Excursions

I'm getting ready to leave for Ireland in a couple of hours, but I have just enough time to write a little bit about the excursions for the month of June.

In June, we went on three excursions, Chenonceau, Giverny/Chartres, and Chaumont. We went to Chenonceau on June 10th. Chenonceau is a large chateau that spans the Cher river, and was the residence of Henri II. It was really exciting for me to see this chateau because I have a 3D puzzle of it. Tres cool! Even though it was raining, I got a lot of great photos (see my facebook), and had a great time. Also, after the chateau we visited a "cave", or wine cellar where they make wine, and tasted three of their wines. It was my first time tasting wine (and alcohol for that matter), and I didn't care for it much. Since then, I've had a glass of wine a couple times with dinner with my French family, and I prefer it much more with food (and when it's a better wine instead of the cheap stuff they let us taste). For more history about the chateau, click on the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenonceau

Chartres and Giverny were on the 19th, and it was an all day excursion with just the MSU group (the other two excursions were with the Institut). We stopped in the little town of Chartres on the way to the village of Giverny, in Normandy up near Paris. The Chartres Cathedral is supposedly the biggest and most beautiful in the world, and is famous for it's blue stained glass windows (les vitrines). Again, you can see my photos if you're my friend on facebook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartres_Cathedral

Giverny is a small village where Claude Monet lived for the last part of his life, and completed his famous paintings of the water lilies (les nympheas) and the Japanese bridge. We visited his house (couldn't take photos inside) and the gardens, including the pond with amazing water lilies (great photos posted on my facebook). This was probably the place that I was looking the most forward to seeing out of all of the excursions, and it was well worth it. Giverny is BEAUTIFUL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giverny

Chaumont was the last excursion that we went on (with the Institut again), on June 24th. It is a smaller (compared to Chenonceau) chateau that Henri II's wife Catherine de Medicis gave to Henri II's mistress, Diane de Poitiers, in exchange for Chenonceau after the king's death. Also along with Chaumont is La fete des jardins, the garden festival which contains a whole bunch of small gardens within the larger garden, all unique based on this years theme: gardens of color. Great pictures of that once again! For more information on the chateau:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau_Chaumont