A couple of weeks ago, my Parisian friend Flo and I, avons eu la chance de visiter les Châteaux de la Loire during four magical days! Did we visit all of them? Bien sûr que non, there are hundreds of them located along the longest river in France :

 

 

Nous avons découvert six châteaux (as per small photos below) and my plan is to share our experiences and photos avec vous, un château à la fois, one castle at a time (ou presque).

 

Le château de Blois (aujourd’hui je vais vous présenter Blois, notre premier arrêt!)

Le Clos Lucé (la dernière maison de Leonardo da Vinci!)

Le château d’Amboise

Le château d’Azay-le-Rideau (notre préféré : il est construit dans l’eau!)

Le château de Villandry

And last but not least (or so we thought) : Le château de Chambord!

 

Ok so back to Blois, our first stop!

Flo et moi sommes parties de Chartres jeudi 10 novembre tôt le matin, d’abord pour aller récupérer notre voiture de location (attention “location” is a false friend : it means “rental”!) et ensuite pour arriver à Blois before lunch time. Moins de deux heures de route donc : piece of gâteau!

 

 

The drive was absolutely dreamy! Nous avons conduit dans le brouillard tout le long du trajet, and I don’t know about you, but I just looooove the fog. And it was so perfectly blanc, délicieusement poétique! Nous sommes finalement arrivées à Blois, parked our car in a legal spot (we hadn’t at first, but not on purpose : believe it or not, nous avons garé la voiture dans le parking du Ministère de la Justice, thinking if was the free parking lot our airbnb host had mentioned… oops!), nous avons posé nos valises dans notre studio, et hop! Prêtes pour l’aventure!

 

Il y avait juste un pont entre notre appartement et le centre ville, et Dieu merci, le brouillard was still with us… j’adooooooore!

 

Après un excellent déjeuner dans un restaurant vietnamien, we began exploring the delightful city of Blois!

Irons-nous à la “fondation du doute”? J’en doute!

 

Ok and now, il est l’heure de visiter le château de Blois! Nous approchons…

 

…et le voilà!

 

And who is this handsome man sur son cheval you may ask? C’est le roi de France Louis XII (1462 – 1515). Belle entrée en matière!

 

Flo and I are so chanceuses, we arrive just on time for la visite guidée, youpi! J’adore les visites guidées parce qu’on peut tout comprendre et poser plein de questions! En attendant la guide, nous prenons notre temps to soak in the beauty, the history, the 4 different types of architecture. Dans l’ordre chronologique : médiéval, 2 different kind of Renaissance (1st one above : Louis XII), et classique! Un sacré patchwork! It looks un peu fou and I like that!

 

Renaissance (2nd kind : François I roi de France de 1515 à 1547, right after Louis XII) :

 

Classique :

 

And look at that view over la ville! Je crois que j’ai une passion pour les toits :

 

La guide vient d’arriver, c’est parti pour la visite! And since you couldn’t be with us, I am adding a video (you know you can generally slow the speed in the settings, n’est-ce pas?) of Lorànt Deutsch presenting notre beau château :

 

 

To help you follow what Lorànt says (il parle vite, je sais, mais il est très rigolo!) I will list below the most striking points about le château de Blois :

-Au début de la Renaissance, Blois devient la capitale politique du royaume de France

-Louis XII est roi de France de 1498 à sa mort en 1515 et il est né à Blois

-Il est un roi moderne à l’écoute de son peuple

-Il accueille les lumières de la Renaissance italienne en France : progrès artistique et architectural

-Il transforme l’ancien château médiéval en château de la Renaissance

-Son emblème est le porc-épic (porcupine)

-La Renaissance n’est pas seulement joyeuse : c’est aussi la période des guerres de religion entre catholiques et protestants. Par exemple, le 23 décembre 1588, le chef des catholiques (le duc de Guise) est assassiné par les troupes du roi de France Henri III (1551 – 1589). Quand le roi Henri III voit le duc de Guise allongé par terre et mort, il dit : “Mon Dieu qu’il est grand! Il est plus grand mort que vivant!”. The play on word is that “grand” means both tall and great. In other words, he’s greater dead than alive. Pas très sympa!

