I Surrender!

How's it going people? It's been a while, I realize, but at the top of my lame excuses list is I am sick! Finally, after everyone else in our family had seemingly succumb to some type of foreign germ (for some of us, more than one), it was finally my turn to surrender. It all started a week ago friday, when my throat was feeling a little but itchy. (Ironically, I had woken up that morning, looked in the mirror and said to myself, 'I can't believe I haven't gotten sick here yet'. Big Mistake.) So the plan for the weekend was to go to the Loire Valley and see some Chateaux. Saturday morning , we piled into our rental car and headed south. The first place we stopped was at the Chateau of Cheverny. The fun thing about this place is that they keep a hunting kennel with about 100 dogs and during hunting season (I'm sure there are several throughout the year) they take the dogs out on a hunt. Let me tell you though, 100 french hunting dogs make a lot of french merde! The other super cool thing about this Chateau is that it was heated inside. We could comfortably wander around the furnished rooms, admiring the paintings, dishes and armor. When we left, it was lunch time and we searched for a place to eat. We knew that January was not high season for the Loire Valley, so that meant the Chateaux would be less crowded but we hadn't counted on not finding any open restaurants. Lucky for us, I had booked a room for the night with a view of the Chateau at Chambord and I knew they had a lovely restaurant. So after a few failed attempts at finding something a little less formal in town (I use the word town loosely, but having just purchased a house in Chester, I'm hardly one to talk) and getting a little bit lost with the help of Mabel, our GPS assist, we made it to the lovely, if not a little run down Hotel Saint Michel in Chambord. And they do have a wonderful restaurant and were willing to serve us some of their beautiful cuisine. After a nice lunch, we went to explore the Chateau Chambord which is an enormous medieval chateau and certainly not heated. They did have an enormous fireplace going on each floor but that was only for temporary thawing out your fingers and hands before exploring deeper into the many nooks and crannies of the huge stone castle. After we finished with that we went to warm up for a bit in our room and then it was time to go to the bar for a drink and to dinner. (All the while I am trying to nurse this cold, let's not forget about poor old me). The next morning we drove to visit Chenonceau, which is a gorgeous structure built right over a river, lending itself to amazing views both of the chateau and from the chateau. Again, however, not heated. We toured the place with our gloves and hats on, visited the cool kitchens and walked the gardens and labyrinth for a bit until we were too frozen to stay outside (or inside for that matter) any longer. After lunch at a local cafe (Chenonceau is probably the most visited of the Chateaux so they had to have something open in town for starving tourists) we decided we would head back to Paris. The next day, I had a tour of the Concierge where Marie Antoinette, among others, was held prisoner during the French revolution. The tour was great but the building, originally built in 1310, was not heated. By Tuesday, my cold had gotten so bad that I decided to cancel my tour that day titled, 'Meet the Cheese Maker'. Can you imagine having to cancel something like that? I was heart broken. By Wednesday I was in bed and have remained there ever since (can you actually hear a miniature violin playing?) There is my big story for my big lame excuse about why I haven't written in the blog. I'm sure I will recover soon, and yes, if I'm not better by monday, I will go see a doctor but I swear it was just a cold! (First 2 photos are Chenonceau, next 2 are from Cheverny and the last is from Chambord).