Day Twelve - Getting Bigger and Grander as the End Approaches

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By now I was losing track of time on this, one of our longest, Christmas vacation trips. I certainly had no desire to go home, but I began the day thinking we still had plenty of time to do some more sightseeing and shopping. I was forgetting that once again our activities would be significantly curtailed by the day being a holiday. One positive about it being New Years Day was the fact that the highways were not too ridiculous later in the day when we approached Paris.

Upon waking my tummy was still a bit queasy and I skipped breakfast. Being out in the middle of nowhere there were no Carrefours or LeClercs to go to for our usual morning sustenance. But we had planned in advance and had purchased a few items to tide us over until later. There were also bags full of half eaten chips, crackers, cheese, soda and lunch meat in the trunk so we were in no danger of starvation. My breakfast consisted of two Pepto Bismol tablets which seemed to take effect almost immediately. By the time we were out on the main road I was asking for a candy bar.



Hotel this evening was Première Classe Roissy - Villepinte Parc des Expositions (http://www.premiere-classe-roissy-villepinte-parc-des-expositions.fr/en/index.aspx)

Dinner at La Patisserie Gonesse (http://www.lapataterie.com/en/this-way-for-la-pataterie/pataterie-gonesse)

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Photos

Looking around the Domaine
Too bad we didn't get to spend more time at our overnight chateau. Apparently there were areas behind the main building to stroll around and plenty of farmland to explore as well. But with the usual light rain falling we just loaded up the car and got ready to move on. I took this picture of the opposite wing from our accommodations. This was one hotel that actually gave us plenty of space to spread out in our rooms. Each two windows upstairs belong to one room.

What Must've Been the Master of the Domaine's Quarters
This was the main building of the chateau. I only stepped into that little section at the front of the brick tower when I registered the night before. I bet the rest of the building was rather spectacular.

Just in Case We Return Someday
I wanted to remember exactly where we stayed just in case we come through the area again. But like most places we "discover" before everyone else, by the time we come back the price for a night will be out of our reach. I can give you a list of at least a dozen places in Germany, England and Denmark that we love but became far too expensive when we decided to eventually return. Maybe we should keep our mouths shut and stop doing Trip Advisor and Travelblog reviews.

Out Here in the Fields
Almost as soon as we made the left turn from Chateau de Moresville onto that one lane gravel road we spotted this pheasant strutting about. As proud as he was we could not get him to stand still for a photo. I remember seeing these all the time in the cornfields of eastern PA when I was growing up. Now they are a rare sight.

Out in the Middle of Nowhere
Like I said, Domaine de Moresville was hard to find being a tad off the beaten track. But the isolation made for quiet nights and no crowd. In the summer it must be alive with nature.

Hay Man!
Yet another monstrous construction made of hay bales. We saw these throughout western France. Unlike us, I guess the French don't store their fodder in barns. Nor their mudders.

The Big Daddy of Chateaus
It didn't take us long to reach the grounds of Chambord Chateau. But it did take us a real long time to actually approach the building itself. The estate covers more than 13,000 acres. Much much bigger than Versailles. We drove fifteen minutes from the entrance of the park just to get to this road with the chateau more than a half mile in the distance.

Zooming In
This massive complex began life as yet another hunting reserve for the French kings. Originally it was just a little castle owned by a local noble family. They made the mistake of letting Francis I doing some hunting here. He loved the location, took over the land and razed the old castle and started building this gigantic lodge. It is thought that Leonardo de Vinci had a hand in the design. No expense was spared.

Maxi Zooming
It took Francis I over twenty years to build. At one point his two sons were captured by the French but rather than pay the ransom, he continued to raid the royal treasury as well as the Church's to fund this construction. He even diverted the local river to run by his manse. Interestingly, Francis died two years after the place was done and one of those sons, Henry II, moved in.

Too Bad It's Closed
We were able to drive in and out of empty parking lots snapping pictures as we made our way around the roads circling the chateau. When I first looked at this picture I thought I mistakenly put one of our hotel pictures out of order because the farm building in the foreground looks so much like Chateau de Moreville.

A Math-lovers Dream Home
I don't understand the significance, but my green Michelin guide points out the mathematical perfection of this building with 440 rooms, 365 fireplaces (that I get), 13 grand staircases and 70 backstairs. Although the guide describes two pages of historic events happening here, none of them sound all that interesting to me. And I'm a history nut. The place served off and on as a royal hunting lodge for hundreds of years. From time to time a king would run out of money for fighting wars and sell it off to a relative then take it back later. The kings kept hundreds of falcons for hunting and brought in various kinds of dogs from throughout the known world to breed for hunting.

The Horsies Don't Rest for the Holidays
Nothing was happening at the chateau, but on the grounds of the estate plenty of people and horses were out excersizing.

Why the Horses?
Chambord has a long and interesting history with horses. Of course they were first used here for royal game hunts and also served the men-at-arms protecting the king. In the mid-1700's Louis XV gave Chambord to his father-in-law who then handed it over to the general who defeated the Dutch and English at the Battle of Fontenay. Marechal de Saxe turned out to be a bit of a nut job: The Marechal kept large troops of cavalry dressed in garish outfits on the grounds. The horses were trained to trot out and assemble in line at the call of a bugle. The Marechal hanged culprits for the slightest violation of his rules. And he was also quite the lady's man. Presumably he was killed in a sword duel with one of his lover's husbands. Upon provisions in his will, cannons were fired every fifteen minutes for sixteen days following his death.

Dare We Drive In?
We considered playing the Dumb Tourist Scam again and driving up closer to the chateau, but some of those horsemen looked to be military or police so we chickened-out.

I'd Hate to be the Royal Window Washer
It's hard to believe this was built by design - it looks like various stages of construction resulted in all these unique different spires and towers. But that's what the king ordered,

If Only the French Revolution Never Happened
Just imagine what maintaining this joint would cost today's taxpayers? As things were, the Revolution meant the end of the royal connection. The place was raided of all of its furniture and art and sat vacant and deteriorating for years.

Which One's the King's Bedroom?
One other historic note of interest is that Moliere came here on a number of occasions and put on plays for Louis XIV. The king didn't seem to like any of them, but did enjoy one of the performers jumping off the stage and crashing through a nearby harpsichord.

Horse Headquarters
One of the stables near the chateau.

On the Road from Orleans to Paris
I'm not sure why we were in such a big hurry to get to Paris, but with nothing open we hoped that maybe we'd find something to do closer to the metropolitan area.

The Double GPS System
For some reason my Garmin Nuvi on which I had carefully pre-loaded all our hotels, restaurants, sightseeing spots and appropriate French tunes was not keeping its charge for more than an hour or two so we had to carefully ration its usage while using the Renault's built-in GPS most of the time. Ahead of us lies one of the all too frequent toll plazas that seemed to pop up every half hour when we were on the highway. This day we spent nearly as much on tolls as we did on gas ($8.00 per gallon).