It's A WONDERful 2015 - Feb Cruise, May WDW grand tour, and France/DLP! NEW 10/25 Nice & End!

[khertz]

So many beautiful chateaus!! I'm sure it made for a pretty tiring day though. Those grounds look SO expansive! My feet hurt just looking at them. lol

I love the Sleeping Beauty castle, even if they did run with that concept after the fact. Still very cool!

 

[Imagineer5]

Looks like a full day with some amazing buildings you got to see - the architecture really is amazing

The gardens are really beautiful especially at the first one ... I think those are something I would be like "wow, those are pretty! ok, what's next?"

I do love where you got to see the structure of the tower at Usse

The building of Chenonceau is amazing to me as I can't even imagine building something like that, out on/in the river centuries ago with like no technology.

Well, at least Andrew got in a wine tasting for suffering through more than 2 chateaus in a day

LOL yes, the gardens were fun with the addition of the mazes/playgrounds/etc. I couldn't spend all day in them or anything. I am more excited to learn about the history of the places and imagine times hundreds of years ago. The gardens were nice just to get outside, let Aria run around and that sort of thing.

Hahaha He enjoyed his wine tasting but was definitely ready to leave.

This looks like such a great day! The buildings and grounds are so beautiful and looks like there was enough fun stuff to keep Aria entertained, as well.

You got some really great family photos, too!

I lived in Spain for a while, as well. Where did you live?

It was - I wish we had had more days there (I could see spending a week in the Loire valley, enjoying the countryside, canoeing on the river, and seeing some chateaus).

I was in Zaragoza. Back when I was 12, we hosted an exchange student for a year who was 16. When I was 18, I finished up high school early and went to stay with her family for my last 6 months of school.

So many beautiful chateaus!! I'm sure it made for a pretty tiring day though. Those grounds look SO expansive! My feet hurt just looking at them. lol

I love the Sleeping Beauty castle, even if they did run with that concept after the fact. Still very cool!

Hahha it was a lot of walking, nothing like Versailles though! A fun day and so much history!

 

[Dugette]

First there was a scale map of the chateau and gardens.

Wow, impressive - you can really see how big it is!

It was nice to see a chateau actually decorated inside (as opposed to Chambord) and it reminded me of my Grandmom's old house as she spent many, many trips to France picking up antiques and furnishing her old house (she has since moved, but I remember it fondly, it was an old mansion in downtown Waxahachie with 4 floors and an elevator).

That would be an awesome place to visit a grandparent! Izzy would approve of the elevator - she was telling me the other day that houses should have elevators.

Dollhouse and puppet theater

Wow, that is quite the elaborate dollhouse!

Wow, very pretty! (and huge!)

We had a ball running through this and there was no one else there so we let aria run wild through it and played a bit of hide and seek. Once finished we kept on going, and stumbled into a totally hidden playground!

Glad she enjoyed the maze and yay for a hidden playground!

and the coolest thing was a hidden room under the kitchen which connected to a cave - there were multiple escape passages built off this room heading underground and coming out at various locations in the Chinon forest kilometers away in case of attack.

Wow, that's really cool. I wonder if a lot of these chateaus had secret escape routes?

They obviously have banked on that and they decorated one of the towers like the story, even using Disney music playing in the background. We joked that more than likely, they did not have rights from Disney to do this!

Haha, probably not. But still cool.

I feel like I keep saying wow, but WOW! Pretty amazing right over the river like that.

If (when) we return to the Loire, one place I would love to revisit is chenonceau. And take a river cruise to check it out that way!

That sounds like it would be a fun way to see it.

Aria spotted another hidden playground so we headed there of course

Sounds like Aria shares Izzy's talent of spotting playgrounds everywhere.

 

[Imagineer5]

Wow, impressive - you can really see how big it is!


That would be an awesome place to visit a grandparent! Izzy would approve of the elevator - she was telling me the other day that houses should have elevators.


Wow, that is quite the elaborate dollhouse!


Wow, very pretty! (and huge!)


Glad she enjoyed the maze and yay for a hidden playground!


