In Which Rayla Recounts Her Loire Valley Trip (Attention! Very Long Post!)

Don’t mean to brag, but did you guys know that in France they get two weeks vacation IN NOVEMEBER. Yeah. Be jealous, the US is working you all too hard!

Let’s give a shout out to all my dear friends who are suffering through a year of torture – junior year at Arcadia high. And my dear friends who are seniors this year (maybe just Alex, actually…anyone else out there reading this who is a senior?) Anyway, Alex has college apps so that sucks. Have fun with that. And everyone who is reading this who is still a sophomore…good luck to you. (Translation: Come to SYA while you still can!)

Anyway, I just got totally sidetracked. During this two-week vacation we have in the end of October and November, all the students at SYA go on a mandatory (because it takes so much convincing!) school trip to the Loire Valley. And I just got back a few days ago, so I am now obliged to tell you all about it. Because it was genuinely amazing.

First off, some history! Because if I have learned anything from JP these first two months, you can appreciate things more if you know a little bit about them! Basically, the Loire Valley is in the central part of France (kind of more west but whatever its in the general vaguely identified central area). Back in the eleventh (XI^e) century, a bunch of royal/rich people lived in the Loire area. So, they started building these buildings. After a while, the Hundred Years War broke out (along with other wars, c’est la vie!) and these royal people decided that they needed to build some stronger buildings to fend off the evil British. So, they started building big fortified towers out of stone. These towers are called ‘donjons’. Anyway, a long time passed and military architecture advances were made, and the walled in castle that we know today (towers, walls with slits for shooting arrows, giant courtyard) was born somewhere around the thirteenth century (XIII^e). Finally, near the Renaissance (XVI^e siècle) the evil British finally decided to back off, so the owners of these intense castles (called châteaux, or just one is a château) didn’t have to worry about getting killed al the time, and they finally had the time to look around the area they lived and they realized, “Dang! This is really pretty!” So they started taking the military elements out of their fortified castles, like tearing down some of the surrounding walls, and putting in totally high tech advancements like windows. Et voilà, the renaissance castle (château de plaissance) makes its grand entrance.

Our trip to the Loire started on Saturday morning, but we had really been preparing for it long before that. In art history, we learned all this stuff about castle architecture and the specific castles we would be seeing. We even did a vocab quiz and then a written essay test on the château de Chambord, so we were set. We were all very psyched to go.

So, it’s Saturday morning, and we all arrive at school with our luggage and wait for our buses to arrive so we can get the heck out of here. Waiting…waiting…waiting…et voilà les cars arrivent! We all hop on (me, Maggie, Katie and Kelly opt for the pink bus, which turns out to be interesting) and off we go.

The pink bus is M. Brochu and Mr. Watt’s bus. It’s also the karaoke bus. A weird musical situation is created when thirty people listening to thirty different iPods (plus Uchenna and his ghetto MP3 player) start singing loudly. It’s very weird too, because it will be like two or three people belt out their song for like five seconds, and then they fade away…two seconds of nothing…and a completely different group is suddenly singing Sweet Caroline (…bum bum bum!) It’s like the weird unspoken communication of whose turn it is to sing. It was actually super weird and kind of freaky. Some psychologists should study it probably. (Official Study Of Teenage Subliminal, Musical Communication In An Enclosed, Moving Vehicle)

Approximately two hours later, SYA collectively arrives at our first destination: le Château de Angers. I’m pretty sure that this château was the oldest of all of the ones we saw, and it was pretty impressive. We had a tour guide (with the tour in French, of course! SYA coached the guides to talk slowly, but I don’t think we needed it) who showed us a bunch of different parts of the castle. There is a moat, giant towers, a drawbridge, and towers with spiral staircases leading to the top. There is an amazing view. There is fog, althought I don’t think that’s officially part of the architecture (but it’s always there! Have you ever see a picture of the top of a tower with no fog?) We saw most of the castle, and then we were taken down into the basement of the château (creepy!) where there was this really cool/old thing – a giant tapestry! It’s apparently extremely famous, and the largest tapestry in the world. It tells the story of the Apocalypse. Apparently in the end we’re all going to get eaten by dragons with three heads.

