We have a little place in the French Countryside

We arrived in Paris after a five hour train ride from Chamonix just to change trains. It turns out Paris has five main stations and were not at the right one. Luckily we did not cut it close on timing because it was a 3 mile walk across the city with our packs to the correct station. After 12 hours of traveling we made it to La Loupe where we met our new wwoof hosts.



Carol and Pietro run a beautiful bed and breakfast in the French country side that looks exactly how one would imagine the french country side to look. Rolling forested hills dotted with pastures, chateaus and quaint stone villages.

We started out with our usual garden work; weeding and harvesting. I guess we must seem trustworthy because after knowing us for all of 2 days Carol and Pietro asked us if we would mind house sitting while they went to Sardinia to take care of some family business. Of course we said it was not a problem (where would we have to be?) So basically we had a beautiful house in the country side to our selves. We still had some work while they were away but it was light and we had a lot of free time: most of which we spent cooking and eating. We also had a lot of fun walking or riding bikes to the village a few kilometers away.

While we were there our friend Daniel was visiting Paris and since we were only a little over an hour away it was natural that we would meet up. We headed into Paris and met Daniel and his roommate under the Eiffel tower. (Not as obvious as we would have thought as it is like the size of a city block.) We found it strange that there were armed guards everywhere and I later looked really stupid when a reporter asked me on camera if I knew that there had been a terrorist threat on Paris that day. I did not. We also did not know until our mothers started calling that there was a travel warning for France.

We went up the Eiffel Tower and saw Notre Dame without any further terrorist problems. We were really glad to be there in October instead of tourist filled summer as there were a lot anyway. After our one day taste of Paris (with a few items checked off of our to see list for our "real" Paris visit to come) we headed back to the country side for another week of relaxing. We had such a nice time and our hosts were so great I think we would have moved in if there had bee some climbing nearby.