Wow, that's really cool. I wonder if a lot of these chateaus had secret escape routes?


Haha, probably not. But still cool.


I feel like I keep saying wow, but WOW! Pretty amazing right over the river like that.


That sounds like it would be a fun way to see it.


Sounds like Aria shares Izzy's talent of spotting playgrounds everywhere.

I loved my Grandmom's house. She moved when I was 14, and I still miss it!

LOL at all the WOW's it was a really cool day, but we definitely stuffed a lot into the one day.

 

[Imagineer5]

On Tuesday September 15th (almost exactly 1 year ago, ha) we left the Loire Valley and made our way over to Beaune in Burgundy. We left pretty early (7) because the drive was pretty long overall (a total of about 5 hours) but we had a stop just about halfway in between - Guedelon. This is actually a medieval building site for a chateau. This team is building a chateau using ONLY medieval building practices, resources, building materials etc. The drive to get there was pretty long, as we took the "scenic" route - there really wasnt' a good highway option as all the highways were going N/S or E/W and we were going at a funny angle - so we ended up on a route that took us through many cute towns but with very low speed limits. Lots of neat roads that looked to be One lane wine (like one way) but were actually two way and you had to both practically jump off the road to pass. Pretty crazy!

Here is some scenery-

It was a wet and chilly day! A bit after 10 we arrived at Guedelon. Despite being literally in the middle of no where (I had to input GPS coordinates as there was no true address for the place) there were a lot of cars parked. When we bought tickets they were selling hot chocolate so we sipped on that to warm up before heading inside.

Once inside we checked things out - it was REALLY muddy and we should have left the stroller in the car.

The ground was also this ferrous red clay mud - which was the reason they picked the site (they got a lot of materials right there from the land) but it made for a very messy sight when we were done (my poor pants were ruined!)

Soon we came upon the main building site

There were a few craftsmen out but they all spoke French only. We felt like we would have learned a lot more had we spoken French (or if there were English signs or something).

We watched this method to get heavy blocks to the top of the building

The roof is tiled in red clay tiles

Painting hut

They had farm animals around which we all loved seeing

We met a tiler who tried to speak in English which we really appreciated. He was very friendly and told us about getting the tiling materials, which were used for the roof, the flooring, and many other uses, all right from the land there.

We met a few horses too (used in carriage runs to get heavy materials to the building site)

Some sheep were roaming about. They had a hut specifically to make rope, maybe the sheep fur was used for that task?

The coolest part was actually getting to check out parts of the chateau

I think this part was going to be the great hall

As we walked around, we joked that someone came up with a brilliant plan: He bought the land, hired the workers, then sold tickets all so they would build his retirement chateau :-D who knows!

Artwork in the soon to be kitchen

We were able to check out some towers too

Back outside...

Maybe they use this for slow workers?

Then we headed out. We were chilly and wet and hungry, but since it wasn't a nice day and mid-week their restaurant wasn't open. On our way out I had to use the bathroom - which was a joint male/female restroom. Very awkward walking past a man using a urinal to get to the stall OMG.

5 minutes after leaving, we found a quaint town with a restaurant in the town square that looked like a local spot for workers to spend their lunch break. We decided to check it out - the waitress was SO friendly to us - spoke zero English and there were no English menus but we did okay figuring things out.

Andrew ordered their dish of the day from the sign posted outside. It was a meat lasagna

I ordered some kind of chicken panini, and Aria ordered a croque monsieur (ham & cheese sandwich). Despite not eating ham, we ended up switching meals - that croque monsieur was AMAZING. I think the most thorough French item I ate! Also our meals came with dessert, we both ordered their dessert of the day which was a mousse with chocolate cake and berries, and the waitress took Aria's hand and let her pick out an ice cream from a case which she loved.

An unfortunate thing happened at lunch though - Andrew was sitting next to our jackets/sweaters. Due to the chill, I had been in a black sweater and a rain jacket. Well when we left he gathered up the multiple jackets and sweaters and it wasn't until we got to Beaune that we realized my black sweater must have fallen in between the bench and the wall as he hadn't grabbed it. Boo!

continued in next post!