Before you can say “wow, this room is extremely dimly lit in order to preserve the colors of this priceless work of art!” We’re out in Angers wandering around. We bought postcards and I bought a thimble (you know…those little porcelain thimbles that only tourists buy? The ones that have the names of famous landmarks? Well I have a collection.) And we bought super cookies. Then, we ran into a very strange thing: a London phone booth? It was definitely red with the crown and everything. We found it quite odd and took humorous photos.

Finally, our time in Angers was up and we all flocked back to the buses, and away we were off to our next destination. Next up was le château de Oiron, a very little known château (it wasn’t even mentioned in the Loire Valley guide books we saw!), we were lucky enough to know existed because JP (our awesome art history teacher, in case you didn’t know) is the master of Loire châteaux and happens to know that this one not only exists, but is also really cool. In class before the trip, JP dubbed Oiron “JP’s Choice” because he likes it so much.

So we arrived in an hour or so and our buses parked next to a cornfield (seriously). We jumped off the buses and then we saw that the château was behind us. So, all of SYA runs over there and we get very excited. Waiting…waiting…waiting…yay they got our tickets to get in! So, we all pose quickly for a group picture (normal! Silly! Peace! Thumbs up!) And then are released into the castle to explore.

Oiron is no normal château, let me just tell you that. You walk out onto the courtyard and you see a giant pink teacup and saucer. There’s a metal kinetic tree sculpture which drips water into a kiddie swimming pool displayed on the porch. A seemingly random electric blue sports car sits by the door, welcoming you in. Inside, there are plastic trees, walls covered with colored lines, spiral optical illusions in display cases, canvas splattered with thick globs of paint, and a unicorn. The whole château is filled with awesome modern art. I loved it, it’s so fun! The best thing isn’t just the art though. The old architecture of the château is also extremely well preserved, so the modern art in this old architecture creates this amazing clash of time periods which, simply put, is amazing. We had about two hours to explore the whole castle and all its random modern art. It was so awesome and ridiculously fun. I was very sad that they didn’t have a thimble for Oiron in the gift shop, because it may have been my favorite visit of the trip.

The visits of our first day are finished, and we cram back onto the buses to head to our hotel. The drive was kind of long – maybe two hours? – but finally we arrive at l’Hôtel Arcantis, in a sleepy suburb of Tours. JP made a funny joke about our hotel being “stuck in the suburbs” (just imagine someone saying that with a French accent, trust me it was funny) so that SYA kids can’t go running rampant through town to “discothèques, cafés, bars and, ‘the bowling’”. Nice plan SYA.

Anyway, our hotel was actually pretty nice. I roomed with Maggie and Kelly. Katie and Lucie roomed together in a different room. Our hotel rooms were really small but we weren’t really in there all that often so it was OK. After all, all the better for staying up all night talking if you don’t have to shout across a giant room, right? Plus, we had our own bathroom. So it was good.

We had dinner at the restaurant at our hotel, and it was good too! Better than we were expecting I think. They basically served us a three-course dinner every night.

So, we went to sleep, we woke up and we ate breakfast. Breakfast was really simple – a piece of baguette, a crossaint, and hot chocolate. I did make one amazing discovery though – hot chocolate made from packets of hot chocolate powder is actually REALLY GOOD in France. Yeah. Forget Nestle and SwissMiss, I may just have to fill a suitcase full of French hot chocolate powder and bring it home with me in May, because it’s that good. Seriously.

Day two is a new day, and hence, you can switch buses if you want to! Me and the Candiot Crew (Maggie, Kelly, Katie, Lucie) opted for the yellow bus today. We were kind of annoyed by the karaoke bus yesterday.

Our first stop of the day was le Château de Chenonceau, a pretty famous castle that is built over a river (yeah, it’s pretty cool). It’s very pretty and princessy, and it has nice gardens too. It also has a labyrinth hedge maze, which gave me some really bad flashbacks to when I was eleven and in London and got lost in a hedge maze at a castle and started crying…but luckily there were no tears this time because the labyrinth was pretty pathetic and every single trail was a solution. Lame!

