Castles, part I!

     This weekend my program had its first weekend excursion into another part of France. We spent Friday and Saturday exploring the Loire valley, and I have tons of pictures so I'll have to divide it up into a few parts. I'll start by going through and explaining each photo and put them into context, etc. Enjoy! 

This was where we spent Friday night, in the city of Tours! It was a nice break from Paris (I'd call it a  "city" only in comparison to Schaghticoke, in reality it was a pretty small place), but we didn't do much exploring so there's not much to tell. Dinner was amazing though, we got a 3 course meal for 13.40 euro, and wine was only one euro for a glass!

Just a balcony in Tours, most of the windows here have a pretty little balcony like that it's very endearing. 

This is the fountain that was in the square near our hotel. Most of the squares here have some sort of small fountain like this, I always wonder how old they must be!

A random building in Tours (it's for rent guys, someone should get on that!). I just liked it because the design looked very German to me, I haven't seen a single building in this style in Paris. 

A wall in the little town outside our first castle...

First view of the castle...

And this is it - Chambord! My first thought when I saw this is that it looks exactly like Downton Abbey, for those of you who will appreciate that reference. Our tour guide explained that this castle is a good example of the medieval style; it has a lot of balconies and turrets where defenders can stand and pour hot water or shoot arrows on potential attackers. In the event of a real attack this tactic would be absolutely crucial, especially since there are so many large windows that make the castle unnecessarily vulnerable. But in reality the French kings really only used this castle as a temporary residence anyway, since it was designed as a (rather large) hunting lodge. 

 These are some shots of the castle grounds.

 This is unsurprisingly a pretty popular wedding destination - on the day we were there, the weather was perfect and I saw at least 2 (possibly 3) brides getting their wedding photos taken.

Some more shots of the outside of the castle and its many balconies!

I snapped a quick picture of this sign because my friends and I always joke about how bad the French are at translating things. They love writing signs in French with an English version below, but sometimes the translations are just a little bit off. I saw so many signs this weekend that translated "entrée" as "way in" instead of just going with the obvious, simpler choice of "entrance." Also, for example, a lot of signs in Paris tend to struggle with possessives. In the French language you wouldn't say "Caroline's dog" you would say "the dog of Caroline." So since the French don't understand how to properly use apostrophes to represent possession, there are a lot of random apostrophes in weird places... I've seen multiple places advertising "brunch's every sunday!"

Chambord is known for its famous spiral staircases. This is a shot of the giant, central staircase inside. 

The ceilings in this castle were incredible, this is a shot of the wooden beams. 

 The first room we saw was where the royal guards used to stay. You can tell from this picture and the one below how important hunting was. 

This is the view from the center of the spiral staircase, it's so complex it makes me dizzy.

Some images of the bedrooms...

The beds are so fancy, but tiny!

This gorgeous hallway is full of windows, there was so much sunlight.

More beds that are absurdly small but have absurdly large curtains. At night you would close them to keep some of the heat in. 

There were a bunch of giant trunks like this, all I could think about was how many of those poofy ballgowns could fit in each one. How do you even go about packing dresses and corsets??

I can't imagine what it would be like to hang out in a room like this and casually sip some tea.

This is a statue of one of the queens who spent some time at Chambord. I don't remember which one exactly, but I do remember that the sign says something along the lines of "I am the queen." Short and sweet, I like it. 

This crown was casually just sitting in the back corner of the chapel.

This is the chapel! You can't really tell, but it's a fairly large room. In the US this would be big enough to count as a church, but France is the land of huge cathedrals so the large size isn't too big for a castle. And since they're rich it wasn't even in a separate building, they just built the chapel right into the top floor of their castle. 

Yup, this is a hallway full of antlers. Go big or go home. 

The next three pictures show one of the coolest parts of the castle. Francois I was the king who spent the most time at the castle, so he decided to have his initial and the mascot of his house (the salamander in the photo below) installed throughout the building. The third photo is of a ceiling that was completely covered in these carvings. 

This is me hanging out on a balcony. I'm pretty cool. 

View of the grounds from the top of the castle. Who takes care of these lawns??

Everything is so intricately decorated, I want to know how long it took just to carve this one small adornment. 

There's that royal salamander again! This time, it's carved into a door because apparently no one had anything better to do. 

Spiral staircases are the bane of my existence, it's pretty much impossible to walk up one without tripping at least once. 

Another view of the spiral staircase!

In the background you can see the river, it continues on and becomes the castle's moat. 

This is perhaps the most famous image of Chambord - the spiral staircase that's actually technically OUTSIDE the castle. It's hard to tell, but in reality there are a few of them, and they live in an interior courtyard, presumably so random peasants couldn't just climb up into the castle.

Even the gutters are super fancy. I want these on my house. 

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Here's another bride getting some gorgeous photos taken!

Well this is it for Chambord... but don't worry, I have a ton more pictures. We also went to an abbey and two other castles, you'll see them soon!