 

[Imagineer5]

After lunch we made the second half of the long drive to Beaune. Aria napped and we had some spectacular scenery. Something really cool was all the canals with locks that we passed. We were on the look out for any cool antique shops - we stopped at one and Andrew went inside while I stayed in the car with Aria sleeping - we had spotted a copper play kitchen set inside. When he came out he said it was priced at 180 euros, jeez! He did buy a wine pourer that goes in the side of a barrel, though.

Beautiful views -

After driving 2.5 hours, we arrived in Beaune which was a big-ish city compared to where we had just been. It was a walled city too with lots of one way streets but we navigated our way in easily. There was no parking outside the apartment but I jumped out while Andrew double parked, and met Veronique the apartment owner. She owns a small art shop next door so it was easy to find her. She showed us a good spot to double park (lol) and we quickly brought the luggage inside. It was a complete 180 from the Loire home - modern with a beautiful bathroom (YAY!) . There was a living room that is separated with doors and had a pull out couch, so aria slept in there, and a separate large bedroom with a super comfy bed. We had to make a number of trips for the luggage because we weren't really packed very well and had lots of separated bags. Andrew then moved the car to a free parking lot a short walk away while I did some unpacking. I put Aria to work by making piles and telling her to put them in the bathroom or bedroom or whatnot.

You walk in to this area (kitchen/dining)

Nice big bathroom and shower yay!

Beautiful bedroom

We showered and then decided to head out into town. We were right in the center and perfect for walking around. I spotted the restaurant that I had made reservations for dinner and noted that it looked pretty dark inside - while still early I went over to check it out and there was a sign saying it was closed until September 22! Ugh! I was upset at that, after doing a TON of research into menus, ambiance, looking for a good balance between great food and kid friendly spots. So we ended up checking out menus as we walked around town. We found a number of elderly folks doing the same thing.

We popped into a couple French children's boutiques and ended up buying a matching outfit for the girls in one, and a super cute outfit for Aria in another (which she has worn at least 20 times as it's been a favorite, so definitely got our money worth for that!).

Checked out some galleries

There were a lot of pedestrian areas which was so nice. We were also scoping out patisserie options for the next morning.

Aria found this lol

Since I didn't have trusty Trip Advisor, we ended up with a menu that seemed to suit us all and it ended up being right by our apartment. This evening we didn't feel like a superrr long French meal so we ordered main dishes and dessert which was thankfully an option on their prix fixe menus. I ordered a chicken with morel mushrooms dish, and Andrew ordered steak and we made a plate for Aria with both. Our veggies were potatoes and Brussels sprouts which I cant stand. BUT my chicken dish was AMAZING. OMG the flavor! One of the best chicken dishes I've ever had. It was so simple really but man, just divine.

For dessert I had the crème brulee and Andrew ordered chocolate mousse. At that time Aria decided to scoot her chair next to his, and devoured his dessert leaving mine in peace! hahaha

After dinner we put Aria to bed and then vegged out for a bit (her bedroom had the TV in it, so we just played on ipads I think) and then called it a night.

Up next - a Truffle cooking class! NOT the chocolate variety. My original plan was a bike tour of wineries but you know, being 28 weeks pregnant is not really the time to be biking in the French countryside visiting wineries so I had to change that up lol!

 

[khertz]

This seems like such an amazing trip. The views are absolutely stunning!

And the places you found to stay are so beautiful. How did you find them? You might have said already and I just can't remember right now, sorry.

Bummer about losing your jacket!

I had to laugh at Aria's face stealing that chocolate mousse. lol Paxton is a dessert stealer too, and I always love it when he picks Dustin's over mine!!

 

[Dugette]

This is actually a medieval building site for a chateau. This team is building a chateau using ONLY medieval building practices, resources, building materials etc.

Very cool that they are doing that. Certainly a different way to see a chateau.

Lots of neat roads that looked to be One lane wine (like one way) but were actually two way and you had to both practically jump off the road to pass. Pretty crazy!

