After an early start and a bus ride to Gare Montparnasse, we had an easy on time ride to Tours. Quick check in with the visitor center then the tram to our hotel. Rooms not ready, so checked our bags and headed to lunch. I wanted to go to Chenonceau for the afternoon, but timing was tight. As it turned out, lunch came out quickly and we made it to the station for the train with 8 minutes to spare. After a much longer train ride than it should have been, we made it to Chenonceau. This is the iconic Chateau crossing the river that you see in all kinds of photos of France. Interior is not all that well curated but the gardens are fabulous. Eventually the late afternoon train came and mercifully stayed at speed all the way back to Tours. A fine dinner at L’Atelier Gourmand, recommended by Vero, capped off the day.
France Explorations, and Camino Del Norte, Spain 
My most memorable find at Chenonceau in October was the painting of the three notorious de Nesle sisters, nudes personifying the Three Graces of Greek mythology. The accompanying text mentioned that all three were, in succession, mistresses of King Louis XV. That intrigued me, so I did some research on the de Nesle mademoiselles, and it turns out that there were FIVE sisters and only one was NOT a mistress of the king. Some of them were married to powerful men who consented to let their wives become paramours to even more powerful nobles, including le Roi. The court was a vipers’ nest of intriques and machinations and fully deserved being swept into the dustbin of history by the French revolution.
LikeLike