Adventure in Europe: Part Deux

Our next day in Paris, we weren't actually in Paris very much. We took a day trip to the Loire Valley to see its famous Chateaus. Since we were traveling by train, we took the train in the morning to the small city of Amboise and did some wandering around their local Chateau and Leonardo Da Vinci’s final home.
City of Amboise
For the afternoon we arranged a minivan tour to two major Chateaus. The first, Chenonceau, was the most scenic. It had beautiful gardens and was actually built partially over the river.

Chenonceau Chateau

The second, Chambord, was huge and the area’s largest. It was sparsely decorated, but the guards were strict. Sarah was spied sitting on a ledge for a picture from afar, and we were actually scolded five minutes later in another room (our second “illegal” act in France if you're keeping track).
Chambord Chateau
Sarah illegally sitting on the wall

We had a nice four course dinner at L’Epicerie, which included something every meal should have, a cheese course. After dinner we had another fun moment. For some reason, I thought our train back to Paris left at 9:21 PM (I blame the 24 hour system that listed the time as 21:07), instead of 9:07 PM. I discovered this as we paid our bill just before 9:00 PM. I told Sarah to pretend that we were on the Amazing Race, so with ridiculously full stomachs we ran to the train station (there were no taxis around) a little over a mile away. Luckily we made it with two minutes to spare, and realized that it was the last train to Paris that evening!