Reminds me of driving through northern Italy. Lots of 1.5 lane wide roads - scary on the corners or near steep drop-offs.

Cool view with the horse and wheel and all.

As we walked around, we joked that someone came up with a brilliant plan: He bought the land, hired the workers, then sold tickets all so they would build his retirement chateau :-D who knows!

Very smart plan, indeed!

On our way out I had to use the bathroom - which was a joint male/female restroom. Very awkward walking past a man using a urinal to get to the stall OMG.

Andrew ordered their dish of the day from the sign posted outside. It was a meat lasagna

Mmmmm, sounds good - looks huge too!

Despite not eating ham, we ended up switching meals - that croque monsieur was AMAZING. I think the most thorough French item I ate!

That sounds great too!

An unfortunate thing happened at lunch though - Andrew was sitting next to our jackets/sweaters. Due to the chill, I had been in a black sweater and a rain jacket. Well when we left he gathered up the multiple jackets and sweaters and it wasn't until we got to Beaune that we realized my black sweater must have fallen in between the bench and the wall as he hadn't grabbed it. Boo!

Aw, sorry you lost it!

It was a complete 180 from the Loire home - modern with a beautiful bathroom (YAY!) . There was a living room that is separated with doors and had a pull out couch, so aria slept in there, and a separate large bedroom with a super comfy bed.

Sounds lovely!

I spotted the restaurant that I had made reservations for dinner and noted that it looked pretty dark inside - while still early I went over to check it out and there was a sign saying it was closed until September 22! Ugh! I was upset at that, after doing a TON of research into menus, ambiance, looking for a good balance between great food and kid friendly spots.

Weird, especially if you'd reserved it too. Glad you found something.

Aria found this lol

Nice!

 

[cindianne320]

Those chateaus are beautiful! What a wonderful trip you had!

 

[Imagineer5]

This seems like such an amazing trip. The views are absolutely stunning!

And the places you found to stay are so beautiful. How did you find them? You might have said already and I just can't remember right now, sorry.

Bummer about losing your jacket!

I had to laugh at Aria's face stealing that chocolate mousse. lol Paxton is a dessert stealer too, and I always love it when he picks Dustin's over mine!!

Seriously it was!! I spent a lot of time (besides Disney, planning vacations is a favorite pastime!) searching for places to stay. The first step was figuring out WHERE we wanted to go and for how long, which I started out doing by looking at 1) my list of things I really wanted to see and 2) looking at some tour companies such as ABD and Rick Steves to see what they do in the country I'm visiting, then base what we want to do off our own interests. Once I have length of stay, dates, and locations then I just start looking at VRBO, AirBnB and TripAdvisor for ideas on where to stay. I generally like Airbnb because you can book directly from the app w/ a credit card so I feel like it gives more protection than VRBO, and I like staying in apartments with kitchens, washer and dryer vs hotels, but you'll see an upcoming "hotel" we visited that was just stunning and I couldn't go the Airbnb route once I found this place lol! Anyway, this is why I like to start planning trips a year in advance, because the best places do get taken quickly. In Venice we rented an apartment along the Grand Canal with a dock to sit and people watch on, for about 140 euros/night - you aren't going to find something like that a month in advance! (nor are you going to find that price in a hotel in Venice lol).

Yes, I was very pleased my dessert was left alone. I offered it but she much preferred the chocolate haha.

Very cool that they are doing that. Certainly a different way to see a chateau.


Reminds me of driving through northern Italy. Lots of 1.5 lane wide roads - scary on the corners or near steep drop-offs.


Cool view with the horse and wheel and all.


Very smart plan, indeed!





Mmmmm, sounds good - looks huge too!


That sounds great too!


Aw, sorry you lost it!


Sounds lovely!


Weird, especially if you'd reserved it too. Glad you found something.


Nice!

Yes the roads were pretty crazy - luckily on this leg it wasn't mountainous so I wasn't as nervous as our time driving through the Alps, but still pretty crazy how people manage to handle these roads on a daily basis.

