The Loire Valley is covered in castles, and after my inadvertent indentured servitude, I set out to see several. With dozens of castles, how do you choose?! 42 chateaux make up this UNESCO World Heritage area. Without a car, I was reliant on either a tour, trains, or buses, so for my first foray into fairytaleland, I opted for a tour. I usually avoid them, but this was a small tour of just 8 in a mini-bus, which stopped at 3 castles, or...

As I sat in front of a cold, dark fireplace, in a dank, dark cave shoveling ashes, while all around me there were castles, I thought to myself, why does this scenario seem so familiar?! This is a cautionary tale. The name and exact locations have been changed, not to protect the guilty, but to protect me from the guilty, for telling the truth of my tale. The story does not include a prince or a glass slipper, but there is a fairy godmother...