Around The World Without Flying: Vicomte Palace Part 1

Monday, 31 July 2017

Vicomte Palace Part 1 - The palace and gardens

It was with a touch of sadness that I woke up for the last day of touring for our Seine river cruise. I would miss chatting with the friends I made, and that lovely serene feeling of gliding along a scenic river. We were now back in Paris, having arrived there during the night, though again where we were berthed was not a particularly attractive place. In fact a lot of construction work was being done along the bank there, with the usual noise and inconvenience of trucks delivering concrete etc. We had to pick our way past that to reach our coaches.

This day I chose to visit Vicomte Palace, which had its own unique history and charm, and vast beautiful gardens. This palace is now owned by three brothers, two of whom are twins, who are restoring it bit by bit. Unlike the managers of Chantilly castle, which is now owned by the State, they are very enterprising and have set up many programs and opportunities for visitors to support their work. As well they have a cafe/bistro that was doing quite a roaring trade, as was their shop, which sold many unique items for children and adults. Those for children included kits to build model castles and models of the ‘Three Musketeers’ and their horses as well as of the evil cardinal, a lot of children's books with tales of knights and other heroes, costumes, and so on - everything a child might imagine about the past when visiting an old fairytale castle like this.

I was in heaven choosing gifts for my two older grandsons, bearing in mind my limited capacity to carry them around in my luggage until I could post them. I have seen very few toys in my travels that were unique to the area. As your might expect, Disney toys are everywhere, even in remote villages, but since you can buy them at home there is no point buying them overseas, then posting them home (at a huge cost, too).

It was a really hot day, but I wandered around as far as I could through the gardens after our tour of the castle. Our guide estimated that by the time you walked around the canal further down the garden, you would have to walk 8 miles to reach the fountain at the end of the garden! Needless to say, we did not have the time to do that, not that we would have anyway in that heat.

Our guide was a very interesting man. He would have been in his late seventies, and used to be a tour director himself, leading many tours through England and Australia and New Zealand. His English was impeccable, and he had the voice and presence of an actor on the stage. He regaled us with many stories about the castle just like a narrator in a play, but his own story about falling in love with a New Zealand woman when they happened to meet in Bali in their younger days, and visiting her for many years, was just as enthralling, the way he told it.

The following photos show the outside of the castle. In the next post I will show you some of the inside. Notice that they include stables, but I do not think the stables are in use today.

Vicomte Palace from the front. Its gardens were behind it.

The stables area.

Close to the front of the palace. You could see through to the back of the palace from this spot.

Part of the moat around the palace.

The view from the back balcony of the palace. The fountain at the back of the garden that I spoke of is too hard to see in this photo. That will give you an idea of the extent of the gardens.