It’s chock-a-block

It’s chock-a-block full of tapestries, frescoes, paintings, and carvings – opulently furnished, truly dazzling. Napoleon Bonaparte lorded it up at this chateau, saying it was his favourite above all others. He commissioned a team of builders and gilders to bling it up and make it more to his taste. And it was from that horseshoe shaped staircase that he bade farewell to his guides before going into exile (and leaving his hat behind). Here King Francois I of France hung the Mona Lisa over his bathtub, Louis XIV fed the giant carp in the pond and Marie-Antoinette commissioned a gorgeous bed for her pretty boudoir, though she never laid her head there, she lost it in Paris instead. She did though recreate what she loved about this countryside Paris at her hamlet in Versailles. Fontainebleau - Napoleon's library Detail on the wall of the ballroom at Fontainebleau Glorious Fontainebleau Bucolic Barbizon For a complete contrast we next headed to Barbizon, a little village on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau. Once a tiny hamlet (it was upgraded to village status in 1903), a colony of artists formed here in the early 1800s. There was then a tiny grocery shop and artists on their way from Paris to Fontainebleau would stop to buy supplies and noted how beautiful the scenery was. They started to linger longer, enraptured by the beauty of the countryside and rural life, and the canny shop owner converted the shop to an inn which became the Hotel Ganne. Then the artists stayed longer and more and more came, Rousseau, Millet, Díaz de la Peña. They were the precursor that led to impressionism and Monet and Renoir themselves also visited – but they wanted bigger landscapes – cities and coasts. The artists left Barbizon. They also left their mark. The Hotel Ganne is now a museum, where the furniture and walls are covered Barbizon with the etches and sketches of the artists who stayed here. Caricatures, saints, fairies, soldiers, whatever inspired them – they left a little of their work and soul behind. The town is pickled in the past and very lovely. It continues to attract artists and the shops, bars and restaurants look like set pieces from your dream of a French village. Pickled in the past Vaux-le-Vicomte Next up is the ravishing castle of Vaux-le- Vicomte, one of the largest privately owned residences in France with gorgeous gardens. Commissioned by Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s minister of finance it was almost completed in 1661 but Fouquet invited the boss to visit and that was his undoing. It was so beautiful that Louis was enraged with jealousy, Hotel Ganne Barbizon 12 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 13