After wandering around the inside of the castle for awhile, me and Maggie and Kelly got hungry and popped into the Chenonceau Café, where we had more awesome hot chocolate from powder, chocolate mousse, and bread. Yum, what a nutritious snack!

After Chenonceau we had a picnic lunch in Amboise and then were off for the next castle – Chambord.

Now, before I tell you all about Chambord, you have to know first – we studied this castle really intensely in art history before the trip. I mean, we memorized castle architecture vocab, yes. We saw pictures of a bunch of castles, yes. But we had at least five pages in our Art History Manuel dedicated to Chambord alone. We talked about it for three class periods, and then took a written essay test (in French!) on it in a fourth. We looked at the specific architecture, not just the basic stuff, so we all kind of felt like we knew a lot about this place before we even got there. It made the whole thing a lot more exciting.

Chambord was amazing. We spent at least half an hour just walking around the perimeter of it before we even went inside. It’s so impressive! This castle is immense and ridiculous, it just asks you to admire it. After we got inside (thanks to super sneaky “guided tours…not”) we kind of dispersed to explore. One of the first things we did was run up the double helix grand staircase – designed by Leonardo di Vinci! – to the top of the high tower, and the view is awesome! Then, we went around the tower to the other stairs, and saw the huge rooms filled with crowns, thrones, scepters, and dead, stuffed elk. Whoo! Katie and Kelly danced in a ballroom. Maggie went to the top of the tower even though she’s scared of heights. Looking back, Chambord was definitely the most impressive castle of the whole trip. It’s just so big and majestic. Very intense, very awesome.

After Chambord, we had a long bus ride back to our Tours suburban hotel of happiness and joy. After dinner, we “went to sleep” which, at least for today, roughly translated to “stayed up way to late talking about random stuff in our tiny hotel rooms, communicating in Morse code with Dan, Darrell and Morgan in the room next door by tapping on the wall, and debating whether we should wake up Kelly because she was missing all the fun after she conked out around midnight” but it was fun!

Day three was not as good as the other days. For one, we saw no castles. Which was very lame because we’re in the freaking Loire Valley – Valley of the Kings – place with millions of castles that I want to see! And secondly, the stuff we did see was anticlimactic. But that’s not to say it wasn’t fun. Because it definitely was.

The first thing we saw was the Cathedral de Tours, which is, obviously, a cathedral in Tours. We haven’t studied much religious architecture yet (we’re saving that until Mont St. Michel), so seeing this cathedral was more of a touristy “oooh it’s pretty” thing than anything else. And we were all sad because they were doing construction on the façade, and had to ruin it with ugly scaffolding. Darn darn darn.

After that we saw this random tiny museum with weird artisan items. Apparently, people can spend their entire life working on one perfect “masterpiece.” These were all things like wooden mini staircases, dollhouses, birdcages, or elaborate castles made out of sugar. It was rather odd.

Après ça, we were free for lunch in Tours! Now that was fun. We ended up at this restaurant where nearly all of us ordered pizza. I didn’t intend to order pizza, but somehow they brought me pizza anyway. Hey, I wasn’t complaining the pizza was really good.

Our final stop of the day was the abbey at Fontevraud. This is apparently one of the largest abbies in the world! Let me just say, that I could never have lived here – there are only two rooms in the whole place where you are allowed to speak – and only in a whisper! Lets just say that I would die in that type of environment. We had a guided tour (which is never as fun as exploring it on your own), but it was OK. The main problem was that even if the tour guide had been interesting, the abbey wasn’t – every single room was barren and empty. Where are the historical artifacts? Where are the recreations of the old abbey with furniture and stuff? There wasn’t any, so it was basically just a bunch of stone rooms.

At dinner on day three, we were all trying to avoid thinking about the fact that it was our last dinner and last night in the Loire, and I think we were all getting pretty sad that we had to leave; everyone had such an amazing time! Whenever someone would mention “leaving”, “packing” or “last day” the whole table would turn to them, all hostile and all, and be like: “Stop talking about that! AHHHH!” It was quite funny. We sat with Dan, Darrell and Morgan at that dinner, which was actually quite entertaining. They’re our next-door roommates in the hotel, if you remember. Anyway, it was lots of randomness and our dinner was chicken.

