a day in a valley whose name i couldn't even pronounce

so melanie really wanted to go to Loire Valley. like, really hard core wanted to go and see the chateus out there. i was indifferent /not really wanting to go, but figured i'd rather stay with the group. we had to take a train out to Tours and get picked up by a tour there. everyone else had bough eurorail passes and i had not. since a lot of my plans were so up in the air up until a week ago, it was hard to buy a whole lot ahead of time. anyway, so they paid 6 euro to reserve seats on the train and i went to buy a ticket and they hit me like 90 euros. holy crap. it was early in the morning so while i really should have been like, have fun guys i'll see you tonight, i dished out over $100 right there for a day trip. hooooly crap.

so we get there. it's cold. a little rainy. middle of nowhere (turns out we got out one stop early) and call this tour company that's supposed to pick us up. this was something melanie had planned so the rest of us were kind of like sitting ducks while we waited for a grey van to come get us and let her handle it. the chateus were cool. i can't remember the names of them, but i can tell you that they were french. i mean, they were pretty... but each one cost another 7 euros and then we had to pay like 20 or 30something euros to the driver... all in all, way too pricy a day. so we trained back. lindsey and melanie were cold and wanted to go back to the hotel. rosie and i really wanted to go see the basilisque de sacre ceure or however you spell that so we split up. rosie and i headed over to that area and had a delicious meal in a random cafe that we picked as we were walking around and then picked random things on the menu. we got a frenchy hamburger and a leg of chicken. and french fries! it was a pretty french meal, if i do say so myself. we walked up the 5 hundred million steps to the top of the hill that the basilisque is on. we thought we might die. but all of a sudden we turned a corner and there it was. it was magnificent.

i dont know why this place doesnt get more hype. we literally stopped in our tracks when we beheld this gigantic, beautiful building. it was too late to go inside (it was almost 11pm at this point) but we walked around it and took pictures and were just generally awe struck. amazing. a perfect end to the night.