Chantilly

My parent's Christmas gift to us each year is to fly my mom out once a year and have her watch my kids so Taylor and I can go on a trip by ourselves.  It is fantastic!  So in the spring after we'd been to visit my mission, Taylor got the itch to see his mission again.  And I kind of couldn't say no.  

But unbenownst to us, our already exotic trip was about to get even crazier.

Originally we were just going to Bulgaria for 6 days.  Then we invited Taylor's parents along and his dad wanted to stay longer to golf so it turned into 10 days.  Then his mom's return flight (since she wasn't staying that long) got cancelled and she had to fly out of Romania so, darn, we had to go to Romania too, and then, the biggest bump of all...

We walked up to the Delta counter to check in and the woman looked at our itinerary and said "Ohhhhhhh, I wish you'd gone to the next agent instead of me" and we thought "huh???"  

Did we know that Air France was on strike?  And had been for the past 15 days?  Did we know we could fly into Paris but not on to Bulgaria?  No we did not!!! Had anyone bothered to contact us in the past 15 days to let us rebook through another city?  Of course not!  So after much scrambling and mostly because of Taylor's dad's elite status, we were rebooked and on our way.  With a new 8 hour layover in Paris.  

So what to do?  After an overnight flight to Paris in coach, why not rent a car and drive a half hour to a big castle/chateau.

Chantilly did not disappoint.

Ok so maybe it was a little TOO much, rooms and rooms or art and sculptures and architecture.  So much to see so little energy.

And I had to include the Chantilly lace.

And the Chantilly cream dessert, which turned out to be just the most amazing whipped cream I've ever had.  Just whipped cream... but amazing.

And inside and out Chantilly was amazing.

Oh, and the horses needed an equally spectacular place to live so here's the stables which we didn't have time to check out.  Next time Air France is on strike I guess, which should be next month sometime ;)

The car we rented was fun and tiny of course since it's Europe.

And after surviving our driving mishaps and an hour of misplacing Taylor's dad, we were back at Charles DeGaulle and ready for our next flight to... wait for it... Serbia!  Wait, what???  When we got to Charles DeGaulle, it was literally empty.  Empty.  An entire airport.  Empty.  Except for when we finally got to the local European low cost carriers.  Who were still flying.  So Air France would not fly us to Bulgaria, but Air Serbia would fly us to Belgrade and then from Belgrade to Bulgaria.  So that's what we did.

Finally checking in to get some sleep in Belgrade... after 24 straight hours of traveling.