We moved from the land of castles in the UK to the land of chateaux in France. Before you panic and reach for the “close this blog” button, this is only one of two chateaux we plan to visit. The other won’t be for at least 10 days so this will be it for awhile.
But first, we had a great time last night with out friends Romain and Charmine. They live in the suburbs of Paris and came in after Romain finished work to have dinner with us. It was a wonderful evening and it was terrific to see them again.
We loved our 5 days in Paris and especially enjoyed our vibrant neighborhood. If our travels ever take us back to Paris, we’d stay in that area again.
We had a rocky start to the day when our driver, who was supposed to take us to Europcar to pick up our rental, instead dropped us off at the departure terminal. I tried to explain what we needed and he kept smiling and nodding, but the language barrier got in the way. The good news is that we had a luggage carrier and we were in the right terminal, just on the wrong end of it. After about a 15 minute walk, we finally got our car.
On the way to Lyon, we stopped at the 17th century Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte. We saw it on a Rick Steves episode and it looked interesting, and since it was on our way, we thought why not. It had been a whole week since we’d been in a castle and we were starting to go into withdrawal.
We ate our lunch in the garden before starting the 4-hour drive to Lyon. We’re in an Airbnb flat just outside the city center but it is on the 2nd floor with no lift!! This would be the 3rd floor in the U.S. as we start counting from 1 on the bottom. In Europe the bottom is the ground floor, then 1 and 2. I’m not sure how I missed this as I’m usually pretty careful but this time it got passed me. Peter made it up the stairs ok and since we’re only here for 2 nights I guess it’s not the end of the world. We’ll just go slow.
Not much else happening except for yet another load of laundry tonight. Tomorrow we’ll explore Lyon.