Dates – June 11th – 12th 2005
While Nadya’s parents were in town, we took a weekend trip to the Loire valley. We rented a VW Passat (free upgrade from Europcar) on Saturday and headed off for the Loire on Saturday morning. Our first stop was Chambord chateau (picture) , which has a beautiful double-helix staircase. We also walked the grounds of the chateau which is situated in the middle of a huge estate and national forest/park. Chambord has been used as the hunting grounds for the Kings of France and heads of state (Presidents) for years; President Chirac has decided not to take advantage of his right to hunt on these grounds.
After visiting Chambord, we headed off to the town of Chivernay (picture) and did some wine tasting and picked up a couple of bottles of wine. We then drove on though Chenonceau and to Amboise. We were planning on spending the night in Amboise, but there were no hotels available. So instead, we continued on to Tours where we did find a nice little hotel and then went for dinner at an Italian restaurant (picture).
As luck would have it, there was a classic car show in Tours on Sunday (picture); this was quite a pleasant surprise and we spent the morning at the show before driving to Chenonceau. Chenonceau (picture) is an absolutely beautiful chateau located on (literally) a river. It is basically built like a half-bridge and half-chateau. It is also well adorned with furniture so a tour of the chateau give you a pretty good feeling as to what life was like living in the Chateau.
After visiting the Chateau, we then headed back to Paris to end this lovely trip out into the Loire Valley.
June 13, 2005
June 6, 2005
Athens and Hydra, Greece
Live, at the Acropolis
Originally uploaded by SaurabhA.
I’ve been wanting to visit Greece for as long as I can remember. My longing to see the ancient ruins of the Greek civilization was renewed when we visited the Roman ruins in December 2003 on our trip to Rome and Florence. So it was with great enthusiasm that I jumped on the chance to sign up for the CE trip to Athens through work. For a minuscule price of 350 euros, we received plane tickets, hotel accommodations and breakfast for both Nadya and I in Greece.
We arrived in Athens on Thursday evening. The tour group had arranged for a guide to pick us up at the airport and take us all to the hotel. The guide provided general information on Athens and some common words and phrases to use. This was actually quite an amusing experience because, since the majority of our group was French, the guide was translating from Greek to French. From our perspective, this was funny because she was translating from one language we didn’t know into another that we didn’t know very well; we figured things out nonetheless. We spent the rest of our trip with some friends from work, Steve, Maria, Paul and Carlene. They were great company, and definitely made our trip even more enjoyable.
On Thursday evening, it was a little rainy, but we managed to get out and have some Baclava and Ouzo at a restaurant with a view of the Acropolis and Parthenon. It was a pretty short evening since we wanted to get a start early the next morning to hit the sights.
On Friday, we spent the day at the Acropolis and exploring the city of Athens. It was a hot, clear and sunny day so we made more than one stop for water, food and – my favorite – Frappes. We saw the Acropolis first (picture), then walked to Hadrian’s Arch (picture), the original Olympic stadium (picture), saw the changing of the Guards (picture) and then over to the Temple of Zeus (picture). The city is amazing and at every corner you see a blend of ancient ruins and modernity (picture). For dinner, we went to a great Greek restaurant in a trendy part of the city. This was a blast as the place was filled with Greeks eating, dancing and singing. I think the locals often thought I was Greek and the band asked me to sing a few times.
On Saturday, we took a fast boat out to the island of Hydra (picture). Hydra is a quaint little Greek island with windy streets and only donkeys (picture) for transportation. Before catching the boat for Hydra, we went to a Greek market and picked up some fruits, cheese, olives and nuts. Steve also picked up some Baclava which was some of the best I’ve ever tasted in my life. The only down-side of the Greek market was that there was an awful smell of meat and fish. In the 35 degree heat, this was really quite a bad stink. After the market, we caught our boat to Hydra. The rest of the day was generally relaxing as we slowly wandered around the island, stopped for food and ice cream and picked up some post cards. We got back to Athens in the early evening and, after freshening up in our hotel, we headed out for dinner. We found a great little Greek restaurant with authentic food. We sat on the rooftop terrace with an absolutely magnificent view of the Acropolis (you almost felt as if you were at the same height as it). This restaurant seems to have quite a past, with pictures of celebrities (such as Gorbechev) throughout the place.
On Sunday, we had a few hours to go back to the center of the city, have some gyros for lunch and wander around for a bit before catching our flight back to Paris.
I found the Greek people to be the friendliest people I’ve met in all of Europe; I would love to spend more time there getting to know these wonderful people. Next time, I think we’ll try to make a trip out to Santorini.