Chateaus Galore!
This day was definitely Chateau day (French for "house"). And what houses! We visited the chateaus at Chenonceau, Amboise and Chambord. Quite gaudy architecture: the chateau at Chambord, for example was built during the Renaissance by Francis I.
After the chateaus, we visited the wine cellars at Vouvray. That was
really interesting. The cellars are mostly caves carved into the cliffside; they store the
wine there for years while it ferments. Stalactites are beginning to form inside from all
the moisture! I got what I thought was my best picture there, too: one of the winemakers
holding up a bottle to inspect the sediments. 
A story: just about everyone bought some wine at Vouvray, and some tried it out. One of my roomates for that trip got drunk, and GOT ONE OF THE GIRLS TO UNDRESS HIM AND PUT HIM TO BED. Later he admitted he was faking (after she left, of course) and received a few choice words from myself: partially because he had perpetrated a fraud on an impressionable young woman (hem hem), but mostly because I hadn't thought of it first. :->
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