Tour à Tours

January 13- January 16, 2011

Bonjour Madames et Monsieurs!

I have just returned from Tours, a city 2 hours east of Nantes. IES took us to Tours in order to orient us and help us bond as a group. We arrived in Tours Thursday evening at about 5:30, we had to pick a roommate on the bus ride there to bunk with for 3 nights. I roomed with a girl named Alex from Dallas, Texas who goes to Claremont McKenna. After arriving at the hotel we quickly put our stuff in our hotel rooms, my room had a loft where I volunteered to sleep...

It was interesting to say the least. Anyways...after dropping our stuff off we went downstair and had a meeting about our schedule for the week and introduced ourselves to each other and the faculty. We then ate dinner in the hotel restaurant, we had a little salad, white fish, and some sort of vanilla custard thing for dessert, it was not that good. After dinner, a few other students and myself decided to explore the city of Tours a little, we walked down the main street Boulevard Béranger and found a little pub where we sat down and had a beer so we could get to know each other.

Friday morning we left the hotel around 9 am drove about an hour to our first chateaux, Loches. The chateau was the home of King Charles VII who is known for not being too well off as far as kings go and having a very scandalous affair with Agnès Sorel, a young girl who he fell for and treated as his favorite, even above his wife. It was cool but the chateau wasn't that impressive because Charles was not a rich king. However, near the chateaux was the Donjon, which not mean dungeon but keep. This donjon was built for military purposes and had many prisons and storage rooms. 

After stopping at a little restaurant for lunch, fish again, ick...we got on the bus and drove to Chenonceau. We did not have a tour guide for this Chateau so I don't really know that much about it. It was a beautiful chateau right on the River Cher, it was really cool inside and had a beautiful garden and a hedge maze which was fun to run around in. 

After the Chenonceau, we headed back to the hotel in Tours for dinner. Thankfully, we had breaded chicken with noodles and cauliflower soup for dinner so I got to eat something, it was not great, but it was edible and better than anything else the hotel served us. We then went to the little épicerie and got 2 euro champagne...which was not so yummy but it was 2 euros so can't be that. Then we walked over to Vieux Tours where there was a bunch of bars. We met a bunch of French guys who were nice but when they tried to get all of us to go to a house party and one of their houses we left. 

     Saturday morning we left the hotel around 9:30, still a little tired from the night before, and headed off to Blois, which is actually 4 different castles. Unfortunately, Blois was bombed heavily in WWII so a lot of the castle had to be restored but it still looked cool...

We then drove an hour towards Chambord and ate lunch at this amazing hotel. We had a 5 course meal. We started off with an amuse bouche which was a little spring roll looking thing with some kind of meat in it along with vegetables, it was delicious. Then we had a plate with a bunch of different pattes that were all pretty good. One of the boys sitting at my table, Andrew, did not know you spread patte on bread and just took a big hunk out of it...he tried it again with bread and found it a lot more pleasant. Our main course was a little potato pie with very tender duck in it and then two pieces of chicken breast, it was AMAZING! Our fourth course was a cheese plate with a goat cheese and some sort of other spreadable cheese with a yellow rind.. I enjoyed both of course as I love cheese. Our fifth and final course was a dessert plate with a little thing of creme brule which was very thick and custardy and tasted a lot like corn, a little chocolate souffle, and some raspberry sorbet. After not really eating because I do not like seafood, this meat heavy meal was greatly appreciated. After our big lunch we headed 15 minutes down the road to my favorite chateau of the trip...Chambord.

Chambord was definitely the coolest chateau we visited...it was huge! François 1er was the first king to live in this chateau, unlike many older chateaux that were built during times of war, this castle was built for luxury. We did not have a tour guide for this castle either but we had audio guides. 

After Chambord we headed back to the hotel for a dinner of yup you guess it, fish. I got the vegetarian dish thankfully. They simply changed the fish out with mashed potatoes...I do not think French people understand what vegetarian means so I'm happy I am not actually one. I was exhausted after a busy few days but I went out with some friends to Vieux Tours again for a few beers before calling it a night. I slept like a baby. 

      We woke up the next morning, packed our things, and headed downstairs for breakfast and placement tests. The tests took 3 hours or so and were not too bad except for the grammar test because I have not studied French grammar since junior year of high school. After the tests we walked around for 30 minutes before lunch. Unfortunately, everything is closed on Sundays but there was a cool car show happening in the center of Tours which I checked out with a few fellow students. After lunch, which was duck and potatoes...not that yummy...we got in the bus and headed back to Nantes. We stopped at a castle on the way home but I can't remember its name but it is the castle that inspired Sleeping Beauty. Once I got back to Nantes I waited at the IES building for my host mother to pick me up. I got home around 6:45 and had a delicious dinner of vegetable soup, salad, a pie thing that had fish in it but it wasn't too bad, and cheese for dessert. I am exhausted from my trip but I had a lot of fun and got to know my classmates. Real orientation starts tomorrow so I better be getting to sleep. If you want to see more of my pictures of Tours, click here ! ! Currently the Patriots are losing but I'm too sleepy to watch the second half. I hope everyone had a great weekend and I'll post again soon, À tout a l'heure mes amis!

KSG