Tuesday - Chateau Fontainebleau The Royal Chateau is located around 55 kilometres from the centre of Paris and has been inhabited by the French royal families and Emperors continuously for seven centuries. It has 1500 rooms and the grounds cover an area of 130 acres. The chateau is beautiful and covers many centuries of architecture which all seem to blend in to each other and its sheer size is amazing with buildings all joined to each other with large courtyards and secluded gardens everywhere in the chateau complex. There are numerous water features which are very large with fish, ducks and swans living in them quite peacefully and others with large fountains and of course the grand canal leading out from the gardens to the woodlands around the chateau. The gardens are very beautiful with mature aisles of trees, parterre gardens and informal gardens with beautiful designs around every corner. We strolled the gardens for hours and enjoyed the shade and tranquility of the areas as it was not crowded at all which surprised us. We think it may be off the beaten track of the time poor tourists but all the more reason to enjoy the area.
We also strolled around the town which has some very beautiful churches and various other buildings and is relatively quiet in relation to Paris which we enjoyed. There are lots of small high quality restaurants and bakeries in the area and all seemed quite busy due to the relaxing style the French have of taking their time and enjoying their meals with most seeming to take around 1 to 2 hours for lunch which is agreeable to us.
Wednesday - The chateau had to be revisited as day one was spent just in the gardens and the whole of day 2 exploring the insides of various sections of the buildings viewing all the artwork, furniture, crockery and other artifacts from the various reigns of the French nobility right through to Napoleon Bonaparte who was emperor for a few decades. The furniture and decorations are outstanding with craftsmanship carried out by all the premier artisans of the times. The dimensions of the halls and ballrooms are amazing as are the salon's and bedrooms throughout the complex. We only saw limited areas but that took us hours. It is truly a wonderful place to visit and similar to the Palace of Versailles but with only a fraction of the visitors going through. Well worth the trip for the avid traveller.