We took the train to Vaux le Vicomte, a beautiful chateaux outside of Paris, with an interesting history. It was built by a finanical minister of France, who was thought to have been stealing money from the country - so his elaborate chateaux was confiscated from him, and he was put in prision only months after building was finished. Louis XIV used it as inspriation for Versailles - which you can see through the architecture outside, and the elaborate, beautiful, decorating inside.
We got there around 4, and immeaditely rented on of the golf carts you could drive around the enormous gardens in! Josh even let me drive....temporairly. It was beautiful weather this afternoon, and we had a wonderful time exploring the gardens, taking post-card worthy photos, and driving around the grounds. The gardens are medevial-style, with really meticulous shapes carved into grass, and triangular trees. The chateaux itself is not as large as Versailles, but very stunning and opulent from the outside and inside. We did not go inside during the day - because each Saturday they do a candelight night tour of the chateaux! They place and light about a million little candles all over the gardens, the outside of the chateaux, and the interior. Then, once its dark the candels are the only lights and you tour everything that way! It was gorgeous!
While we waited for the sun to set, we had dinner at the resturant in the gardens, overlooking the chateaux and watching sunset. It was such a beautiful setting, watching the sky get dark and the candels get bright. It was also great because unlike Versailles, which is so crowded, there were not many people there. It is truly a hidden bijou! After dinner we got to see the inside, all lit by candels, the way it originally would have been lit at night. Nicolas Fouquet, who build the chateaux, had a family crest that had a picture of a squirel. This explained the thousands of stuffed squirels in the giftshop that had puzzeled me earlier. I explained this to Josh, saying - 'Oh, that is why the sold squirels in the giftshop!" And he thought I meant live squirels. Proving that everyone has blonde moments. Not just us blondes.
We are now back in Paris - about to watch one of my favorite movies - The Man In the Iron Mask - because it was filmed at Vaux le Vicomte! It is so cool to visit a place and then see it in a movie! And, it is an awesome movie, that I highly recommend seeing if you have not! Any movie that was filmed in France is a movie you should watch! Since I could not make Josh a birthday cake today, since we took a spontaneous trip - I will make the fondant au chocolat tomorrow for him instead! That is a chocolate cake that is all meltly and gooey fudge in the middle! it's his favorite. Celebrating your birthday over 2 days is much more fun anyways!
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