Yesterday was our last day in France and we decided to spend it by visiting the Château de Chantilly and its gardens, only half an hour’s walk from our hotel. It is very beautiful, set in verdant grounds beside a lake. It was the home of the Ducs de Condé for several centuries, but the last of their line, Henri d’Orléans, donated it to the French state in 1889.
It is actually made up of two buildings; the Petit Château which was built in about 1560, and the Grand Château, which was destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s. The new part blends in very well with the old; you can’t really tell the difference, but I realised that the new bit is not much older than our house! It has a fantastic art gallery called the Musée Condé, apparently the biggest collection of paintings in France outside of the Louvre. It specialises in French and Italian paintings and book illuminations of the 15th and 16th centuries. My favourite was the Three Graces by Raphael.
Back outside we went for a long walk around the grounds, keeping to the shade where possible because it was another very hot day. I had thought that the thunder and lightning during the night would have cooled down the atmosphere but it was still very warm. We had lunch at the Hameau restaurant, cool and idyllic among tall trees. Interestingly the hameau at Chantilly was Marie Antoinette’s inspiration for her own hameau at Versailles. However this one, rather than being an idealised peasant village, was intended to look like a hamlet from the outside but amaze the host’s guests with its opulent interiors.
We walked right up to and around the wee round lake at the very end of the gardens, and then meandered through gardens which had roses and statues, and along paths back to the castle and to the royal stables beyond. By the time we got back to the hotel I was very overheated and a bit grumpy, however I was proud that I had managed to walk more than ten kilometres on such a scorching day. We had checked out of our room in the morning but we were able gradually to cool down in the air-conditioned foyer of our hotel, where we drank lovely complimentary chilled water and read our books. We took an Uber to Paris Charles de Gaulle which only took about thirty-five minutes. All seemed to be going so smoothly, however it was a bit irritating that our flight was then delayed nearly an hour and that it was full of over-tired children who were worn out and some of them crying loudly after the excitement of their trip to Disney! Their parents looked even more exhausted! We were home by 12.30 although that was 1.30 a.m. French time so after an affectionate reunion with Tom and Floof we soon dived into bed.
It is actually made up of two buildings; the Petit Château which was built in about 1560, and the Grand Château, which was destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s. The new part blends in very well with the old; you can’t really tell the difference, but I realised that the new bit is not much older than our house! It has a fantastic art gallery called the Musée Condé, apparently the biggest collection of paintings in France outside of the Louvre. It specialises in French and Italian paintings and book illuminations of the 15th and 16th centuries. My favourite was the Three Graces by Raphael.
Back outside we went for a long walk around the grounds, keeping to the shade where possible because it was another very hot day. I had thought that the thunder and lightning during the night would have cooled down the atmosphere but it was still very warm. We had lunch at the Hameau restaurant, cool and idyllic among tall trees. Interestingly the hameau at Chantilly was Marie Antoinette’s inspiration for her own hameau at Versailles. However this one, rather than being an idealised peasant village, was intended to look like a hamlet from the outside but amaze the host’s guests with its opulent interiors.
We walked right up to and around the wee round lake at the very end of the gardens, and then meandered through gardens which had roses and statues, and along paths back to the castle and to the royal stables beyond. By the time we got back to the hotel I was very overheated and a bit grumpy, however I was proud that I had managed to walk more than ten kilometres on such a scorching day. We had checked out of our room in the morning but we were able gradually to cool down in the air-conditioned foyer of our hotel, where we drank lovely complimentary chilled water and read our books. We took an Uber to Paris Charles de Gaulle which only took about thirty-five minutes. All seemed to be going so smoothly, however it was a bit irritating that our flight was then delayed nearly an hour and that it was full of over-tired children who were worn out and some of them crying loudly after the excitement of their trip to Disney! Their parents looked even more exhausted! We were home by 12.30 although that was 1.30 a.m. French time so after an affectionate reunion with Tom and Floof we soon dived into bed.
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