Officially being part of the Loire region, of which you might have heard of thanks to its famous castles, the particular village we were heading to is however at the utmost outskirts of the region and surrounded largely by farmland and other small villages.
Living in a village of 100 inhabitants without bakery nor market is not for everybody, but having a comfortable house with huge garden, eating your own delicious fruits, jams and vegetables definitely has its charms!
The biggest city nearby is Le Mans, which only gets busting with tourists once a year during the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans car race. During the rest of the year it is a pleasant mid-sized town with a well preserved medieval town.
Food wise, make sure you try Rillettes du Mans! It’s kind of the local variation of the Pate, but more chunky. Best eaten with baguette and an alcoholic beverage during the compulsory daily apero 
Afternoon around 4pm is the perfect time for a little break! On this both Germans and French do agree. While the Germans will go for Kaffee & Kuchen (coffee & cake), either at home or in one of the millions of Cafes, French will prepare apero (short for aperitif). This involves a large selection of alcohols, from beer and wine to strong spirits like Pastis or Schnaps, and several savory snacks, like cheese, pate, saucisson and chips.
How about your country? Any similar afternoon traditions?
We couldn’t leave the Loire region without at least seeing one of it’s many royal castles and drove to visit elegant Chateaux de Chambord (cf. title photo).
Designed purely for leisure, it has no proper defenses and in all aspects prioritizes the aesthetics. Looking huge from outside, the inside space is actually quite constrained (for a royal castle). The central building is symmetrical and cross-shaped with a beautiful white double-helix bridge in its center.
It has an elegant chapel and royal chambers, but somebody went totally overkill with the roof:
A few quarters are nicely decorated in their original style and you can learn how fashions of the royal court changed over time. Did you know it was a special honor to watch the king getting dressed in the morning?
This tradition also explains the funny balustrade in his bed chamber:
After five days we had to leave our peaceful country life behind as Yang Ke’s visa was running out and we headed to Paris to catch our return flight to Shanghai.
Just in time to still celebrate Chinese New Year among family and friends, but we also got a glimpse of celebrations gearing up in Paris:
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Happy new year of the monkey to all of you!
]]>As it was Yang Ke’s first trip to Paris we started with a visit of the Montparnasse tower, which is quite an ugly sight by itself but which features an unmatched view of central Paris, thanks to its height of 210m. From the top floor you can explore the various districts of Paris and its countless famous monuments, a good way to orientate yourself in preparation for your city touring.
In difference to the top of the Eiffel tower, where the large crowds will give you little time to enjoy the beautiful scenery, the Montparnasse tower sees usually only few guests and we spend easily an hour, learning about the various sights with the help of several media terminals.
Another advantage of the Montparnasse view is that you also get a good look at the Eiffel tower 
Over the next days we continued with short trips, focusing on one area at a time, giving us enough time to wander around and explore Paris’ many beautiful neighborhoods.
Montmartre, former artistic heart of Paris, now has a quite touristy reputation, but that shouldn’t discourage you from visiting it with beautiful white Sacre Coeur.
During the week of our visit was the big Climate Conference, which as we know now became an unexpected big success, and the conference was supported by several activities across town.
Of course we also explored the French cuisine, integral part of the French culture.
And for any Asian visitor, who can’t survive on French food alone, don’t be afraid. Paris has a big Chinatown with authentic Chinese and SE-Asian food!
We finished our Paris visit with a trip to Disneyland, as celebration of our wedding anniversary
Staying at Disney’s own hotels is outrageously expensive, but luckily there are several excellent and cheaper hotels in vicinity of the resort with free shuttle service to train station and resort.
We had bought our tickets online in advance (much cheaper and faster than at the park entrance!) and ventured into the park at opening time. Not a lot had changed since my first visit more than 15 years ago, bringing back lots of memories.
Of course we visited all the big rides but also did a lot of smaller attractions – usually in company of hundreds of kids
As you know, we are more the spontaneous type and usually don’t plan much in advance of a visit. However after reading about waiting times of one to two hours for many of Disneyland’s attractions, Yang Ke did a thorough research on how to optimize our visit and experience the most within our one day-only visit.
Well, turns out the researching was a total waste of time! The longest wait we had was 15min and mostly it was less than 5min. We could do all the rides available and did some several times. I even got convinced by Yang Ke to make time for the “charming” Frozen show
As part of Disney’s huge marketing campaign for the new Star Wars movie, they also had several Star Wars activities for kids. During our lunch break we got to see the “Star Wars Academy”, where kids could play a role in a battle with Darth Vader. Must have been pretty impressive for the kids!
In the late afternoon some rides turned totally empty and by 5pm we went home as we didn’t know what else to do (and it was getting cold)
If you are planning a visit to Disneyland however don’t expect the same level of emptiness. I think we were just lucky as several factors played together. Winter is generally low-season, we visited on a weekday (avoid Wednesdays as schools are off in the afternoon!), the weather was quite grey and cold and many tourists cancelled their trips after the Paris terror attacks.
]]>With the same strategy we were heading into our little Europe tour. Apart from a few fixed cornerstones (total time frame = 3 months, spend time with my family, show Paris to Yang Ke, visit several friends) we had nothing else fixed.
When the news of a reunion party with my French university classmates landed in my inbox, many of whom I haven’t seen since several years, we therefore quickly adjusted our plans, rescheduled our flight a few days earlier and were set for our first destination: Grenoble in South Eastern France.
We landed in Paris after an uneventful flight with Aeroflot and headed to the lovely town of Lyon, for a short sunny stop on our way to Grenoble.
Apart from beautiful historic squares and buildings, Lyon also shows off two pretty rivers and some very charming antique alleys.
Grenoble, while a happening student town, is not a real tourist destination by itself. However at the base of the French Alps it offers lots of excursions for mountain lovers in summer and winter, and invites to explore more picturesque smaller cities further up the mountains. We therefore decided to head towards the Alps and crossover to Switzerland with next major target set to Zurich.
First up was the little known Chambery, standing in the shadow of more popular Annecy. Lacking a beautiful lake like Annecy, we were more than compensated with an impressive old town. As capital of the royal family of the Savoy in the 14th to mid 16th century, it has a rich history and a well preserved homogeneous city center inviting you to explore its little alleys and backyards.
Apart from a historic castle close to the city center (which was closed due to the terrorist attacks), Chambery’s most famous landmark is the unusual Indian inspired elephant fountain.
We still had lovely autumn weather and Yang Ke enjoyed the colorful greenery.
We even took the opportunity for a little hike up the neighboring hill.
We continued our journey to Annecy, the quintessential French mountain village, with a charming old town set right next to an azure lake with high mountains in the background.
Annecy has several charming spots in its historic center and along its little river and with the right weather is a great place to spend time in cafes and exploring its delicatessen shops.
As particular highlight comes an old dungeon set right into the middle of the river, which includes a little but interesting museum.
