Loire Valley, France ... Part Three

On May 2 (day 6 cycling)...
We started off dry and slow at 8:45am, ready for a long and wet day leaving Chitenay. We skipped one castle because it was not open yet, and went to Cheverney as it opened.  It was quite fancy (even in comparison to others here). I missed a turn and added 2km here and was frustrated with our directions.

The rain started shortly after that - at about 11:15am. We rode to Chateaux Villesavin soaking wet as it poured rain. We didn't bother paying the money to go in, and rode on because they had limited services, and what we really wanted was a warm place to dry off with a hot drink and food.
We thought we would ride quickly to the next one and get some hot food.
Unfortunately we (I) made a wrong turn and we went 10km(6miles) extra to figure it out and fix it. I felt so terrible! Poor Dad! This was already a long wet day, and I screwed it up to make it way longer.  I'm not sure what happened, but I felt like I was failing in my mission to help Dad enjoy this trip.
I apologized to Dad, who never complained once about it, as we got back on track.
His response?
'I think these trees look like lodge-pole pines!'...(excited forrester, looking into the forest, totally oblivious to the possibility of frustration).
I guess I was much more concerned about it than he was, as he seemed to be enjoying himself.
Anyway, we made it to Chambord, the biggest of all our castles, and got food and dried out some.  The coolest thing about this castle was the double helix staircase in the center, which meant that 2 people could ascend a different intertwining staircase at the same time, see each other often, but not actually come together, and arrive at the same floor anytime.

The cool double helix staircase

After exploring there, we still had 20km(13miles) of cycling to get us to our hotel and it was still wet. Many streams are flooding, so we were glad our path was passable.
We made it to our hotel by 5:15pm after 64km(40miles) and 4hrs, 31min of riding.
Now we are clean, warm, dry, and hungry!

Back to the first hotel, all finished, in Blois!

Dad has done awesome on this trip. I'm really impressed.
The whole cycling trip was 233km or 140 miles over 6 days!

May 3 (travel from Blois to Paris)

Travel with 1 big backpack and 1 little backpack each, waiting for the train

On the train from Blois to Paris

We left our hotel after another yummy breakfast and caught the train to Paris.  We spent some time leaving luggage at the hotel and organizing a ride to the airport for me before jumping on a city tour bus.  It was a 'jump on, jump off' double decker with an open top and a headphones tour in many languages.  It worked out really well.  We spent hours riding around the city seeing a busy Paris from the bus.  We didn't 'jump off' very often, since line-ups to get into anything seemed VERY long and we didn't have much time.  

After the tour of the big city, we were over-stimulated and done.  We had a rest, a simple dinner, and went to bed early.

May 4 (travel home)
Dad and I split ways on Monday morning and he went to Southern France to visit relatives via train.

I left the hotel at 6am to the airport on a really fun NASCAR-esc shuttle ride, flew at 11am to Toronto.   Had several hours in Toronto, and then arrived in Denver.  I met Grandma at her gate to hug her goodbye and thank her for being home with my family, and then went to the main terminal.  Jason surprised me by being there with the girls, and then we all went home.

Home was full of more surprises: Jason and Susan had hired a house cleaner and the house had a full top-to-bottom cleaning, and the Subaru had been detailed and cleaned inside and out.  Talk about an awesome way to come home and what a lucky person I am to have these birthday/ anniversary/mother's day gifts!