We had a lazy morning at home before driving to Chateau Chambord. There were some farmers 3km from the Chatau at the gate that put a pile of horse poo there so you couldn’t drive in. They were protesting about the prices they were getting. We walked the 3km to get in. The Chateau was the king of France’s hunting lodge.
  

Tess in her Chateau!

A view of the Chateau grounds from the top of the Chateau.

This is where we had a very very good dinner!

Our best dinner in France!

Our cabin in Seillac.

Tess

Mum and I walked down to the boulangerie to get deux pain au chocolat et un pain de noissette et un canadien pour le petit dejeuner! One of the best things about France would have to be the food, especially the pastries!

We caught a very nice taxi (dad scared the taxi driver by going to get into the drivers side because french cars are the opposite to Australian cars) to the Gare du Nord where we picked up our hire car – a Citroen Picasso.  Then we drove out of Paris and towards the Loire Valley. If I thought narrow Brittish roads were scary, then driving in Paris on the wrong side of the road was beyond scary! But Dad managed to drive the whole way with out any problems!

  
We had baguettes et fromage pour le dejeuner – trés bien! We ate lunch by the la Loire river in Blois.

Blois.

Some very french sunflowers! The French country side is absolutely beautiful! 

We had some Bierre, vin et limonade en Onzain. Onzain is a lovely french country village.

At our cabin at Demaine de Seillac.

The Chateau which is the main building at Demaine de Seillac.

We had the barbecue (with a lot of meat) at the Demaine de Seillac where we are staying. It is really good being somewhere with a few less tourists, and it is a fun challenge for us all as everyone speaks a lot less English here!

Tara.

We caught the train out to Disneyland. Then had a really fun day at Disneyland Paris!

 We spent 12 hours at Disneyland! 

They had a band playing for a while! 

This was the Snow White and the seven dwarfs ride sign in French! 
  They even had Disney characters on the posts.

Donald Duck! 

Micky mouse came out in the parade. 

One of the many amazing buildings! 

Tara/Minnie mouse making some deliveries!

Mickey Mouse garden! 

It was dark when we left! 

What’s the time Mickey Mouse? 

Peak a boo!

This was one of our favourite rides!
Our favourite rides where:
Tara: ‘Big Thunder Mountain’ a roller coaster that went in a dark tunnel.             Dad: ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ it had scenes from the movie. It was very good! Mum: ‘Big thunder mountain’ same as Tara.                                                              Me: ‘Temple of peril’ roller coaster that had an upside down loop!

Tess

We caught le metro to Bastille this morning. Nearly all of the shops were closed, so we walked around the empty streets for a bit before going to a market. It was interesting seeing a French market. There were lots of fruit and vegetable stalls, cheese stalls and bread stalls. We bought some yummy food for lunch. It was really fun doing all our shopping at the market. Then we walked to a nice park and ate and ate! 

   
This is as close as Mum got to the department stores of Paris – they are all closed on a Sunday!

    
The cheese stall at the market.

 The market
   
For lunch we had lots of cheese, prosciutto, tomatoes, olives, balsamic onions, baguettes and canteloupe.

    
And then there was our dessert all wrapped up with a bow!

    
Canelles from the market.

 
Rhubarb tart, chocolate cake and an eclair – yumm!

After a very big and yum lunch, we walked around the streets of Paris a bit more, then boarded the hop-on-hop-off bus. On the bus they have audio guides that tell you about where you are, so we stayed on the bus for a while learning about parts of Paris. We had a very good dinner at a petit restaurant down a side street near the hotel!

Tara

First up, we caught the metro to Les Halles, where we walked around a route from the guide book. Les Halles is a very big food area. We walked down lots of nice alley ways, and past lots of yummy shops! We had a yummy late breakfast at a boulangerie. Then it was on to the metro to make our way out to Montmartre, a very artistic part of the city. There were so many people there! We saw the Sacré-Cœur Basilica on top of the Montmartre hill. We walked around an area with lots of artists selling paintings and other art works. We walked around for a while, then hopped on the hop-on-hop-off bus where we spent the remainder of the afternoon because our feet were so sore from all that walking! We have definitely slipped into the Parisian style of having a late dinner, we didn’t eat until about 10pm! It was another lovely and warm day today, but just when we had finished dinner, it started absolutely pouring with rain!

   This cafe has tiled pictures depicting vivid market scenes of the old Halles marketplace back in the 19th century on the walls.

 SacréCœur meaning Sacred Heart.

   There were lots of artists at Montmarte.

 A petit rue near Montemarte.
   One of the old  Metro signs

 La Pâtisserie!

   We were all rather tired when we got on the bus!

The Louvre with the famous glass Pyramid.

