Chateaux

The first château that we visited on Saturday was Chenonceau. Our guide for the weekend (a french art/architecture prof) gave us a run-down of the history, and it turs out that Henri II gave Chenonceau to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. But, when Henri II was killed during an jousting accident, his wife Catherine de Médicis kicked her to the curb (well, actually just to another château).


Traditionally, the surrounding grounds are just as important as the château. Chenonceau is surrounded by a forest, a labyrinth, and two gardens (one designed by Diane de Poitiers, the other by Catherine de Medicis), with this path leading straight to the château.


Next we visited Diane de Poitiers' second château, Chaumont. It's situated up on hill looking over the Loire, and it has a drawbridge! Definitely looked like Cinderella should have been leaning out one of the windows.






The drawbridge leads to a courtyard with 3 sides château, 1 side looking out over the Loire.


The next day we went for a dégustation at a vineyard. We got off the bus and found ourselves among field and fields of grapes on a cold, misty morning. Expecting something similar to our last wine tasting (a brief tour of the distillation machines and wine caves, then trying two different years), we were instead greeted by a rather rotund, merrily inebriated man in dirt/grape-stained clothes. He handed out clippers and proclaimed "Action! No problem!", so we picked grapes. For more than two hours.



But the vendange is more than just a harvest, it's really a celebration. We were picking the grapes side by side with family, friends, neighbors, and other visitors. Then, after a while of picking, we would drink wine and eat bread and hors d'oeuvres.



Then we sat down with the family for a huge picnic!



After three hours of eating, drinking, singing, and dancing, we thought we were finally done with lunch. False. After a tour of the underground caves used for storage with our now-even-merrier guide, we came back up to find champagne and pies waiting for us.



After our morning at the vineyard, we headed to our third château of the weekend: Villandry. This château is surrounded by amazing gardens, each with a different theme or purpose. One of the gardens was the Love Garden, another a vegetable garden, herb garden, water garden, sun garden, etc.





On either side of this moat are grape vines. Since its the season, they were ripe, delicious, and irresistible.