Birthday in Fontainebleau.

What a place to spend my birthday! It is so relaxing here. We only planned to spend 3 days here but have stayed 6.

We have walked miles, to nearby villages, through the Fontainebleau Forest, in the chateau parks and gardens, and around the village, especially looking for a particular patisserie.

This aerial view shows the chateau and parks and gardens, 130 acres. The blue dot shows the hotel where we are staying, just opposite one of the chateau gardens. The Fontainebleau Forest is much bigger (25000 hectares) and surrounds the township.

Lots of people use the parks, gardens as well as the forest, and often simply to enjoy a walk in the outdoors ( as opposed to exercise or fitness).

We enjoyed a picnic in the park for my birthday...... After a walk around and around the village, visiting the local market, and searching for the patisserie.

Just a light lunch cos we planned to go out for dinner too.

Choices, choices, choices

Loved it. Just gotta love single serve wine in plastic, screw top bottles too. Perfect picnic accompaniment.

Whilst wandering around we've also searched for some geocaches. Some successful, others, not so.

An ingenious hide in this fake limb.

And one that we didn't retrieve..... Hidden on this statue. Would need to scramble around the ledge, over the water.... With lots of passing traffic and walkers. I think not.

But one also took us to this beautiful old church in another part of a nearby village. What a stunner.

 

Thursday we head back to Paris, and our last day in Europe. It has been absolutely fabulous!

Posted with Blogsy

Fontainebleau - markets and the Chateau, all in a day.

Just love markets, French style. There's all the fresh fruits and vegetables, and lots of meats, fish cheese all in refrigerated trailers. They are perfectly set up for the market culture. Markets here in Fontainebleau are Tues, Thurs and Sunday mornings, and probably in nearby villages on other days. There's also nuts, olives, bread, clothes, shoes etc etc etc.

Really wanted to buy some food for another picnic, but we don't have a fridge. And we were off to the chateau next.

Wow, wow, wow. It is massive. Original construction occurred in 1100s, but it has been added to by various kings and emperors since then.

In Turkey, walls and ceilings were lined with ceramic tiles. So many tiles, and patterns. Here walls are covered with tapestries. Huge tapestries. Such over the top opulence.

And great halls!!!

The throne room.

How's this for a bedroom. Private (bed) space is defined by the low balustrade. Not sure why there are so many chairs/stools in the rest of the room.

Uneven sided chairs - so that warmth from nearby fire could warm you, and high side so warmth didn't escape.

It was the most amazing audio/video guide we have seen yet, although to be honest, haven't taken up the offer of these so much in this trip. Ones we have used previously have numbered guides on some displays, push relevant numbers on keypad to get audio. Not this one. It was obviously an iPod Touch with camera. So look for display panel in a room, scan the symbol to bring up the guide, audio and visuals. Neat!

I think there about 1500 rooms in the chateau, but our tour only took in the second floor. Some areas closed off, but it still took us around 3 hours. Private guided tours took in other areas, but it was enough for us, and a good place to be in the rain.

Monday we went for a walk.... To a nearby village, and back via a forest track.

The double entry on one point was to find a geocache. Not because we were lost!

Breakfast. A baguette in the park, on a rather damp bench!

8 tracks lead away from this point. Which one will we take? Lost the yellow markers ages ago! So pleased we had a SIM card for the iPad!

Although it was cloudy most of the day, there was no rain..... until about 5 minutes after we arrived back in Fontainebleau. And did it rain!! Amazing.

Later that night there was a fireworks display.... for St Luke's Day. Nice finish to a fantastic day.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Fontainbleau - a walk in the forest and a stylish picnic

Leaving Paris for the little known area of Fontainebleau was surprisingly stress-free. I had researched as much as possible - how to get there by train, which ticket machine to buy tickets from, which station etc etc. Life, and travel in a big city is much more complicated than small country towns, or even walking through villages. But we did it, even managed to buy tickets from the green ticket machine at a metro station near our hotel, travel by metro to a different station for Fontainebleau train, and find the right hall and platform, all without a dry run, or being 2 hours early. Incredible!! Knowing that trains run every half hour was an advantage. Forty-five minute train ride and we were in Fontainbleau-Avon Station.

Waiting in Hall 3 Gare de Lyon for our platform number to be displayed.

About 3 km walk to the village and our hotel, definitely felt good to be walking with our packs again, especially since we left some luggage back in Paris. Travelling light is sooooo much better.

Our hotel is right opposite the Chateau de Fontainebleau. It's a massive complex, about 1500 rooms apparently, and acres of gardens!! We have walked around several of the gardens, found a number of geocaches, but haven't been inside the chateau yet.

Near Fontainebleau there's a large forest area which attracts many hikers, cyclists and rock climbers. So we opted for a morning walk in the forest, following the yellow route of course. But it is not as well signed as the camino, and we wandered around a bit looking for yellow markers. It was relaxing. Saw a family out picking berries, and another group setting up for a picnic, and we found a mobile phone in the dirt and returned to some very relieved hikers.

There are lots of walking trails, but most start quite some distance from town so we were a little restricted. Walked through the village on our way back..... Past an amazing patisserie. Wow. Picnic lunch, but what to choose.

Jill, you would have loved this. Didn't see anything like this in Paris. Maybe we weren't looking hard enough.

Should really have something savoury first, and some delicious fresh French bread. All packaged magnificently. 6 pack of wine in small plastic bottles - all set.

Only one problem.... We were sitting on the grass. Apparently that's a No-no, and we we removed on.

Still time for the chateau.

Lex thought he would love to have these grounds, but it's not really downsizing.

Geocaching

Found

Think there's one in this tree. Too many muggles.

And another here on this monument, but tricky to scramble around the wall and across a pond. Not doing it.

Lovely village.

 

Posted with Blogsy