Day Trips from Paris

Chantilly

The weather in Paris for the past few days has been uncharacteristically beautiful - sunny, clear blue skies, and temps hovering around 80F. Too hot for most Parisians who don't seem to have the knack for dressing for warm weather (What's the deal with the knee high leather boots and the trenchcoats? For heaven's sake, it's late July!!) At any rate, it seemed like a good time for a day trip so the kids and I hopped a train out of Gare du Nord for the half hour ride to Chantilly. The town's main gift to the world is crème Chantilly, otherwise known as sweetened whipped cream, said to have been created by François Vatel, maître d'hôtel at the Château de Chantilly some four hundred years ago. Who really knows though? We didn't indulge in any wicked treats and instead enjoyed exploring the relatively small chateau with its impressive art collection and some pretty snazzy, at least by 18th century standards, stables which house a horse museum. The latter was a big hit and although the dressage demonstration was entirely in French, the points got across. A picnic on the grounds, a visit to the kangaroo enclosure (one step towards recreation of the former menagerie), and a walk around the grounds, and then we were back on the train, home in time for dinner. <BR><BR>Excerpted from my blog, Just Another American in Paris, 7/24/08

Giverny

A train from Paris's St. Lazare station took us in 40 minutes to Vernon, a sleepy town in Upper Normandy. From there we took a shuttle bus 5 kilometers to the even tinier town of Giverny.

There are two reasons to go to Giverny. One is to see Claude Monet's home and garden, including his pond, the site of his many paintings of water lilies and his Japanese bridge. The other is a smallish art museum dedicated to the work of American artists who flocked to Giverny in the late 19th century to paint <em>en plein air </em> with Monet and other impressionists. Monet's gardens were gorgeous, messy and full of color and more English than French. His home is colorful as well although only reproductions of his works can be found there. The Musée d'Art Américain had its own lovely modern gardens (including a meadow full of haystacks) and a small collection of oils and lithographs, plus an interesting special exhibit on the use of works of art in American films. (Did you remember that Grant Wood's American Gothic is prominently displayed in The Rocky Horror Picture Show during the opening bars of "The Time Warp"?)

Our otherwise lovely afternoon took a bad turn when we missed the shuttle back to Vernon with only 25 minutes until our train departed for Paris. What to do?! Well, don't let anyone tell you the French aren't friendly or generous. The fellow at tourist information bundled us all into his own car and quickly drove us to Vernon so we got to the station with a few moments to spare. Saying merci didn't seem nearly enough.

Excerpted from my blog, Just Another American in Paris, 8/17/08

Auvers-sur-Oise

If you're going to go to Auvers sur Oise, January is probably not the best time to do so. But then, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Auvers sur Oise is a lovely little town some 40 minutes north of Paris by train and best known as the final resting place of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo. Although Van Gogh only lived there for a few troubled months at the end of his life, the town has figured out how to make his stay there into a nice little industry and I say that with all due respect because they've done a good job of it. You can pick up a brochure at the tourist office for a walking tour around town. Along the route, panels are posted with reproductions of the work of Van Gogh and several other prominent painters who sojourned there including native son Charles-François Daubigny, Corot, and Cezanne. The panels are situated at each painting's vantage point so you can compare the views then and now.

You can also visit the inn where Van Gogh stayed, the home of his doctor immortalized in one of his portraits, the small church perched on top of the hill and the cemetery where Van Gogh and his brother were buried. Plus there's a museum dedicated to Daubigny, another to absinthe, a chateau with its own collection of impressionist paintings, and several restaurants with garden seating for good weather. Regrettably, all these were closed earlier this week when I passed through so if you wish to make the trip, I suggest you call ahead.

Excerpted from my blog, Just Another American in Paris, 1/16/09

Fontainebleau

The weather this week has been the pits but that didn't stop me from making a day trip southeast of town to visit the chateau at Fontainebleau and the village of Barbizon. I'd been by the chateau before (but only in the garden)and while I knew it was big, I wasn't really prepared for how grand it was inside, in some ways even more impressive than Versailles. The design is a bit higgledy-piggledy since work on it began in the 11th century and continued into the 19th. In two hours, it was a crash course in French history: from Francois I, who brought the artistry of the Italian Renaissance to France right off to Napoleon who bid farewell to his army from the chateau's grand staircase before heading up to exile in Elba. And America's own General "Black Jack" Pershing made it the headquarters of the U.S. forces during World War I. Despite a relatively recent renovation, a few of the rooms were in a state of crumbling disrepair, making it crystal clear the tremendous effort and artistry it takes to keep such a place in top form.

Barbizon, a few minutes down the road, was on a completely different scale. The little village was quiet and charming midweek (although I can imagine it's pretty crowded on the weekend) and you can visit the atelier of Millet, a painter most famous for <em>The Gleaners </em>, and the Auberge Ganne, the boarding house where many of the Barbizon painters lived. Turned into a museum by the local government, the auberge has a modest collection of the work of Barbizon painters, mostly brooding landscapes with a few teeny tiny human figures emphasizing man's insignificance relative to nature. More interesting to me were a number of sketches and paintings on the walls in the sleeping quarters, found relatively recently under years of accumulated coats of paint.

Excerpted from my blog, Just Another American in Paris, 5/18/09

Rueil-Malmaison

Yesterday the whole family hopped on the subway and then onto a suburban bus to visit le Château de Malmaison, the country home of Josephine Bonaparte. We planned ahead to take the tour with Paris Walks, an outfit that provides daily two-hour walking tours in English, all around Paris and occasionally to parts beyond. I've taken quite a few of their tours over the months we've been here and enjoyed them all. You can certainly tour Malmaison without a guide but it was definitely worth the extra money (especially for the kids) to hear all the interesting and amusing anecdotes about Napoleon and Josephine and to learn about the customs and mores of early 19th century France that are reflected in the architecture and decor. Josephine kept the house after Napoleon divorced her and spent her last days there. Supposedly he still loved her but since she couldn't provide him with an heir, he disposed of her for a younger babymaking machine. Ironically, although his second wife Marie-Louise bore him a son, Napoleon's reign was so short, scarcely ten years, that the empire was gone long before the dynasty was built.

Upon her death, Josephine's son by her first husband had to sell off the house and all its furnishings to pay her debts. It changed hands several times, finally becoming a property of the French state and many of the furnishings were bought back. There are lots of interesting details -- a council room with the feel of a campaign tent, a library with a set of hidden stairs leading up to Napoleon's bedroom, and some rather famous paintings including Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon crossing the Alps. If you've only got a few days in Paris, it's probably not worth the hike. But if you've got a little more time, put it on your list.

Excerpted from my blog, Just Another American in Paris, 5/18/08