During our week in Paris, we made only one excursion outside the city limits.  In the course of a single day, we visited two chateaux, Fontainebleau and the less celebrated Vaux-le-Vicomte.
A tour bus conveyed us about 60 kilometers south of Paris, to the entrance of the palace that had served the French monarchs as a country retreat for hundreds of years.

          Fontainebleau began as a royal hunting lodge in the 12th Century.  In the ensuing centuries, its woodland setting became a park with paths winding through gardens and watercourses.  The early rustic accommodations were turned into sumptuous apartments and banquet rooms, reflecting the changing tastes of the ruling class with the passing eras. Rulers from the Renaissance through the Second Empire enlarged and redecorated the chateau.  

     I remembered that Miri and I had been to Fontainebleau on our first trip to Europe, when she and I were college students, but the years had obscured the details.  What was unforgettable was the Horseshoe Staircase leading up from the cobbled forecourt.

HL and I posed in front of the Chateau de Fontainebleau, which was far less crowded than we had thought such a glamorous place might be.



Statues of figures from Greek and Roman mythology can be found near the chateau and throughout the grounds.  Most were erected during the 18th and 19th Centuries.  This is a sculpture of Odysseus, holding a discus behind the folds of his cloak.



One splendid room was the bedchamber of Anne of Austria, Queen to Louis XIII and sister of the King of Spain.  She was the mother of France’s self-styled Sun King, Louis XIV.  Anne was married for 23 years before she bore her first child, who would reign as king for 72 years.

The Emperor Napoleon favored Fontainebleau and so had the damage that had been done to the chateau during the French Revolution repaired.  There is a luxurious tent in his apartments, based on the one that Napoleon used on campaign.



Every imperial residence had a throne room.  Napoleon’s at Fontainebleau dates from 1808.  It is the only throne room in France that contains all of its original furnishings.