Last night…Maggie conks out dead tired because of yesterday night where she stayed up all night almost…we all basically decide to go to sleep much earlier than previous nights. Sweet dreams us!

LAST DAY! AHHHH! Breakfast is like a ceremony or something…we’re all trying to act like it’s not the last breakfast we’ll be eating in the Loire Valley. There’s kind of a fake happiness in the air, since everyone is acting all funny and happy, but in fact we’re all sad that when we leave breakfast we’ll have to go pack our bags to go back to Rennes. Not that Rennes is bad, we all decided – it’s just that the Loire is amazing, as is hanging out with SYA.

Finally though, we all did have to finish that breakfast, and everyone got their bags packed and turned in their room keys and loaded onto the bus one more time. We waved goodbye to our hotel, bye hotel!

We arrived at our second to last castle of the trip, le Château de Azay-le-Rideau. This one is really cool because it has a very cool moat (you know, water around it?) and it has a very cool reflection of the castle in the water. So you can walk around the castle and see the castle…and see ANOTHER castle in the water at all these different angles. It’s hard to explain, but it makes for some wicked cool photos.

After that, we had another picnic lunch, and we all (as in, everyone in SYA) ate sitting around the edge of the parking lot just talking and hanging out. Then an SUV – what is it doing in France? – almost ran me and Maggie over, so that was exciting. Before long, we had finished our lunch and thrown our trash away into the very overfilled trashcan – more of a trash sculture by that point, I would say…with all the bags of chips and balls of foil and all – we found ourselves wandering around the town. We found some really cute touristy shops where I bought thimbles – for Azay-le-Rideau, and Amboise (even though we technically only drove past that one) and one with a fleur de lys on it – and post cards.

Finally, we arrived at our last castle of the trip, and our last stop of the trip too. The last stop was the magnificent Château de Villandry – but the awesome thing isn’t even the château. In fact, the château pales in comparison to the real attraction, the gardens. The gardens at Villandry are ridiculous, enough said. They’re huge and perfectly maintained and colorful and shaped…and I should really put up a picture of them so you can get the point… But seriously, we climbed to the top of the highest tower of the castle just to look out and see all the gardens from a bird’s eye view, and it’s very intense. It’s crazy to think about what would make anyone even design something like this, let alone maintain all the perfectly trimmed hedges and flowers and vegetable gardens. But at the same time, when you look out from the tower at the final effect, that amazing impression that you get of these gardens stretching forever is something that makes all the work not just make sense, but makes it worthwhile. We wandered in the castle for about an hour or forty-five minutes, but spent maybe twice that in the gardens just walking around seeing everyting. We could have spent a lot longer too, but unfortunately, we couldn’t because we had to get back to the buses.

I am sad that I did not get a thimble from Villandry, by the way. It’s sad. I want a thimble!

Anyway, after that we just had a long bus ride back to Rennes, where our host families picked us up and we started our Toussaint vacation.

So, let’s recap:

-       - The Loire was amazing.

-       - We discovered that it’s really fun to hang out with all of SYA for extended periods of time.

-       - There was crazy bonding time.

-       - Singing on buses is interesting and irritating, depending on the songs and loudness of the singing.

-       - Chambord is AMAZING.

-       - Oiron is RIDICULOSLY COOL AND FUN.

-       - Villandry’s gardens are BEAUTIFUL.

-       - Talking all night is awesome too.

Hope you enjoyed this little [big] recap, because I spent a ridiculous amount of time writing it. That’s why it took me so long to post about the trip. So yeah, read it again, just ot make it really worth all the time! Now I just need to upload my pictures to facebook, but that may take awhile since there are 500 of them…that’s what…8 different albums? Ahhh!

Just kidding, I love spending too much time writing on my blog and giving you my pictures. It gives me an excuse to procrastinate reading Le Roi Arthur.

Vive la vallée de la Loire!