Day 11-14 Paris

Coming home to these two...priceless
Street performer in Paris.
I am trying to be a street performer.

After seeing Moulin Rouge, we headed strait for church.
The capital of defense building downtown. The lift to the top to look out was closed for mechanical reasons:(

The palace of shopping.
Yes, we really did take this picture.

Palace of Versailles and all of its grandeur.

Marie Antoinette Hall of Mirrors.

Day 9-10 Samur/Loire Valley

Château de Chenonceau

This is the dance hall that spans across the river.

The grand walk leading to the chateau.

Villandry was my favorite. Even more impressive was that an American woman, Ann Coleman, gets credit for bringing it back to its original beauty.

This is the areal view of the most impressive gardens I have ever seen. We even saw posters of these gardens at our local Hobby Lobby when we were getting some pictures framed. Most of the gardens are edible.This is where the help lived.

Scott on the draw bridge.

Our hotel/chateau was close to Samur. It is a great French village with tons of history. The Loire Valley is famous for its many châteaus where kings and their courts built an impressive array of homes ranging from the medieval times through every period to the second empire in the mid 19th century.

Chateau Samur was sadly under renovation so we couldn't go through.

Here is where we had the great pleasure of staying. If you are ever in the area. This is our #1 recommendation!
Driving to the chateau.

Farm villages. I might be a farmer if they were like this in the US.
Small farm Chateaus all along the way. We would blink and miss them.
Harley bikers from Finland. It's a long way to Sturgis.
Scott thought he was a speed daemon.

The start of our driving road trip in France. We just couldn't put the camera away. Everything was amazingly beautiful.

Day 8-9-Lyon France

The pictures are in reverse order of all that we did in Lyon and it was just too hard to change it in Blogger. Just like the posts are in reverse order. It goes from most recent to oldest.

This is what you see down below.

Yep, we hiked all the way to the top for this view. Scott was pretty warm in all black carrying his backpack. It was worth it Our only day that we didn't have to wear a jacket. It was beautiful.

Where is Waldo/Adrienne? Can you see my head? Hint...look under the wing.

Lyon was founded as a Roman colony in 43 BC by Munatius Plancus, a lieutenant of Caesar, The three parts of Gaul mentioned by Caesar met at Lyon. Agrippa recognized that Lugdunum's position on the natural highway from northern to south-eastern France made it a natural communications hub, and he made Lyon the starting point of the principal Roman roads throughout Gaul. It then became the capital of Gaul, partly thanks to its fortunate site at the convergence of two navigable rivers, and quickly became the main city of Gaul.
Here was a waterfall along our hike.
This is the view from our hotel room.

Beautiful city square. Tons of history here we didn't expect.

Sunday in Lyon the city is pretty shut down. Good example for us Americans.

This was our only train ride. Since it is very expensive to cross country borders with a car, we took a train to Lyon. It was a fun time, but we are glad we drove everywhere else.