Those chateaus are beautiful! What a wonderful trip you had!

They are! Thanks, it was wonderful and I'm so glad we spent that time with Aria before Maya got here, since it'll be a little while (2 years) before we are planning a return to Europe with the new baby coming and all.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Guedelon looks really cool - though I agree that it would have been good if they had signs or like a pamphlet or something in English. At least you did find the one artisan that spoke English

Your apartment in Beaune looks really nice - modern but still with the classic character. And the town itself looks really nice too - reminds me of the older parts of Zurich where there are the cobblestone walking pathways with tons of shops and restaurants on them

bummer about the restaurant though but good thing you found out when you did! and the place you wound up at looks nice!

 

[Imagineer5]

Guedelon looks really cool - though I agree that it would have been good if they had signs or like a pamphlet or something in English. At least you did find the one artisan that spoke English

Your apartment in Beaune looks really nice - modern but still with the classic character. And the town itself looks really nice too - reminds me of the older parts of Zurich where there are the cobblestone walking pathways with tons of shops and restaurants on them

bummer about the restaurant though but good thing you found out when you did! and the place you wound up at looks nice!

I can't complain about the language thing too much, I mean how many signs do we see in our museum in multiple languages? And how many docents know them? LOL.

The town was really quaint but fun to walk around, in our short time there we really enjoyed it.

 

[Imagineer5]

Wednesday 9/16 - Beaune!

A little background for today - I mentioned this earlier but wanted to again. My original plan for today was to do a countryside bike ride with a tour company I found that takes you to a few wineries, stopping mid-day for a big lunch at one of the wineries. They had bike trailers for kids so I thought that would be perfect for Aria so she could even take her afternoon nap in the trailer if she wanted to. Once I got pregnant, I still was considering this briefly, and then looked into maybe a shorter version (that was an all day version but they also had one that was only a couple hours long). But then I really decided that I didn't want to take any chances falling off a bike (I don't do much biking at home), plus the winery visits would be depressing for me lol. SO I thought that we would either 1) change this location or 2) look for a cooking class that was family friendly. Since this was our only visit to this part of France, I decided to keep it. There were no reasonable cooking classes that I felt comfortable bringing a 3-year-old to - one was a private one in someone's home, but it was around 300 euros each and she was going to charge for Aria.

Somehow (honestly, I don't even remember how - she isn't even on TripAdvisor!) I stumbled upon "Claire de Truffles". She usually hosts truffle classes (as in the related to mushroom variety, not chocolate) at a nearby resort outside of Beaune, only for resort guests. Well, I sent her an email and asked if she did private classes and she said yes! I thought that would be perfect since we had an apartment with a full kitchen - AND when Aria lost interest, she was able to do her own thing and not be in someone else's house.

Anyway, this morning we got up around 7:30, Andrew made his daily trek for pastries and came back with these -

And we enjoyed them in the dining room while tidying up a bit. Claire was scheduled to arrive around 10. Right around then, she showed up and sent us off to the town market so she could set up! We thought this was a little funny that here we are, leaving a stranger in our rented apartment, but she was really nice and told us a truffle friend of hers was set up at the market and wanted to show us some products. (BTW, we did get permission from the owner to do this class in the apartment!).

So off we went on a very short walk (maybe 3 "blocks" total) and found the fresh market out and bustling. They had a HUGE olive stand. You could try anything (we witnessed one woman trying an olive and putting the pit BACK IN THE BASKET OMG).

We witnessed that AFTER purchasing a bag of mixed olives though LOL.

We quickly found the truffle stand and talked to him, however he spoke very little English. After I said Claire he knew who we were though and gave us 1 on 1 attention for a while, showing us the ingredient lists and telling us what to watch out for with truffle products (there are a lot of fake, or very very cheap truffle products being marketed as true truffles when they really aren't).

You can see in this photo he also had a few fresh truffles for sale:

We learned later on that fresh truffles need to be used within 1-2 DAYS of being picked/found or else they go bad. That's why there are truffle butters, oils, etc because fresh truffles have to be used or made into something immediately!

