“My kids are SUCH great travelers” is not a phrase I will ever say.

On every list of “must-see” France is the Loire Valley and endless amazingly fantastic chateaus – giant castles, fancy furniture, meticulously landscaped gardens, beautiful scenery. These characteristics do not impress my children.

Maybe they’re just tired of being dragged around? Maybe not. They started this Euro thing angsty about castles. The very first city we visited in Belgium has a super fun castle and they hated it! (So naturally we’ve taken them there 4 or 5 more times 😂)

Why???? How could a child NOT love an amazing castle??? They sure do love the gift shop, though.

So naturally knowing they’d hate it, we spent 2 full days hopping from château to château in the Loire Valley. It also turns out that after we left chateau central, we ended up in even more castles 😂.

Chambord

Château De Chambord was their middle-of-the-road-hate-it experience 😂. Fortunately for them we were on typical Cobb schedule and running behind, which only gave us about 40 minutes inside. We practically ran room to room, got the key forced-smile pictures, refereed about 10 fights (including rock throwing) and were ready to move on.

I thought it was great! In our typically late fashion, entering with only 40 minutes practically guarantees it will be mostly empty inside, which makes it much more enjoyable and takes much less time (great since we didn’t have any!)

This château is one of the most recognizable châteaus in the world, was actually meant to be a hunting lodge, was never actually completed, and remained abandoned for quite some time in the 1800s.

Cheverny

This was a last minute decision and the best decision! They actually mostly liked it, so we’ll call it their favorite!

Château de Cheverny is one of the most well-decorated of the chateaus, is the inspiration for the chateau in TinTin (who we love because he’s Belgian!), and trains hunting dogs on the grounds. We got to see the foxhounds with their trainer for a feeding, a cool LEGO exhibit inside the chateau, a TinTin exhibit, and the chateau has a garden with over 150,000 tulip bulbs.

Chenonceau

This was my least favorite even though it’s pretty amazingly picturesque. When I get annoyed with something, the kids pick up on it and then really focus on the bad stuff. So, they really enjoyed picking at my negativity and also decided this was their least favorite.

Château de Chenonceau is most recognizable for being built over the River Le Cher. Strikingly beautiful. Stupidly crowded – even at 4:30 pm. Stupidly designed for visitors – routing foot traffic through the rooms in and out the SAME doors! It was one big cluster of people everywhere – people pushing in and refusing to let you out. Eek. I hated it. And kids were fighting over the stupid audioguides. Bennett won. We let the 3 year old soak in the history 😬. And Wesley decided it was a good place to juggle tsum-tsums.

Missed opportunities

We got to Leonardo Da Vinci’s last home, Château Amboise, too late to do anything and it and it’s park are very difficult to see while closed – lots of walls and such. We were hoping to just get pictures of the outside, but we weren’t lucky with that.

And this cute castle, Château de Bièvres, was closed for lunch when we pulled up but we didn’t have time to go in any way…and the kids might’ve mutinied if we tried.

Finally Blois (prounounced BLWAH)

We didn’t force a visit to the castle, but we got an obligatory picture with the fun sign outside, saw some weird dragons that come out of the windows at the maison du magiques, and then saw the Mona Lisa on the Blois stairs.

Loire Valley – check ✅. On to castles and chateaus in another region 😂.

We made it to Greece without turning into our own Greek tragedy!

With the equivalent of 120 flights of stairs, 50,000 steps for a total of 33 miles in 3 days, we maxed out our legs, but saw some pretty breathtaking history.

ATHENS

Growing up in Nashville, I visited the Parthenon 🏛 too many times to count. I kept telling the kids that I didn’t need to see the real Parthenon in Athens because I had been before…in Nashville…to the one built in 1897…of plaster. While that is a really awesome museum and replica, it doesn’t actually compare 😂. I mean, 120 years vs 2500?!? Cement vs naturally cut, perfectly designed marble from 2500 years ago???

We picked a perfect hotel so close to the Acropolis we could see the Parthenon from our window. So we spent the first night touring the Acropolis museum seeing tons of the original marble walls and sculptures. It was the perfect time to go because the museum was practically empty, just how I like it. The next morning, we hiked up the hill and stood on the Acropolis.

It only took about an hour of this climbing to start the constant outpouring of whine. We pushed them on about 3 more hours just to the brink before letting them quit. On our 5 mile walk, we saw the remains on the Acropolis – the Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheion, then climbed back down and saw the remains of the Roman Agora (built in 11 BC and housed commercial activities of Athens), Temple of Hephaestus (built 449-415 BC and later turned into a church), and The Stoa Of Attalos (built around 150 AD and houses the museum of the Agora).

Our European journey has also aligned us with many amazing people, but especially a lovely Greek family that was stationed in Belgium with us. They were so hospitable in Belgium, always offering to have the kids over, cooking great meals for them, bringing us desserts, giving us easy access to the Greek fest. In Athens, they continued with the hospitality taking Justin and the girls out to lunch (the boys were DONE), sent home food for the boys and I, and providing excellent recommendations. We were also invited to their house for dinner and games but we ran out of time 😥.

With their suggestions we changed our day 2 plans and headed west to Nafplio (a seaport town) with some history stops in Acrocorinth and Mycenae, really just to get our stair master exercise in.

ACROCORINTH

My favorite was Acrocorinth – the Acropolis of Corinth, and considered to be the largest, highest, and most spectacular Acropolis of Ancient Greece. It had the best views of the beautiful blue Gulf of Corinth and the city of Corinth. Human occupations of the Acropolis and of Corinth date to Neolithic Time, but it’s probably most known for being part of the Roman colony of Julius Caesar. It was rebuilt by Caesar in 44 BC. Later, it was a temporary home to Saint Paul in 49-50 AD, eventually leading to the writings of the first and second letters to the Corinthians (I love this!).

And what do you know, it also just so happened to be a place to meet a fellow Auburn alum and his wife, who’s cousin was in pharmacy school with me! At the top of an ancient Acropolis in Greece! WDE! Kind of sad I didn’t force a selfie with them, but they took this picture for us, after I slid down a rock and banged up my ankle since I was so excited for someone (an Auburn alum!) to take our picture 😬.

The views

MYCENAE

Next stop, another climb! Just north of Argos, Mycenae has a famous gate – The Lion Gate – the only known monumental sculpture from Bronze Age Greece (1600-1100 BC). And I selfied with it!

Mycenae has some pretty good views, too.

NAFPLIO

I said we didn’t have any tragedies while we were in Greece, but we thought we might.

Nafplio started out interesting with a child attempting to serve as a parking attendant and begging fairly fierce fully for money. He wouldn’t leave us, kept following, had another join, until we took their picture and chased them to a car where an adult was directing them. Not a great situation and forced us to move the van, still wondering if it would be intact when we got back. Luckily, it was. I think the photos of them and the adult’s license plate scared them off. Whew.

The city itself was very charming and the views of the Mediterranean (I think 🤔 😬) were unmatched. Eating, shopping, strolling and rock-skipping made a good afternoon.

VOULA

Probably still part of Athens, but this random stop on the way to the airport was super fun too. Rock climbing, rock skipping, playgrounds and lunch with a view.

So thankful for good weather (except for that wind!) and relatively easy travels. No airport/airplane issues, very little waiting, a huge full-size rental van that our Airbnb people helped us park and…no accidents!

OPA!