Barbizon and Vaux le Vicomte
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2008
1
20
26
Trip End
Aug 11, 2008
Barbizon,
Île-de-France,
France
Saturday, July 19, 2008
This morning I went to the Marmottan museum which is a nice little museum mostly of Monet in the 16th arrondissement. I didn't have much time to look through the musuem before I had to leave to get to the meeting place for the excursion. I was able to see everything though. Monet is not in general my favorite artist because he is very repetitive. He paints over and over again on the same subjects and while they are very pretty they don't always seem to evoke too much thought, in my opinion.
We left for Barbizon at 2 and arrived at 3. Barbizon is a very quaint town just outside of Paris. The town is pretty much one single street with shops and cafes all over. Beyond that there is not much to see and some friends and I ended up wandering through the nearby woods which are nice and shady and are famous for being the inspiration and subject of many French paintings throughout the centuries
Antechambre by candle light
.After Barbizon we drove a short while to Vaux le Vicomte which is yet another chateau. It seems in France each chateau has to have some sort of gimick to make it stand out from all the others. At Vaux le Vicomte the gimick was that at sunset they lit candles all over the garden and inside the chateau to imitate the lighting from the 17th century when the castle was built. It was actually a very cool effect. As pretty much all other chateaux, Vaux le Vicomte had beautiful gardens but inside the decor was very nice as well. Every room was furnished and it seemed much more realistic by candle light. Unfortunately, it gets dark here around 10pm and we had to leave around 9 to get back to Paris before the metro closed for the night so we didn't get to see all the grounds really lit up. Definitely something I'd like to see next time though!
Comments
We're in Austin
Hi Kristina,
What a nice little town. The chateau looks great with the candles.
Robert and I got back to Austin yesterday. We took the red-eye leaving at 12:30 am and arriving at 10:30 am. Grandma and Grandpa chauffeured us to the airport which was nice. They will stay on the mountain and go to the Blair reunion. It is good to have the house occupied during this beautiful time of year in Oregon. Robert and I found some great hikes which you can put on your list of things to do. Great views of the mountains, flowers, and lakes.
I came home yesterday and slept most of the day. Robert stayed up all day and got caught up with his HaloTracks friends. Now he is power-sleeping.
There is a hurricane hitting Brownsville right now. It is a category 2, so not a huge storm, but we will get a few days of rain from the bands. South Padre island is getting hit pretty hard, so some familiar sights are being shown with lots of rain and wind and a few roofs torn off. So far there doesn't seem to be much major damage. The rest of Texas can use the rain, so everyone is turning off their sprinkler systems in anticipation of 6-9 inches of rain to come. It is still hot - 100 each day. What a change from the mountain.
Thanks for all your great updates. It continues to be so fun to read. Your photos are super.
Love,
Mom