3. Fontainebleau II, Dancing White Horses, Ecological Tour to Amboise

3. Fontainebleau II, Dancing White Horses at Vicomte,  Ecological Tour to Amboise

Well, lots has gone on in the past 36 hours, so let  me recap here. Our stay in Fontainebleau continued with a fabulous breakfast buffet, after which we attacked the interior of the Fontainebleau Chateau, as mentioned in the previous blog. Inside was pretty impressive...I’m putting it mildly. The chateau evolved over several centuries, so various wings and rooms were aded, rebuilt, remodeled and refined by the various Kings of France. Lots of monograms were incorporated into the interior woodwork, paintings, stonework  and ceilings, to call attention to the king responsible for each improvement. I loved the intricate woodwork all over the place, particularly the complicated parquetry floors and hand-carved wall coverings in some rooms. Pictures show it somewhat, but imagine the artistry of these unknown workers who put this stuff together…paid a pittance while living in squalor I’m sure, while creating the opulence the French royals assumed they were entitled to. Social comment, there. 

Jack and Lynn at Main Gate of Fontainbleau

After awhile we were tired of Fontainebleau, had almost walked our 10,000 steps for the day, and needed to prepare for the evening’s next event: a candlelight outdoor dinner at another chateau, “Vaux le Vicompte”  about an hour away. Lynn and I had toured this place several years ago, and knew it was a really beautiful chateau, built by one of Louis XIV’s noblemen who was later disgraced in palace intrigue and sent to prison after a long trial. Off we drove to attend the big event. 

Lynn at Fontainebleau

Chapel at Fontainebleau, balcony was for royalty

Arriving at Vicomte, we parked in a gravel lot across the road., and hiked in. Thank goodness for GPS navigation: nobody passes by this place accidentally, it is definitely out of the way! We hiked in with many other diners, and walked the grounds before dinner. So impressive: the stately chateau  with huge high dome in the middle, with what looks like a high bell tower atop the dome. (Last visit, I got to climb up inside the dome through all the old hand-hewn beams and girders, so I dig the dome!). AND, it’s completely surrounded by a water-filled moat, with small drawbridges for access! The big deal outside is the complex landscaping of the HUGE garden, which stretches for dozens of acres, from the chateau to a distant hill where a big pond supplies water for all the fountains and water effects, all powered by gravity. Beautiful in the daylight, and we got to see it later in candlelight.

Vaux le Vicomte main gate

Lynn outside Vicomte facing garden...in the rain

Jack and Sherye enjoying our adventure

Great trip, wonderful dinner and friends,  Lynn and I are the luckiest people around

It was slightly rainy, so the dinner was moved inside to a garden room. Wonderful food and wine, with some nice dinner companions. We had a great meal, then heard music from the garden, and went to out explore. Here’s what we saw: Four giant white fabric inflated horses, each attached to a man who formed the horses’ rear legs and controlled the big inflated part of the horse. They “danced” slowly to the music, traveling throughout the chateau grounds for about 2 hours! Sounds silly or goofy in describing it, but the effect at night, in the candlelight, in this setting, was spectacular and so “French”…not like a Disney production at all! I’ll see if the photos help describe the scene at all.

Vaux le Vicomte grounds with hundreds of candles and dancing horse balloons

Horse pageant at candlelight dinner

This was a long night, but we eventually made it back to L’Aigle Noir hotel and slept. Another awesome breakfast spread the next day and we were ready to leave Fontainebleau. We had some trouble getting OUT of the underground parking garage for lack of a ticket (long story short: equipment malfunction and indifferent repairman), but a pleasant lady from our hotel talked us out with the Parking Lords who controlled the gate.

Lynn set the GPS Navigation in our car, and off we went toward our new home for 5 nights in Amboise.  We expected a couple of hours in transit, but it was taking FOREVER. The navigation system routed us through every tiny village and farm field road in the land. No traffic, but slow speed limits and poor road conditions…I eventually figured something must be wrong with the nav. We stopped and searched through the system settings. It turns out, this car allows you to select “Fastest Route”, “Shortest Route” , or “ECOLOGICAL Route”…and whoever rented the car before us had selected “Ecological”…SHEESH!!! We saw all the ecology imaginable between Fontainebleau  and the middle of nowhere, so changed it to fastest route and got out of there! That selection put us on a fast toll road, which led to further adventures trying to LEAVE the toll road via the pay gate, when the toll machine wouldn't accept our credit cards and kept spitting our ticket out into the wind. Lynn or Shery had to chase down the errant ticket outside the car while we feared traffic backing-up behind us getting mad, etc. Good times! Onward to AMBOISE.

More later. All PHOTOS are here if you'd like to see them:

Photos of Trip