Today was a day of lasts. One of those was visiting our last château on the to-do list: Vaux le Vicomte. We would have done it earlier but it's actually closed most of the winter. It only opened back up March 9th.
Some people argue that it's the best château in France, which is understandable as it was the inspiration for Versailles. But inspiration in a tragic way unfortunately. King Louis XIV was so jealous of what his financier Nicolas Fouquet had built, he had him arrested on trumped up charges and spent the rest of his life in prison. And meanwhile used Fouquet's same architects to build Versailles.
It's actually a bit difficult to get to if you don't have a car (there are some shuttle buses from the nearest train station on the weekends in the summer apparently) so I knew we had to take advantage while I still had car access (which I give that up on Friday). I took the afternoon off work and we drove there.
It was quite eleaborate inside, and the audio guide delved into the history of Fouquet. The grounds are the most stunning part, and a lot of the literally groundbreaking gardening and perspective techniques were then used at Versailles.
But after visiting half a dozen castles around France, the best French château in my opinion is still Fontainebleau. It's got the best and most extravegant interior and has a lot of history associated with it, and is easy to get to from Paris. Honestly I'd recommend it over Versailles. Kara's favorite (and my 2nd favorite) is Chenonceau in the Loire valley. It requires a full day trip with a car, but it does have the most beautiful exterior and has quite a lot of history of its own.
It also marked the last time I'll have to use the portable TomTom my work collegue gave me to use while I was here. It served us well, though sometimes makes some interesting route choices.
We also went up the Eiffel Tower for the last time. Actually the first time for Kara during our trip. The first time she wasn't able to climb the stairs and didn't join my friends who were visiting, and the 2nd time the top was all fogged in. But this time we got reservations (only time available was the last one at 9:30pm) and it actually turned out to be a clear night!
We got there in time to see the lights sparkling from on the tower, which was really cool. I also had my new D70 with much better low light sensor, so I could get some really good shots. We actually ended up getting kicked off the tower because we stayed till closing and rode down with the workers. But of course the numerous Eiffel Tower model selling guys were still downstairs, trying to get you to buy an Eiffel Tower for a euro. We ended up staying until Midnight to see it sparkle one last time up close. It's sad to leave!
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