One of the great things I noticed while I was in France was that I was understanding the language much better. This certainly made things much easier somehow. Well, on day 4 we decided to go to a Butterfly garden called LA SERRE AUX PAPILLONS. I was looking forward to this as I had never been to a butterfly garden before. It was a bit hard to find it as it was hidden in a nursery, but we found it eventually. Well, I was really happy when I walked in, and started to take pictures of the butterflies, which was kind of hard.
They were lovely and were flying all over the place. I was really impressed by the way the flew. It seemed so effortless and light. As I was able to take a closer look at them and I noticed how much bigger their wings really are compared to their body. They didn't really have a large variety of butterflies, but they had some very beautiful ones. I think I counted about 8 different kinds, but maybe there were more. 
So, at first I was quite happy, but then I started to notice some odd things. For one, after walking the whole place I noticed that it was very small, then I noticed that it was kind of crowded. Then I saw that some of the butterflies were missing parts of their wings. Then I saw a man walk in with his kids and he was blowing hard on one of the nocturnal butterflies. If he had been one of my kids I would have given him a time out. I think his kids were behaving better than him. So, after this I wasn't feeling so good about the place anymore. I was kind of feeling sad for the butterflies. They didn't really have a lot of room to fly and there were so many people they could have even stepped on them. 
So, I wouldn't really recommend it. Raphael also told me that he was disappointed in the place. I managed to take some nice pictures of some of the butterflies, but I also got a few pictures of broken wings like this one. :( 
It was really a shame, but I know that there are some very nice healthy butterfly gardens in other places so maybe I'll get to go to one one of these days. Although I think I would prefer to see them out in nature. It was still very nice to have seen some, and I had fun taking pictures. The brown butterfly you see here is actually a very beautiful blue butter fly. When it opened it's wings to fly you would see this beautiful bright turquoise and dark blue butterfly, but a fast one as well, so I never really managed to take a good picture. Except of one that was dead. :(
After that we drove to a village called Montfort l'Amaury. It's a lovely little village which has the ruins of a medieval castle. When we arrived it 
was a bit cloudy, but when we got out of the car it started to clear up and it was just beautiful. It had the kind of buildings you would find in a very old city with made everything seem much smaller and cozier. There were a lot of elegant tea houses with cute little tables decorated with pastel coloured tea cups and tea pots. I even saw some people eating big pieces of dark chocolate cake with tiny silver forks... I didn't get any.
Dogs are pretty much cute everywhere in the world.
Then we found a cemetery. It had this plaque at the entrance. Under it you could see that it had been carved on the wall in old French. This is what it says : "You who pass by here, pray to God for those who have passed away. That which you are they used to be. That which they are one day you'll be."
It really does make you think before you walk in. Anyway, it was quite beautiful inside. I didn't look at all the tombs but it was interesting to look for the oldest ones. We even saw some knight tombs. I think mostly rich people were buried there.
This is a picture inside of one of the little... I don't know what to call it actually. It looked like a prayer room, but I'm not sure. I liked the window.