About 2 hours to the southwest of Paris is a small town in the Loire Valley called Amboise.  This is considered a great location to hub out of to visit all of the great sites of the Loire Valley.  The Loire valley surrounds the Loire river and is known for having so many Chateaus and castle.  In the 1200 to 1800’s this was the land of the rich and famous.  Everyone who was anyone built or bought huge “homes” (aka chateaus or castle) here.  The Lake Oswego of France.

We arrived around 6 pm on Saturday night and got the key and moved in to our apartment.  A 3rd floor 800 sq ft apartment right in the downtown area of the city.  There are 2 gelato shops within 10 feet of the door to the building.  We are on one of the main streets to the whole city.

The above clock tower is part of the original gate in the wall around the city and the castle in the middle of the city.  The door to our apartment is about 25 feet past the gate on the left had side.  From where I took this picture I could just turn to my left and I took this picture of the castle.

We got settled into our apartment and went out foraging for food.  We decided on chinese food to go and got back and watched French TV and ate Chinese food.  Exposing ourselves to many cultures.

On the way to Amboise we made a quick stop in Vezeley France.  It was only took us 45 minutes out of the way from Montbard to Amboise.  Vezelay is a very well preserved ancient town built on a hilltop in the 9th century (thank you wikipedia).  It is best known to house the remains of Mary Magdalene and also a major of the starting points for the pilgrimage to the Santiago de Compostela (look it up on wikipedia).

As we walked into the church we discovered they were having a service at he time.  Bunny and I sat for the service.  Bunny thoroughly enjoyed it.  I stayed awake for most of it.