     On Wednesday mornings from 1015-1130 my art history class gets to go on an excursion to a Paris museum and it counts as "work." Usually the professor gives us all a worksheet to fill out that asks vague, somewhat bullshit-y questions about emotions in the paintings or brushstrokes or something like that, but yesterday she must've given up because she just took us on the tour of the Richelieu wing. Before I'd ever gone to the Louvre people had told me about how big it is, but you can't really appreciate that fact until you're one of about a dozen exhausted american students following an overly excited art history professor as she tries to explain hundreds of years of European history. Still, she did bring us to the wing that has the apartments of Napoleon III, so I couldn't resist taking a few pictures - they're posted below, but first: a bit of a history lesson. 

    Napoleon I was THE napoleon, emperor of France, the guy who basically pulled France back together after the revolution. But after he became too ambitious and was exiled in 1814, the French government went through another period of turmoil in which it attempted to restore the monarchy (spoiler alert, not the best idea), and THEN Napoleon III came along in 1848 as the first elected French "president."Apparently France never learns its lesson with these things, because a few years later he decided to make himself emperor, less than 50 years after his uncle had done the exact same thing. Both Napoleons did many great things for France (as well as many shady things), but Napoleon III's reign was generally marked by economic prosperity and expansion, which he of course took advantage of by surrounding himself in splendor... which brings me back to my trip to the Louvre. Below are some of his many rooms that were later transported to the museum to show off the wealth of the period. I was partially disgusted by the injustice of a political system that allows for such luxuries for the few and relative poverty for almost everyone else, but at the same time you can't fail to appreciate the beauty. 

Ceiling frescoes like this can't really be portrayed in pictures; you have to be there, and look up and see how huge and amazing they are. 

These chairs might actually be the coolest thing I've ever seen. They're extremely impractical, of course, because there's no way three people can have a conversation if they're seated like this. But, as I'm sure Napoleon III would say, who care's they're awesome. 

This is just some random artwork that was painted into the wall. Because why have empty wall space when you can coat it in superfluous artwork instead?

For those of you who can appreciate this reference, when I saw this dining room all I could think of was Downton Abbey... but about 100 times more excessive. 

Another view of the dining room.

This spiral staircase was hidden in a hallway behind the dining room. Ladies with their massive fancy dresses could never fit on these stairs, of course, but I totally wouldn't mind having one in my house. 

These massive urns were also everywhere, I have no idea what anyone would ever do with them. When our professor wasn't nearby, some character in my class joked that they'd fit in well at a Hamilton party as a perfect container to chill drinks in. That person will remain nameless. 

To get to the second part of the exhibit, we got to climb these massive marble staircases. It was worth it. 

This gallery was particularly interesting. Apparently when Marie de Medici was Queen of France in the early 17th century, she commissioned this gallery (originally for the Luxembourg Palace, I believe) as a tribute to - you guessed it - herself. Seriously, this huge room is full of giant paintings that depict her life, albeit slightly exaggerated. For example, I highly doubt she was actually friends with the Roman gods, but then again I'm sure the paintings don't lie.

This painting is completely irrelevant to anything we've done in class. My professor was trying to explain another painting in the same room to us, but I was distracted by how calmly these noble children are just sitting in a golden chariot being pulled by goats. Why is this a real painting? I thought you guys would appreciate how absurd it is.

More pictures!

The view from my bedroom window! That's how close the nearest metro stop is (it's super convenient), and yes, that's the Eiffel Tower. 

This is the lock bridge. Couples bring locks, write their names on them and attach them to the bridge to have good luck in love. The picture below shows just how popular the tradition is!

Last week we went to the Montparnasse Cemetery. Sartre and Beauvoir were buried here, along with Andre Citroën (founder of the French car company, it's still really popular here today) and other (supposedly) famous people that I've never heard of. The next few pictures are also from the cemetery - sorry some of them are sideways, i forgot to switch them beforehand. Next time I will i promise!

I'm sure ya'll can guess what this is. The art history class I'm taking meets twice a week, on Mondays for a classroom lecture and on Wednesdays at various Paris museums, usually at the Louvre! Today we looked at French paintings, and I got to see the Mona Lisa. It was a disaster though, there were a million people in the gallery, and for some reason there were asians EVERYWHERE. According to my host dad Asians *love* art museums. I thought he was just being mildly racist, but apparently he does have a point...

Sunday afternoon we went for a boat tour down the Seine! It was surprisingly overrated (it was windy, cold, and it rained), but here are some of the pictures I took of bridges, etc. 

Notre Dame, as seen from the Seine!

Side view of Notre Dame... reminds me of the castle they used as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies.

This is the lock bridge again, as seen from the river! Yes, all those bright colors are locks, the bridge is completely covered it's incredible. 

Again, sorry I forgot to flip these pictures sideways, but if you have a problem with it you can just google the pictures and don't sass me!