We purchased a couple things from him at a discount thanks to Claire, and then headed back to the apartment with our goodies. Claire had set up a projector as part of the class was a background and information on truffles.

She brought some pamphlets and photos to show the various French truffles found in different seasons

After a 20 minute lesson on truffles, we dove right in! She had made truffle butter out of each of the French truffles, so we were tasked with trying each - the top row we were supposed to try in order, then once through them all, we could sort the bottom row in any order we wanted. Some were VERY earthy, some sweet. Aria tried a couple and then went off to play.

She brought some fresh truffles that she and her truffle dogs had found the day prior, and we were going to use them in a few recipes.

BTW, Aria was wearing one of the new outfits we had purchased the night before

Aria really loves to help cook now, so I think she would enjoy this more now. But it was so nice for her to be able to go in the other room, play with her toys or ipad or whatever.

We used the mandolin to shave the truffle for some truffle butter, and quickly put this in the fridge to chill for later.

The first dish we ate (it was more like a working lunch, where we would do some cooking, sit down to one course, then continue cooking etc) was probably my least favorite, but I don't eat eggs like this (practically uncooked). Apparently this is common in France.

It was a truffle egg dish. I think it could have been delicious, but just too uncooked for me.

The next dish was a sort of a mashed potato, using a truffle liquer (some sort of whiskey as the base). Despite not being a whiskey lover, this was very good, very creamy. Andrew absolutely loved it. I have looked for truffle liquer to get him some but have come up empty handed (not to mention all the chocolate ones that pop up in a search).

I did tell Claire of my food aversions (because I didn't want her bringing 4 courses of meats) however, she asked if she could bring snails and I agreed. Andrew eats almost anything and he is pretty adverse to snails - even more so after his negative experience with them a week prior, but she made up her truffle butter covered snails and I did eat one. Andrew ate his whole plate worth, he said they were amazing. I can't get past the thought of "snail".

We then made fresh pasta with just semolina flour and water, she brought a pasta press and we did that, boiled it for a minute and had a simple cream sauce with shaved truffles. This was heavenly.

Courses seem a bit out of order but oh well. Our next dish was a sort of a salad, with our truffle butter used as the "dressing"

I was feeling truffled out.

Afterwards we were really put over the top - she had prepared some truffle ice cream before hand so that was dessert. I was interested to see what dessert might be (with savory truffles). It was ...okay. It might have been good on its own, but after multiple courses, I really couldn't stomach any more. Around 3, Claire left, and we waited a bit for Aria to wake up (she had gone down for her nap around 1). It had been a perfect experience and something so different! Claire was fantastic, very smart, and very good at this niche market she has gotten herself in!

When Aria woke up we were ready to explore the city a bit more, and luckily the sun was shining and it had turned into a beautiful day! Aria requested a playground so we sort of went in search of one.

I wanted to buy some Burgundy wine to bring home, so that was my goal. Also the #1 "attraction" in Beaune is the Hotel Dieu de Beaune, or hospital of Beaune. So I wanted to try and fit that in!

But first some fun for Aria -

The town is really small, but we got turned around and somehow stumbled into the hospital so we decided to go in there first.

continued...

 

[Imagineer5]

We purchased tickets to go in and the ticket came with a listening device so we sort of listened to that while walking around.

The hospital was founded in 1443 by the chancellor of Burgundy, as a hospital for the poor.

While we enjoyed the history, Aria enjoyed the open courtyard lol

Architecture is stunning

Beds inside hospital

We got to see the kitchen where nuns cooked all the meals

And an apothecary

Aria wanted to listen to my device, so I told her she could if she told me what it said.

She said "once upon a time there was a princess..." lol as if that is what it was telling her.

After about an hour here, we headed out and found a sandwich for Aria (we were still stuffed) and then went in search of wine.

We found a shop with tasting options

And we bought a couple bottles. We also spotted a travel wine suitcase that holds 12 bottles. When full, it is just about 45 lbs. We decided to think about that purchase.

