The Renaissance- Tour de Chenauceau

In the town of Amboise, there is a big outdoor market on Sunday mornings. They have all kinds of things- food, clothes, bedding, etc. Bret tried to have an Anthony Bourdain moment by buying some local fish-which Billy says was expensive carp. He also bought ham that turned out to be chicken.

Since we are in the middle of castle country, we decided to see the castle of Chenauceau. Us kiddos rented bikes to ride and the old folks took a pricey taxi. While waiting on the street for the bike shop to re-open, we saw the only homeless person in the town! This brings us to the Quote du Jour: Jessica says to Emily, “See, even the bums here are more stylish than American bums!” And its true- he had slim fit, dark wash jeans and European tennis shoes. Even his beard was better looking than the usual. Bret described his style as “derelict” but I have a hunch he was dressing this way before Zoolander.

Bum-Watch!

The bike path to Chenauceau takes us through the town of Amboise- passing by Leonardo DaVinci’s house. It was a nice day for a bike ride. However, the castle was about an hour ride each way (26 km total) and we had to have the bikes back at a certain time, so it didn’t leave much time to stop for pictures. Once again, this is a part of our trip that was just like in a movie. The French countryside is pretty. We were smiling like idiots. The downside is that when you are riding a bike really fast down a hill, bugs will hit you in the face- so just don’t open your mouth! Oh, and PS: Everyone told me to put the distance in kilometers so it would sound like we rode longer than we did. I don’t even think we knew how long it was until we figured it out later! (And neither will you hehe)

We saw the castle. It’s a lot smaller than the pictures make it look. There was also some restoration going on so the scaffolding kinda kills the ambiance. That being said, it was really neat to see a real castle in France. I kept thinking how crazy it was that people actually lived like this!

After all the biking, we were starving. For our last meal in France, we had all our goods from the market that day. This included rabbit that Shawn bought. It tastes like chicken, but Emily couldn’t eat it. Many of you know she calls Shawn “Bunny” – so because of this she couldn’t eat an actual bunny. I did think it was strange that it kept looking at me with it’s charred eyeball- almost like it was saying, “Don’t eat me you evil person! I’m just a bunny wabbit!” I should have felt worse since I had a pet bunny when I was a kid- but it would bite me and pee on me. So, I didn’t feel bad about it.

This place we rented has silly hats for people to wear for fun. The owners like the guests to send them pictures- so we had a Mad-Hatter’s dinner. I didn’t know this when we booked the place, but something tells me, they would love Le Shed!

All in all, it was a good last day in France. We are sad to leave, but will be glad to move on to a place that we understand a bit more-somewhere closer to home. It was such an ordeal to pack my stuff up again- I’m wondering how in the world are we going to get our stuff home on the plane? I guess we will cross that bridge when we get to the airport, and they tell us we can’t take anything home. We are on the Eurostar right now- and I’m thinking it’s a miracle no one has had a moment on the train like in French Kiss, “LACTOSE INTOLERANCE!” See you chaps in London!