 

And here’s another video you might like (I love this kid program called C’est pas sorcier!) especially since it will teach you about other châteaux that we will encounter in future blog posts!

 

 

That’s all for today mais… before I go… je souhaite un merveilleux Thanksgiving à tous mes amis américains!

What are you grateful for today?

Moi? I’m grateful that Flo and I can be so silly together!

 

I just didn’t know what to do with mon pass de visite guidée…

 

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Learn French online with Virginie

Join French Truly’s online immersion course and online school, either by buying the French online course(s) of your choice or by becoming a monthly member. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page.

Each French online course is packed with video & audio files along with written material, to make it as fun, easy, and user friendly as possible for you! Come and learn French online with me!

 

French online immersion à Chartres

Come to France!

2023 September 4 – 10 : Intermediate 6 SPOTS LEFT
2023 September 25 – October 1 : Beginner 4 SPOTS LEFT

Click HERE for more info + sign up

If you’re unsure about your level, contact me to schedule a free Skype call

Benefits

• Improve your French conversational skills in a completely safe & friendly environment with me and my amazing French guests who I am selecting because they represent true Chartres landmarks : art historians, chefs, entrepreneurs, artisans, pâtissiers, etc. all passionate experts in their own fields.
• Practice speaking & listening to French while learning about the French culture. This will ensure a rich discussion as well as expand your French vocabulary.
• Learn French grammar & conjugation in a natural way thanks to a practical context.
• Relax knowing that I’m here to manage our time together and make sure everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate.
• Discover Chartres, my new gorgeous city, with me! I very recently moved to this little piece of heaven and I am beyond excited to explore and share all I can with you!
• Bask in French traditions & history in medieval Chartres, an endless source of fascinating stories.So, if you’re feeling a strong “OUI” for this, just click on the appropriate sign up button right below!

French online book club

Next groups will begin in January 2023 so stay tuned!

Benefits

• Improve your French comprehension skills in a completely safe & friendly environment avec moi.
• Practice reading, speaking, and listening to French while bursting out laughing at every page. This will ensure a rich discussion as well as expand your French vocabulary and sentence structure.
• Learn French grammar & conjugation in a natural way thanks to a practical context.
• Relax knowing that I’m here to manage our time together and make sure everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate.

 

French online course #1: 600 WORDS

In this course, you will find 15 videos (+ 10 bonus ones) to help & accompany you every step of the way through the course + for each word, each sentence, each expression, each conjugated verb, I have created an audio file of my voice, slow and slightly faster speed. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

 

Did you know…

You can converse (speak + understand) in French with only 600 WORDS?

The average French person only uses between 300 & 3,000 WORDS?

This means that if you can master a relatively short list of words, you’ll be able to express yourself like the average French person! Plus you’re much more likely to understand the French when they talk back to you!

 

This course will teach you…

1- How to speak French

2- How to pronounce French

3- How to make French sentences

4- How to conjugate all the most common French verbs

5- How to polish your results

6- How to self evaluate your French

More info HERE

• It should take you about 30 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 10 lessons
• This course is designed for a beginner / intermediate level. If you are intermediate but feel like you could really reinforce your foundations, you will love it.
• You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page

 

Online course # 2: PERFECT PRONUNCIATION

In this course you will find 11 videos + 150 audio files + 92 pages PDF format to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. In some parts of the videos, my face will appear close up and profile so you can easily see how I make these sounds with my mouth. The 150 audio files are composed of the 100 most popular French words and the 50 most common French phrases. They are recordings of my voice, speaking slowly enough so you can easily grasp every syllable. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

NB: if you are the proud owner of my previous French online course 600 WORDS, don’t worry, this is not a repeat as we are now exploring 1 letter words and up, whereas in 600 WORDS we began at 4 letter words and up.

