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We enjoyed the morning at Les Moulins de Vontes - it was our favorite choice of hotels for the trip because it was so unique. 

The first stop of the day was Chenonceaux, a beautiful chateau built over the Cher River. This chateau had a lot of history with many kings and queens living there, including Catherine de Medici. The chateau is well-preserved inside and the audio-tour was well worth it. The gardens were also really pretty.

After Chenonceaux, we decided to do a few chateau drive-by's since we had to get on the road to Paris. First was Chaumont. 

Then we drove into the small city of Blois to see its chateau. The chateau at Blois also had a lot of kings who lived there through the years, each one adding his own wing, so that there are four wings to the chateau that all have different architecture. 

From Blois, we drove to Paris…only 14 euro in tolls this time, total bargain! We arrived in Paris at about 5:30 on Friday…turns out this is not the best time to be driving through one of the largest cities in Europe! Kevin is convinced the traffic in Paris is worse than New York, Chicago and Los Angeles (and he's lived in all three cities). He dropped me off at the hotel, the Marriott Champs Elysees, then he drove out to the airport to drop off the Panda, and then he took the train back into the city. I went ahead to meet Mel & Kathy (my Aussie cousins) at dinner, but Kevin didn't make it to the restaurant until about 9 or 9:30! 

Dinner was at Nos Ancetres les Gaulois, a restaurant in very very old buildings (like 600 years old maybe?) on Ile St-Louis. They bring out a huge basket of uncut vegetables so you can make a salad, then choice of meat, then cheeses and dessert. Oh, and there is unlimited wine…you take your table's pitcher to the barrel whenever you're empty. There is a guy with guitar singing, and as you can imagine, this became quite fun and a little rowdy after a couple hours. Mel & Kathy are doing great and we had a nice time catching up. They are on the tail end of their journey, they've already been traveling for about two months, and their next stop is England and Wales. After midnight, the Metro shuts down and so it was nearly impossible to find a cab. Kevin and I walked back to the hotel, about 45 minutes, and Mel & Kathy waited and waited and waited for a cab to get to their hotel. Fun night!