OMG!!! We made it to Amboise/Tours!!!

This morning is all just a blur to me now. I went to bed last night fully expecting to get up past 8:00am, but instead got a call from Lindsey at 6:40am, saying that she had found another train and to get ready. So- all I could think to do was to follow orders and get ready. I had semi-packed my bag last night, thank goodness! We were on a train to Gare de Lyon (gare=train station) in Paris by 9:30am, changed train stations in Paris at 12:00pm, via the Paris metro (we had to switch the metro lines twice... which I kind of remembered from my month stay a few summers ago), and then got to the Montparnasse train station (still in Paris) to catch the train taking us to St.Pierre-de-Corps (near Tours). From there, we took another train to Amboise. And when we got to Amboise, we bought our 8 euro train ticket to get back to Tours after our little visit around Amboise (which was our only extra train ticket-buy for the day... all the other trains we just rode for free due to our circumstances). AH!

By 3:30pm, we were taking a short taxi ride to the Tourism Office in Amboise, where we dropped off our heavy bags (mine being extra heavy with my laptop). We went to find the

Chateau in Amboise (not hard to find) which is right off of the beautiful Loire River (we are in the Loire Valley). We also hit up a famous/cute little chocolate shop... that I've actually been to before (I came on a high school trip to the Loire Valley when I was 16, amazing that I remember chocolate stores of all things... well maybe not that amazing, hehe). I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We caught a little tour, but didn't follow long because we wanted to see a few more things before taking the train back to Tours. We saw a cathedral built in 1107 and walked along the river. Amboise is the town where Leonardo daVinci lived his last three years... the King at the time brought him there to help dseign parts of the Castle... he also gave him a nice little house (well, big house) in Amboise, and Leonardo is supposedly buried at the Chateau.

After booking it to the train station (across a really, really long bridge), with our heavy backpacks on.... we caught a 5:50 train to Tours, checked into our hotel (with free wifi!), and went to find something for dinner. On our way there, we found a HUGE, and I mean absolutely the biggest church I've ever seen (as of yet), huge cathedral. We went in, and it is equally as huge and high ceilinged as you'd think it would be from the outside. It is very beautifully preserved Cathedral, from inside to outside, with stained glass in tack from the 1300's. Note the moon's height in the picture....

We ate a cute little creperie (I had a spinach crepe for dinner and a pineapple crepe for dessert). It was a very good ending to our busy busy day. Now it is time to sleep. Tomorrow- more chateaux of the Loire Valley!!!!

Miss you all! Reste Cool:)

And don't worry, more pictures to come! I only took 200 today...