This last Sunday morning we awoke to fog, cold, damp lousy weather, so naturally our first thought was “hey let’s take a road trip!” OK, actually we had decided the night before to get out of town for a day.
And so we did.
We walked over to the Saint Marcel metro, jumped on the no. 5 and got off at the Gare du Nord, Paris’ train station serving northbound trains. it was the first time we had been in this station and after about three minutes of utter confusnio found our way to the ticket counters. We picked up the tickets (which we had ordered online the night before), and boarded a train for Chantilly, an easy 25-minute ride north of Paris. (photo above: Chateau at Chantilly.)
Some 40 kms north of the city of light is the city of cream – and horses. I have no idea where or how Chantilly cream got its name – I’m sure someone knows though – all I know is I like it a lot. So it’s pretty odd that I (we) never even got to try any while we were there.
Sad to report that the reason we didn’t get to try out the “Chantilly cream “is that just about everyplace was closed because it was, well, Sunday. Fortunately the famed chateau and stables (once owned by the Aga Khan) were open and the primary reason for our trip. (Thanks Drea for the tip.)
The chateau is about 2 kms from the train station and while there is a free bus apparently from the train station (so we were told we opted to walk. Skirting the park and around the stables, which appear to be larger than the chateau itself, after about 20 minutes we found ourselves approaching the chateau and its surrounding park. (photo: inside of the park; nice day huh?)
We strolled over to the main gate where we bought our tickets (€31 for the two of us) to get us into the park, the chateau (with the Condé museum) as well as the horse museum in the stables. We then headed inside. (photo below: inside the chapel we found the urn that contains the hearts of previous owners; their bodies are buried elsewhere.)
Susan had read that there was a horse show going on that day as well at 3:30, which was confirmed by the woman in the ticket booth. What we didn’t know – and found out to our chagrin later – was that not only was there a separate fee to get into the “small apartments” in the chateau (or it was part of the ticket and we were improperly informed) but after we sat through the “prologue dressage” in the “dome” of the stables, a showplace really, we were invaded by a swarm of young female ticket-takers scurrying around checking everyone’s ticket to make sure they had paid the additional supplement (€10 a person). Of course we had not and refused so we left. Quite the scam we thought. Like tourist venues the world over the French can certainly be quite skilled at price gouging. (photo below: library of course.)
After a leisurely time in the chateau and a quick walk around the barren grounds – wrong time of here really to experience the outside here – we headed for the stables and the horse show. (photo below: stables.)
(photo above: interior of the stables.)
The dressage introduction was interesting and mildly entertaining. But then I’m not that keen on horses, although I did like the “Horse Soldiers” and “A Man Called Horse” and thought “Horse Feathers” was very funny.
After we left the stands – steaming a bit I must say -- we wandered around the horse museum and found ourselves enjoying the very cool exhibitions, all centering around, you got it, the horse. Here though the focus was on the role the horse has played in French (that is Parisian) society in the last couple of hundred years. There were extensive exhibits of horse in myth (quite fascinating) and in art in general and of course horseplay: you know “kids and horses” that was pretty neat and a room of old carousel horses, as well as the development of horse racing at Chantilly. Most of the exhibits were well signed often with multilingual interpretative labels. Overall it was informative, well done and really quite fun.
After our stroll through the horse museum we walked back to the train station, keeping our heads down from the biting wind and the chilly air. Of course I had not gotten around to putting my liner in my coat – a situation since rectified you’ll be happy to know. (photo below: horses from around the world.)
It was later in the afternoon and we had had no lunch but little was open in town. We avoided the one café – smoke was pouring out of its front door. Anyway we found a little sandwich shop that had really very little left, and so we grabbed the last four croissants and a bottle of water and walked to the train station to eat our paltry lunch and await the train.
Eventually we hopped aboard the train – along with a gazillion other folks returning to the city after a weekend in the quiet countryside – and less than a half hour later we were on the no. 5 metro heading for our apartment, warmth and a cozy evening at home.
Notwithstanding the weather I think you would’ve enjoyed the trip. We did.
Wish you were here,
Steve
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