After that we headed back to the apartment to pack. I wanted to get some things into 50-lb suitcases that were set for travel home including purchases and other things we didn't need. While packing and seeing all the wine we had already, Andrew decided to run back for the wine suitcase (I also priced it on Amazon just to see, and it was the same price with good reviews). We ended up snacking on some things but never had a big dinner (which I assumed would be the case, and helped offset the cost of the truffle course knowing it basically included lunch and dinner!).

Then we headed to bed, as we had another long drive South tomorrow!

 

[cindianne320]

Wow! That class sounds amazing- what a unique experience!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Definitely interesting to be sent to the maker and leave her in the apartment alone

Sounds like an amazing experience though. I didn't know truffles needed to be used in 1-2 days of being picked. Seems to me like something that would last for a little while but obviously I am incorrect

The food looks amazing (especially the snails and pasta dish) - though I can see getting full by the end. Having a sorbet or something to cleanse the pallet might have been nice

That hospital looks really cool and much nice /fancier than the poor get nowadays

That wine suitcase sounds like a neat idea and cool that it is set to fit within the airline weight limits

 

[chookie94]

That seems like such a unique experience having someone coming to you for the class. Sounds amazing, but thats soooo much tuffle

 

[Imagineer5]

Wow! That class sounds amazing- what a unique experience!

Yes it was, I'm so glad we did it!

Definitely interesting to be sent to the maker and leave her in the apartment alone

Sounds like an amazing experience though. I didn't know truffles needed to be used in 1-2 days of being picked. Seems to me like something that would last for a little while but obviously I am incorrect

The food looks amazing (especially the snails and pasta dish) - though I can see getting full by the end. Having a sorbet or something to cleanse the pallet might have been nice

That hospital looks really cool and much nice /fancier than the poor get nowadays

That wine suitcase sounds like a neat idea and cool that it is set to fit within the airline weight limits

Yes I didn't know that either! Apparently they mold really quickly and then they are bad. They also have to be picked precisely when they are ripe or they will also go bad within a couple days, so the dogs are trained to only find the perfectly ripe ones.

It was filling, and I couldn't stomach the thought of truffle for a while lol! But it was fun. Yes some pallet cleanser would have been nice. That ice cream though, never again!

We figured in future trips we can bring the wine suitcase with us and fill it up as we go (we certainly would have used it on previous Europe trips!)

That seems like such a unique experience having someone coming to you for the class. Sounds amazing, but thats soooo much tuffle

Haha yes it was!! So fun though

 

[Imagineer5]

Just some updates for fun! Maya's birthday party is in just over a month (she turns 1 11/19 but we are having her party about 2 weeks early to separate it from Thanksgiving). It's going to be an It's a Small World theme, and I'm doing all food that she can eat (i.e. dairy, egg and peanut free!). But on that note, yesterday we spent 4 hours at her allergist's office doing a "baked egg challenge" and she passed!! That means she can now have baked products with egg! Wahoo! We're doing a baked milk challenge in 1 month, too!

I don't have the invitation yet (purchased on Etsy 2 days ago so I'm awaiting the personalized version) but this is the theme, and I'll be getting brightly colored paper lanterns and other things to decorate. Just doing it at our house to keep it simple. I chose It's a Small World after Maya's reaction on the ride in DL. I have a video of her singing and "dancing" on the bench. Now I bet she would clap and sing and dance. It was by far her favorite ride!

If you're local or just want to visit MA, you're more than welcome to come to the birthday party LOL!

NEXT Friday is my FP+ date for our December trip, so I spent some time yesterday looking at the days and plans. Still awaiting Rivers of Light to be announced and AK hours to be extended, but we'll just book FP with the assumption it won't be open and change them when it comes time. I'm so excited for the trip, despite it being 5 nights we seemingly have a lot of time in the parks (4 separate visits to MK! plus time in DHS, AK, and EPCOT). I still need to figure out what to do about Maya's milk allergy and milk in the parks. Luckily soy milk seems fine, but I'm not sure if I can simply buy soy milk in restaurants? I will stop on my way from the airport to purchase her milk (whether soy or Target's Ripple milk, not sure yet) for the room and we'll fill up a thermos of it for the park, but aside from that by mid-day or later we'll need more. @schmass not sure what you did about the specific milk? She still gets hives on her skin when milk touches her (and egg) so I highly doubt she'll be past that allergy anytime soon.

