The accidental 3-day weekend

The next day we cruised over to the chateau de Chambord, which was enormous and spectacular, making it all the more laughable that it had been built to be a hunting lodge for king Francois I. No wonder the revolution happened.
It featured an amazing ceiling with carvings of salamanders, the king's emblem.
Of course, all those stone walls and high ceilings meant it was freezing inside. B and I headed to the roof to warm up.Here is a close-up of an interior tower.Then we left. As anyone who knows me knows, I have been long since cursed by the god of car problems. On our way out I noticed the car was making a loud noise, which we subsequently noticed was because we had a flat tire. This being a Sunday in France, we were out of luck. I called Hertz and they said we had to wait until the nearest rental place opened the next day to get another car. So we had to drive on the rinky-dink spare tire to Orleans and spend the night.

Needless to say, B changed the tire while I was on the phone with Hertz. Sometimes I am perfectly happy about gender roles.

But hey, now I have been to old Orleans as well as New Orleans. This is the only picture I took in Orleans, of the Joan of Arc statue. And we did find a very cute hotel there.