Journey to Fountainbleu

We left the house in Narcy around 9am having gotten up relatively early and done the wash and cleaning.  We decided that Fountainbleu would be a good stopping point for a walk and lunch. There was parking at another underground parking garage.  These garages have incredibly small spaces and I was impressed that Jake was able to get into one and that we could still open our doors and get out of the car!  Fountainbleu was the summer home of French kings starting in the 1400s and still has a large forest surrounding the town and chateau.  We didn't get there until around 11am and it turned out to be market day, so we toured the market and had lunch, and then decided we needed coffee and a pastry, before visiting the chateau.  Lunch was pasta at an Italian restaurant.  Tea was at a nice, but crowded and somewhat rushed tea salon.  They had a beautiful pastry selection so I ordered an Opera (a multilayered cake covered in chocolate ganache) and Jake got the Alhambra, a multi-layered chocolate cake with walnuts and chocolate ganache.  That gave us enough energy to walk the grounds of the chateau.  We opted not to go in the chateau because we have visited several  castles and chateaus in the past and there are only so many gilded rooms you can take.  Jake thinks there are only so many gardens you can tour, but I have to disagree there! So he's not sure we can really say we visited Fountainbleu since all we really saw were the grounds. The gardens were very formal, but in a scale appropriate to the size of the chateau, in other words, immense!  Swans floated on every water surface.

The canal at Fountainbleu

The "small" garden once the King's private garden.  Sculpture of Diana the huntress and her hounds

Fountainbleu in background of gardens

We took the long way to Paris in order to avoid traffic.  We were pretty successful at this and the only tricky part turned out to be finding the car rental return at the airport.  Only at the last minute do signs appear telling you where to exit.

We took the RER into Paris.  The ticket machines won't take our American credit cards, so we had to get 20 euros in coins from a change machine to get our tickets.  At the Gare du Nord we transferred to the metro and found our hotel on Place Pigalle with no problem.  Place Pigalle is a busy square surrounded by nightclubs, so it is not the quietest address.  The room is comfortable and relatively large for a city hotel room though.  It is decorated in bordello red velvets and gold trim befitting a hotel near the Moulin Rouge and other famous cabarets. 

room at the Hotel Palais Royale - the black thing is a feather cushion