they make here in the Beaujolais region, and taste some too. Lots of people bought wine to bring home as souvenirs. I didn't bother since at this point I wasn't a huge wine fan, and I didn't want to have to carry it around for the next five weeks. (Turns out you are able to store big souvenirs like bottles of wine and such under the coach until you return to London, wish I listened when they told us this!)
Back at the chateau we had dinner (chicken, roast potatoes, veggies, bruschetta, and apple/raspberry sorbet). The food was a little disappointing but filled me up at least. Contiki food is never exceptional, but it's what you should expect with a budget tour. After dinner it was time to get ready for our first theme party of the tour: a whiteboard party! At first I wasn't really feeling in the partying/getting drunk mood, but I decided it would be good to go out and have some fun. We all wore white shirts and had sharpies so we could write funny messages on everyone's shirts.
The party took place in
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Rosi, Verity, me, and Colleen the bar in the basement of the chateau. It's called "The Cave", and is a really cool place. I ended up drinking way too much, including 2 shots of "eau de vie" (water of life). This is some kind of wine extract, and is about 75% alcohol. It tastes exactly how I would imagine lighter fluid to taste like. Yuck! It is so strong you can actually feel yourself getting drunk in about one minute. Those two shots along with some vodka and smirnoff were enough for me to not really remember what happened next. I found quite a few pictures on my camera the next morning that I don't remember taking, but I'm pretty sure we all had a good night! I passed out in bed at who knows what time.
What did I learn today? Anything with 75% alcohol content is probably not a good idea!
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