Thursday, April 24, 2014

The "Magical" Kingdom

We're back in Henley after spending a week in Paris and the Loire Valley. Whilst in Paris, Stegen and I successfully surprised Audrey and Dorian with a trip to Disneyland Paris. I wish I had her reaction on video--it was epic!

We hopped on the RER after taking the metro to one of its hubs, and were taken straight to the entrance of the park in less than 35 minutes. Audrey was so confused because we'd been spending the day prior convincing her that there were some amazing toilets to see in France--toilets worth an early morning wake-up call and a long train ride! Anyway, while she thought we had to wait in front of Disneyland for our next train, I took out her Minnie ears and lanyard from the backpack--SURPRISE!!

After some screaming and jumping, we were ready to tackle the Spring Break crowds. Disney has two parks in Parid, just as they do in Anaheim--one is Disneyland and the other is called Walt Disney Studios (which I guess makes more sense than "California Adventures"!). They also have a tiny (kinda depressing) Downtown Disney area charmingly named "Disney Village". 

Upon entering the park, we got a strange feeling that things just weren't...right. We made our first stop at City Hall to get our birthday buttons (as per Smith family tradition), but were handed two birthday STICKERS instead. I'm sorry...what? 

Then, as we strolled down a seemingly shorter replica of Main Street, we noticed something awful: the corn dog stand was nowhere in sight. How would we go on??

Well, we got over it and ended up spending a pretty amazing day riding rides with the kiddos. Granted, the Kingdom was lacking quite a bit of its magic (barely anyone else wore Mickey ears, absolutely nobody had lanyards with flare, and the workers had the attitude of anyone else working in Paris: bad), but the fact that there were almost no lines sort of made up for it. The park is tiny compared to Anaheim and entire lands were excluded. I'm happy to report that Pirates is just as good (if not better) and Peter Pan is a 4-person ride instead of 2. The line Pirates was so ridiculously short, that we went on it 3 times in a row without getting off of our boat! We even got a snazzy picture. 


Anyway, we got to the park 10 minutes before it opened and left 30 minutes after it closed--it was a good day! Here are some pictures from that leg of our trip:






 The best thing about Disneyland? These bad boys:


I haven't seen one in 6 months!!!


After our Disney fix, we got up the next morning and took a train with the rest of the Smith/Duxbury clan to explore the Loire Valley. The TomTom had some trouble locating the pretty house my in-laws rented for us, but after a few wrong turns through what looked like deserted towns, and being kindly asked to leave someone else's property (hey, same street, same number...can you blame us?), we finally found it!


Not only could I play out my Sleeping Beauty fantasies on its stone spiral staircase ("touch the spindle...") there were horses to admire, bikes to ride, swings to...swing, and a huge jacuzzi to try not to splash in!



We had a great week of fantastic weather (sprinkled with awful allergies for the menfolk) and got around in our two rental cars to see a few chateaus. Our first stop was Chateau de Chenonceau and it was stunning! I didn't quite get to appreciate it fully from inside (Dorian was a little crazed), but the grounds and exterior of the castle were more than enough for me to feast my eyes upon. Here are some shots from the day:




(The sign says "Do Not Pick the Flowers"...oops!)


The next day, we packed up and drove out to see Chateau de Chambord. The size of this chateau was quite impressive, but the grounds left something to be desired--everything was dead. Even so, the day was beautiful and Audrey was fighting a fever, so we rented a golf cart/bike and huffed our way around the property and its pretty lake. 



We took some time to see Chateau de Blois (you pronounce it by pretending you just ate some really nasty food) the next day and got suckered into seeing the worst magic show...ever. If you're ever out in the Loire and happen upon Blois, take my advice: skip the Maison de la Magie. The "Magie" is a little "lame"! That being said, though, both kids asked me if they could see it again the second it was over--yikes!


This chateau had a nice art hall, which Dorian very much enjoyed. He examined each piece of fine art...looking for "nay-nays" aka boobs. It's a good thing he voices his desires in Mandarin!

We spent the rest of our time in the Loire cooking dinner with the family, relaxing by the fire, taking a bike ride to a nearby town, celebrating my father-in-law and Marc's birthdays, and getting sick (bleh). The original plan was to celebrate my father-in-law's 70th birthday in Lake Tahoe, but our move to the UK created a new plan, and thus, we celebrated in Europe instead. We hope you had a wonderful couple weeks with the family, Dad. Thank you for being awesome, so generous, and sometimes (just sometimes) a tiny, teeny bit hilarious ;) Happy 70th birthday and may you celebrate many, many more! We love you!!

 


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