Valentine's Day in Thoiry...

[Cowbells.]I think it's safe to say that Thoiry is the most gorgeous place I've ever been to. Ever. I expected Hansel and Gretal to come skipping down the little main road to meet their fate at that scary old lady's house in the woods. Thoiry is a little mountain village in the Jura Mountains, and I'm counting down the days until we can go back on Sunday. We had a wonderful Valentine's Day shopping the market, meeting up with friends, eating pan au chocolate and apartment hunting. We also had some lunch with said friends who are fortunate enough to live in this too-adorable-for-words-town for a little lunch at their beautfiul apartment (in a 300+ year old farmhouse!). We looked at 2 places to possibly rent in Thoiry, both of which were completely beautiful. One came with a garden, a moat and a cave. Yes, a cave. I'd rather leave it super cool and have all of you thinking we could possibly have a cave in France as an amenity of our future possible lease, however this actually translates in English to "cellar." Psha. I don't speak French yet so I'm happy to refer to it as our maybe-soon-to-be-cave. The second place we went to visit was a defiinite change from what I'm used to in terms apartment hunting in that it turned into a three hour soiree with our hostest with mostest. She showed us the apartment (which was above her beautiful home full of beautiful antiques), and then offered the four of us coffee and galette, and stories abounded! As we found ourselves still talking to this older French woman as we appraoched hour three and were standing almost completely in the dark, we took our leave and made our way back to the car. We had such a wonderful day and I hope it works out that we end up finding a place in Thoiry - fingers crossed!

In the background of the last picture is actually the Jura Mountains, however you can't see them because of the clouds and greyness and fog. I've been told that one of the fun things about living here is that the scenery changes everyday, dependent upon how grey it is out. I can attest to this somewhat because even though I was told we were surrounded by mountains I didn't actually see any until the morning of our 3rd day in Ferney when the clouds temporarily lifted to reveal the Jura - for about 5 minutes. Below is a short video (about 2 seconds) I took accidentally while trying to take a picture instead (doh!). It's so short but it just shows how pretty it is in Thoiry - even when it's grey as can be out!

I'm sorry I didn't take more pictures while we were walking around Thoiry, but I was just trying to take it all in. This Sunday I'll do a better job of it. :)