Ten months in Tours: Blois

This has been a long week even though I was quite lazy for some of it. Lack of sleep and the feeling of disappointment at being back at uni again after the mini-break I'd been looking forward to for so long made it drag by. Then there was the presentation debacle, which I won't dwell on. So I was particularly appreciative of our day out in Blois today, and refused to let the rain dampen my spirits (I was fuming about the bus strike though). I found out that by some miracle I passed my first (4 hour long!) history exam last half term, and I felt ok about my Langue Orale presentation and my Littérature test this week, so after finally getting a proper night's sleep on Thursday I was excited to end this week and write it off and start again.

The original plan was Saumur (the home of the famous mushroom musuem!), but there was a problem with trains so we left that for another day and went to Blois instead. It was a last minute idea but I'm so glad we went as Blois is such a beautiful town and has a really french feeling. We'd been before on the way back from the Zoo, but only to Église Saint.Vincent and then a café while we waited for the train. It's about 35 minutes by train from Tours and then only a short walk into the centre where there are two large churches, the Château de Blois, lots of old buildings on cobbled streets, and a lovely view of the Loire (on a clearer day). We had lunch at a brasserie in town and then went to explore the castle, which was amazing. You'd think that I'd become less interested/easy to impress with castles having seen a fair few recently, but they're all so different, and it'd be difficult not to be impressed with the architecture. The interior at Blois was really ornate and well maintained and there were lots of interesting things to look at, particularly the unique panelled study, the art collections of François I, the fireplaces, the staircase, and the display of original and replica stone gargoyles and parts of facades etc. I won't go too far into its history but Blois is an ancient town that later became a key part of the royal court, which attracted many specialist craftsmen, such as clock-makers, to the region. The château was also the site of the assassination of the Duke of Guise in 1588 and the place of death of Catherine de Medici, who spent quite a lot of time there.

After we'd finished at the castle we explored some more of the back streets in search of the elusive 'Musée de la Résistance', but it got pretty windy and cold so we went to see the Église Saint.Nicolas-Saint.Laumer instead and then headed back to the station. It was only us in the church which was slightly spooky but also incredibly lucky.