OH and another fun fact, Maya has been pulling to standing (7m), cruising since 8m and at 9m started standing and holding it for quite some time. Within the last week however (just after turning 10m!) she started taking steps! She's up to about 6 steps before she pops on her bum (or gets to her destination lol). Not fully walking yet, but almost!

Here's some recent photos just for fun!

This one is from Lynda's baby shower which I hosted a few weekends ago:

And just a random one of Aria because <3 she chose a Wonder Woman dress one day to wear to daycare. I bought a whole bunch of cute outfits for her from a friend, and that friend included this WW dress for free, and of course Aria chose that one out of all of them! LOL.

Okay next post I'll get back to france!

 

[Imagineer5]

Thursday 9/17

This morning we woke up to torrential downpours! Ugh! our plan was to quickly back the car and be on the road, stopping in Lyon on our way to Avignon in Provence. Andrew ran in the rain to go grab the car, park it illegally out front and then we took turns bringing everything down and headed out pretty much on time. We finished up some pastries and the Tortilla Espanola from the fridge for breakfast.

Today was mainly 1 looooong highway straight south. Lyon was perfectly situated halfway to Avignon (which was about 4 hours away) but unfortunately the rain really slowed things down.

This was our view for quite some time.

It was a pretty boring ride, and we decided when closer to Lyon that walking the city was out due to the weather. We had a back up plan though! It turns out that shortly after Lyon, also near the highway was the town of Valrhona. Yep, THAT Valrhona! The rain let up some as we neared, and we could smell chocolate in the air as we exited the highway. We arrived around 11:30 due to traffic from the rain. Aria told us as we arrived "guess what? my leg hurts! But chocolate will make it all better" lol.

Soon we parked and headed into the Valrhona chocolate museum. There were dishes of chocolate samples everywhere, and using our tickets got us even more samples from machines that taught you how to taste intricacies in chocolate.

They had a kid-friendly (English too) version of the kiosks so that was really nice.

Yes this is a wall of melted chocolate

We all really enjoyed the tastings as we went to the various kiosks

Seriously chocolate everywhere (those containers on the wall had tons of samples)

Learning about ingredients they use and different flavors while we sampled even more.

The Valrhona factory is on-site but not open to the public, but around the museum there were real time cameras showing different parts of the process.

We enjoyed guessing some scents

And once through, there was of course, a giant Valrhona chocolate shop. We decided this would be a great place to pick out small gifts for family and friends.

While shopping I found some spicy dark chocolate (my fave combo) so I was happy. We ended up with quite a lot, plus even more when they threw in sample sizes in the bag lol. It was past 1 by the time we left, and we were all stuffed from the chocolate so we skipped lunch. Aria napped during our remainder 1.5 hours.

It cleared up nicely as we got closer to our home for the next two nights, Chateau Talaud.

Soon we found the gate to the estate.

Now I will say, this was a splurge. I had wanted to cover all bases on our trip, and staying in a chateau was a must-do. This is a fairly small chateau, but seriously stunning. Wait til you see our room!

Driving the property -

As we stepped out of the car, it was finally WARM!! I missed the warmth! The sun was shining, weather gorgeous, and I was so happy to have arrived.

They have their own on site vineyard.

We rang the bell and the owner came out to greet us. We had arrived a little earlier than our original plans (I had intended to spend more time in lyon than we did at the chocolate museum) but it wasn't a problem. She went up to double check our room (The Red Room which is in its own wing with a separate staircase and was the biggest one, nice for extra space with Aria) was ready. In the meantime I took some photos. Breakfast was included and there were a couple areas to enjoy it.

In our room, we walked into the living room which had a pull out couch, perfect for Aria.

Our view overlooked the back garden

Looking into the bedroom from the living area

continued in next post...