To the chateau

Our sunny day turned into a drizzly one, so we headed off to find our chateau which I had booked on a website I found. The directions from the travel website seemed pretty clear, but we ended up in a small town where there was no such street, nor chateau. We learned.....don't trust those web directions! They lead us to a dead-end, taking only one word in the address and mistaking it for the final destination! We drove around the town looking for a chateau....needless to say, there weren't any such things in a small town! So we looked at other maps and found the tiny town of Moresville, about 10 minutes away, and headed there. We figured that must be where it was, since the name of the place was "Chateau de Moresville".....

We found the tiny village, saw a sign with an arrow for the chateau, and with excitement, I couldn't wait to see this beautiful place I had booked on the internet! We drove on some small country roads and finally arrived, in the rain, to our wonderful place for the night. This is what we found when we turned into the huge iron gates, a country mansion built in 1716....

We checked in, only to find that our reservation was not in the main chateau, but in an "annex" to the side of the building. Hmmm...... and this is where our room was:

Yeah, Lyle was sure it was once the horsebarn. It was completely renovated into an actual bed and breakfast type place, small living room and kitchen downstairs, and 5 bedrooms up. We had one of the small bedrooms. We thought about asking to stay in the main chateau, but it was late, we were tired, it was pouring rain, and we thought.....oh well. Maybe another time. We did get to see a few rooms and were very impressed at this beautiful place, used for wedding receptions, seminars, and family celebrations. We had our own celebration with a glass of wine in one of the "lounge" rooms before heading off to the recommended restaurant for dinner.

We were told that this restaurant, operating since 1490, is "one of the oldest hosteleries known in the world that still functions" (from a book listing top restaurants and hotels in France). Well, this tiny half-timbered cozy place held about eight tables. We were greeted by a very friendly hostess/waitress/owner?, who had the job of serving everyone in the room, which included a big party of 12 next to us. We were given the menu, which of course, was all in French, but this smiling woman explained the the courses. We began with the entree (appetizer); Lyle had escargot but they looked different, and I had some sort of foie gras, but it was more of a mousse. Our main "plat" was boeuf, which ended up being a 1/4 inch steak, nearly raw in the middle when we knew to order "well done". The problem really wasn't the food, as it was good. However, we spent at least an hour waiting between courses, feeling very sorry for this overworked woman who kept filling our water and wine glasses, bringing us homemade bisquits, cleaning our table, and repeating this with EVERYBODY ELSE in the restaurant by herself. We couldn't be angry, just felt that this night was going to be very long. And it was.....it was a four-hour meal. We had a wonderful chocolate dessert, and finally left around midnight, hoping we would find our way back to the hotel on the winding country roads. We did!

We awoke to a pouring rain, headed to the chateau to the breakfast room for the continental breakfast, and decided to head back to Paris. Here are a few pictures of the breakfast room in the chateau, and the restaurant......

All in all, we had an adventure of a weekend......learned a few things about where NOT to rent a car, check directions and get a good map with ALL of the towns on it, know what other options are at a hotel, and "go with the flow". The sun came out for awhile, and we decided to salvage the weekend by taking advantage of having a car , drove on the backroads back to Paris through small medieval villages,.....and headed for Ikea. There are a number of these stores on the outskirts of Paris, just no way to get to them on the Metro, OR to carry home the needed storage items we needed. Living without a car presents a number of challenges when you need to buy things and get them home. But we had a car! So we stopped at the Ikea, bought a few things, including some DRAWERS (lacking in our flat), and got them home to our home before dropping off the car. Lyle decided to do this himself, without a stressed-out wife trying to give him directions again!

Final note.....the weekend had to have a final mishap. We decided to have a frozen pizza for supper, so I walked down to the local market to get one. The choice was cheese, cheese and ham, or more cheese and ham. So I bought the cheese and ham one, walked back, and my "magnetized" key didn't open the gate. I had no cell phone, couldn't remember the code, and almost started to cry. That was when someone came through the door, opened it up and let me in. Tired and shaking my head, I put the pizza in the microwave/convection oven. It, of course, started smoking......so had to try and read the French directions to see what I was doing wrong. Translated it to the best I could, and we did have a pizza, following our tradition of Sunday Night Pizza. Somehow, it just didn't measure up to the Italian Pie Shoppe in Eagan!