Vaux-le-Viconte

Favorite. Castle. Ever.

Years ago we drove out to see this castle only to find it was closed for the winter. We finally made it back out there in July, and it was definitely worth the trip! Vaux-le-Viconte (pronounced sorta like 'vull vincont') has a sad history. The man (Nicolas Foquet) who built the chateau worked for King Louis XIV. When his chateau was completed he hosted a lavish party and the King was invited. The result of the party was that the Louis XIV was so jealous of the home/gardens that he had Foquet imprisoned for life under fabricated charges. He then confiscated most of the tapestries, statues and even trees from the property and hired the same painter/gardener/architect to build him Versailles on a much "grander" (gaudy, in my opinion) scale. Lame!

Seriously-- If you find yourself in Paris, skip Versailles, rent a car and head out to Vaux-le-Viconte (it's not that far away, but no public trans goes there).
Why is it so amazing? For starters-- it is so beautiful, but not over done. Also, a visit there is so much more personal then most others. When you walk up to visit the castle, you enter through the original front door-- not a specially designed tourist entrance. The walk through the castle visits nearly everything, not just the tailored tourist route. I loved it!

Little boy, will you ever know how lucky you are? Probably not until you're grown... but that's one of the beautiful things about childhood... you have no idea how lucky/unlucky you are. Life just is what it is...with contentedness more depending on gummy bears than seeing the world. That's part of why I take so many pictures. One day, you'll know.

Fancy a bath?

View from the top bell tower.

See what Tamar is looking at below. :)

Beautiful.

In many of the castles/chateaus I've visited I wondered if this railing was put up just to keep the tourists away from the furniture, but someone finally explained to me that it was actually originally built like that. Each morning the staff would come in to wake up the lord and/or mistress of the house and go over the days agenda. Crazy.

Interesting choice of candle holders for the office...

Family photo fail #3. Don't worry, I'm gonna keep 'em coming. ;)

I've been struggling to keep my pictures straight lately... oh well. ya get the gist. It's gorgeous.



Checking out the MOAT. Love. It.