 

Combine knowledge with confidence…

For you to be able to have a pleasant and efficient conversation with a French person, one thing is key… can you guess what it is? Confidence! How well do you think you will communicate in French if you don’t feel confident about your accent? If you are scared that people won’t understand you? Or even worse if you think someone might make fun of you? Without a minimum of confidence there is no room for communication. Yet if you feel confident, you can afford to make a few mistakes here and there because people will still understand you. What prevents a conversation from happening isn’t just a lack of knowledge, it’s also a lack of confidence. You need to have both to make it work, not to mention, to make it fun!

 

This course will teach you…

1- How to pronounce every letter of the alphabet

2- How to pronounce every digraph & trigraph

3- How to make every French sentence flow

4- How to pronounce the 100 most popular French words

5- How to pronounce the 50 most popular French phrases

6- How to avoid the pronunciation mistakes everyone makes

More info HERE

• It should take you about 20 to 2 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 11 lessons
• This course is designed for a beginner level. If you are intermediate but lack confidence when it comes to talking and feel like you could really benefit from focusing on pronunciation, you will love it.
• You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership below 

 

Online course # 3: FRENCH DICTÉES

 

In the FRENCH DICTÉES online course you will find 20 videos + 10 audio files to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. Why 20 videos? Because there are 10 dictées in total, each focusing on one particular topic, and for each dictée I have prepared 2 videos. Let’s say the video focuses on both French past tenses called imparfait & passé composé. The first video will go though the grammar, the conjugation, and all the tips on these two past tenses to help you understand and remember how and when to use them. The second video will be the actual dictée, a short story written by me, describing everyday life situations conveniently packed with imparfait and passé composé verbs! Boom! Efficient! The dictée will also be read by me, slowly first and then a little faster, with a close up on my face so you can more easily recognize the words and copy the shapes I make to improve your own pronunciation.

 

Become a French language expert

How do you become an expert at anything? By focusing on one thing at a time.

I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic per dictée, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.

 

Here’s what you’re going to learn

What grammar & conjugation points will each dictée focus on?

Dictée # 1: Present tense

Dictée # 2: Past tenses – imparfait & passé composé

Dictée # 3: Future tenses – futur proche & futur simple

Dictée # 4: Conditional, imparfait, asking questions

Dictée # 5: Imperative form

Dictée # 6: First group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 7: Second group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 8: Third group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 9: Numbers

Dictée # 10: Prepositions

Each dictée is a short story written by me about practical everyday life situations. This means that not only do you get to work on conjugation & grammar drills, but you also improve your conversational skills at the same time: a magic combination for your next trip to France!

 

Grow your confidence talking about practical everyday topics

The dictées will refer to common topics that you are very likely to hear or very likely to use to express yourself such as:

-Traveling to France

-Socializing

-Childhood memories

-Family dynamics

-Everyday life routines

-How to express your ideas, opinions, and dreams

 

Two videos per dictée

First video: key grammar and conjugation reminders explained very clearly so you feel prepared and confident entering each dictée.

Second video: the actual dictée. I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.

 

And for you challenge lovers over-achievers?

Yes I have prepared something just for you! I have also made 10 audio files, 1 per dictée, so that if you wish to, if you want it extra difficult, if you want to test yourself more deeply, you can solely rely on sound. Indeed there are many occasions in life where we hear a language but we don’t see it: speaking to someone on the phone or listening to the radio for instance.

 

20 videos? 10 audio files? What else?

This new FRENCH DICTÉES online course also comes with written files with both the French text along with the English translation, so that you can evaluate yourself when you’re done taking notes.

To summarize, you’ll be able to use video, audio, and written material.

 

Dictées worked for me, they’ll work for you!

Let me tell you, I LOVE dictées because THEY WORK. And clearly you realize this too and that is smart of you. So now let’s see how something as simple as a dictée can truly help you become a little bit French! Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

 

Become a monthly member!

My goal is to transform your French language learning experience. This is why I’ve decided to offer you a new way to learn French online and gain access to the French Truly Online School! Actually, more than 1 new way, you’ll have 3 plans to choose from so come and learn French online with me!