La Ferte Fresnel

My mom and I got into Paris in the afternoon. We were driving ourselves to a Chateau then on to Normandy. After getting our cute little European rental car,we dropped off our stuff in it, then took the subway into Paris to get something to eat before leaving. We were greeted with nice music coming up from the subway station. Because it was the Monday after Easter, pretty much everything was closed that day as well. We found a place to eat and it was delicious. I know this is weird, but I enjoyed the food in Paris more than I did in Rome. I never had that really good italian dish, maybe we went to the wrong places. We walked around for a bit, then were on our way to our chateau in the country-side of Paris. We had directions from an old guy at the car rental place and my mom thought she knew where we were going so we were good, or so we thought.

I fell asleep, with about a couple hours of a drive left. When I woke up I figured we would be getting close. It was sooo beautiful. I think the grass in Europe is much more green or something because it just stands out and there's so much of it. The sun went down and it suddenly became pitch black. We were driving on this tiny little two-lane highway with headlights that barely worked, and it started to rain/snow. We should have been getting close to our chateau, but we had no idea where it was. I started getting scared because we were driving through these tiny little towns, that literally had about one street and the businesses/houses were only a sidewalk away from you, and they looked completely deserted. It was only 8 or so in the evening too. We drove and drove and drove going up scary hills into the darkness and down back around these tiny towns. We finally stopped at a pay phone so my mom could try calling our place, but somehow she got the fire brigade! I was starting to feel hopeless and I did not want to be there. As we were parked at the pay phone an old couple opened their doors. My mom ran up to them to see if she could ask where to go. They did not speak English, but as soon as they heard Chateau de La Ferte Fresnel, our place, the lady walked around the corner and pointed, it was right there! After two hours of being lost we were there!

Although, once we got there I didn't really feel relieved. We drove through the gate on this road leading us up to the chateau. We were told to use the bottom doors so we lugged everything in through the dark hallways, stairs and so on. An old lady owns it and I think it was her son who helps her run the place. I think we were the only ones staying there, or it seemed like, which kind of scared me. It was this huge place and it was dark and seemed creepy. It reminded me of Beauty and the Beast, when Belle goes wandering around the castle. Anyways we got in and went to bed. The next morning was amazing and completely turned around our experience the night before. We were given breakfast in our room on this little table in front of our huge window overlooking the property of the chateau.
Of course it was green and beautiful. The breakfast was amazing as well. We were able to just relax, take our time eating the crescents, rolls, coffee, and juice.

That was our big adventure of the trip I would say. After that we still had to drive another 2-3 hours to the coast of Normandy and then back to our chateau for one more night. Being on the beach at Normandy was a really weird feeling. The cemetery is right above it and it's a pretty long walk down to the beach, but you just feel it. Here are some pictures of our chateau and the beach, etc.


Here is the inside of our chateau...




and here is the outside, or what I could fit in the picture.



I loved our little getaway in the countryside of France and would do it all over again if I had the chance. After our little two-day adventure we drove back into Paris to meet up with Cole and his mom.