The Arc de Triomphe and some typical Paris traffic!
  There were lots of people running gambling games in the street. People were gambling with some big money!

 There were a few people swimming in this fountain pool near the Eiffel Tower.

  Very late dinner!

Tara

 We had a big sleep in then went sight seeing day in Paris.

  We saw the outside of a modern art gallery called the Pompidou Centre. This was designed by Renzo Piano who was also the Architect who designed the Sydney opera house!

As It is very hot here they have some cool misters to help you cool off!

    We saw the out side of Notre Dame cathedral, but we didn’t go in because the queue was MASSIVE!

  We also went in the Palace of Versailles where the king and queen of France lived before the French Revolution when they got beheaded. 

  
    This was a selfie taken in the mirror below.

We had dinner at a crepe restaurant in Versailles. We had a crepe for main and for dessert!!

Tess 

‘Twas a rather early start today, as we had to drop the car off and then get to the airport to fly to Paris! It was a very short flight. When we arrived, we made our way to the hotel. Paris is so hot and humid! After we had checked in, we walked down the road and bought some very nice lunch from a boulangerie! We caught le metro towards the Eiffel Tower, then walked the rest of the way along the River Seine. We saw the locks on the fence and had dinner just before we got to the Eiffel Tower. The queues at the tower we very long. We had to wait for about an hour and a half, but the views from the top were definitely worth it!! We got a wee bit lost on the way home, and didn’t get home until after midnight! We were all quite tired! 

   Lunch!

  The locks.

Only in Paris- there are street vendors with buckets of beer, wine or champagne while you wait in the very long queues!

  
   The Eiffel Tower.

 Crowne Plaza Republique Place Paris Republique.

Tara

At last a sunny day! It was our last full day in Ireland and we took a scenic trip through County Wicklow on our way back to Dublin. 

 
On the way to  Dublin we stopped at place called the Chocolate Garden. It is a chocolate factory and cafe. There Tara and I made chocolate figurines using moulds. You paint the part you want with white chocolate then when that sets, you add in the milk chocolate and swirl it around inside the mould. Then it’s popped into the fridge for 10 minutes.

 We had a few too many chips for lunch as we didn’t think the burgers came with any! More chip than you can poke a chip fork at! They do love chip forks here.

 
After lunch at Glendalough,  we went in a horse and cart ride to see the lake. The driver was Jimmy and the horse was Paddy.

  
 
   
  We also went to Powerscourt Estate to see the grand house with a big garden. 

   We had a lovely day.
Tess

Weather wise, today was another pretty average day. The rain drizzle didn’t really stop for more than a few minutes at a time! 

We went and had a look at the Blarney Woollen Mills – a VERY big shop! And then wandered over to the Blarney Castle. We all kissed the Blarney Stone, believed to give you the “gift of the gab”.

   
 
From there, we drove onto Chashel, where we had a very nice lunch and visited The Rock of Cashel. We found out a few interesting facts and snippets of information there!

• Around the 12th century, the choir practised the chants with music, but in the actual service in thecathedral they were not allowed to have musical instruments as they believed that it would reduce the solemnity of the service.
• The cathedral is in a cross shape, but the different thing about this cathedral is that the altar is at the wrong end. It’s up the opposite end to what it would usually be! This is because of the way they had to build and fit it around the existing buildings, and fit it on the rock.
• The ‘rock’ is a big limestone hill. 
• There is a big chunk of stone work that fell in a bad storm in the 19th century from quite high up the cathedral wall. Nobody knows if there was anybody underneath it, but it remains in that same place to this day.
• There is mythical belief that if you hug the four armed cross and touch your fingers together at the other side, you will never have to go to the dentist again and you will have perfect teeth for the rest of your life!

   
   
We arrived in Kilkenny with just enough time to drop our bags off at the guesthouse before walking down the street for dinner. We had a nice meal, and then popped into an Irish pub to listen to some Irish music on the way home!

Tara

Unfortunatly it was a rainy day and we couldn’t really see too much. We had to decide wether we should drive around the Ring of  Kerry. It is one of the most beautiful coastal drives in Ireland. We did and it was nice but the views were cloudy. We had a lovely lunch at Caherdaniel which was on the beach. We continued our drive to Blarney where we are staying. We went out to the Blarney Castle Hotel for dinner. We met an Irish couple who gave us some great travel tips on where to go and where not to go next. We stayed for the music – a three piece band called Margaret McCarthy and friends. Margaret played the fiddle and sang. She even got up and did a bit of Irish dancing as well! 

 The view from our loungeroom window in Cleggan.

 
We saw a man with his donkey along the way.

  
The beach where we had lunch at O’Carroll’s Cove Restaurant near Caherdaniel.

  
A view along the way.

  Margaret McCarthy and friends.

Tess