Off to the Races at Chantilly

Sue, Tom and Claire arrived late last Saturday evening from a week in London.  Since they have been to Paris several times, we were looking for new adventures.  We decided an excursion about 30 miles north to the Château de Chantilly on a rare day without rain would be the perfect trip.
Sunday we bought the Navigos for Sue, Tom and Claire for the métro that covered five zones.  Claire, the agent at the métro, bonded with our Claire, and assured us that Chantilly was within the five zones and we could get there without an additional ticket.  We checked online and the RER D went to Chantilly-Gouvieux so we thought we were set.


Château de Chantilly 

Well, to make a long story short, we went to Gare de Lyon to get the RER D and none of the trains went all the way to Chantilly.  They all ended at the stop before Chantilly.  Luckily Kelly had come along to make sure we got off okay.  He found out that the train to Chantilly only left from Gare du Nord.  So we hopped on the next train to get to Gare du Nord.  When we arrived, even though we thought the trains left every hour for Chantilly, Kelly found out the next train did not leave for three hours and we should just take a train to Orry-la-Ville-Coye, the stop before Chantilly, and take a cab or bus from there.  We said goodbye to Kelly and thought we were set.  The train emptied as we rolled north of Paris and I was starting to feel a bit nervous.  When we eventually arrived in Orry, a kind train agent told us there was another train in 15 minutes that would take us to Chantilly.  She then asked if we had our tickets to the Chantilly station.  We told her we had our Navigos and found out that Chantilly was NOT in Zone 5 and we were traveling illegally!  She helped us buy tickets from Orry to Chantilly and told us to buy a ticket from Chantilly to Paris to get home legally.  And we were off again.
We made it to Chantilly and found no taxis to the Château, which was about 1 1/2 miles away.  And no bus left for a while.  Everyone recommended that we walk.  So that's what we did, trying to avoid the remnants of snow and all the mud.  We had no idea it would be such an ordeal to visit the Château de Chantilly.  But we decided it was definitely worth it.
We passed this cute house on our walk through the little town.


Chantilly Derby Painting on a House in Town

We arrived first at the horse stables, Les Grandes Écuries, which looked like a château.  Chantilly is known for its horses and horse racing.  The stables were built in the 18th century and house horses, the Museum of the Horse, and equestrian shows.  Unfortunately there were no shows when we visited but we did see the museum and met a horse named Tom at the stables.

Chantilly Stables

Tom with Tom

Claire at the Horse Museum

The Chantilly Racecourse opened in 1834 for thoroughbred racing.  During the first week of June every year Chantilly hosts the French Derby.  In the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill, the Chantilly racecourse was where racehorses owned by the villain, played by Christopher Walken, competed.
Next we explored the Château.  The last owner of the Château, Henri of Orleans, the Duke of Aumale (1822-1897), was the youngest son of the last French king, Louis-Philippe.  He inherited the Château and grounds when he was 8.  His two sons died young and the Duke had no heirs so he left his estate to the Institut de France and it opened to the public as the Musée Condé in 1898.  The Château had originally been owned by generations of the Princes of Condé, who were cousins to the king.

Sue and Claire Walking to
the Château



Entrance to the Château

The Duke had a military career and distinguished himself in Algeria.  However, he soon found himself in exile in England in 1848 when his father was removed from power.  He had access to his fortune and he was very patient.  He spent his time collecting art and rare books and manuscripts.  He returned to the Château de Chantilly in 1871.  He had the Château (which had been pretty much destroyed during the French Revolution) rebuilt from 1875-1885 to house his collections.  Nothing has changed since he lived there.

Sue and Tom

The library was so beautiful.  Kelly could have moved right in.  It contains over 300 medieval manuscripts and many other rare volumes and manuscripts.

The Library

Claire, Tom and Sue in the Library

The art galleries in the Château house one of the finest collections of paintings in France.  There were paintings by many French, Italian and other artists such as Boticelli, Raphael, Watteau, Corot, Fra Angelico, Filippino Lippi, Veronese, Poussin, Van Dyck, Delacroix, Ingres, Gericault, and on and on.  The paintings are hung as the Duke left them, with the walls covered up to the ceilings.

Claire admiring the Paintings

Portrait Gallery

The Château also has a beautiful chapel.  According to medieval tradition, the heart was removed at death and the body was buried separately.  The hearts of the Princes of Condé were placed in the urn in the chapel.  The heart of the Duke's son was the last heart to be placed in the urn.

Funeral Urn Containing the
Condé Hearts in the Chapel

The Chapel

Our trip home was a little less stressful.  We were able to ride the bus back to the train station and avoid all the mud.  We arrived just as the train for Paris (or so we thought) was pulling into the station.  We had to composter (validate) our tickets in the machine before boarding and we had a difficult time getting the machine to work.  We watched the train leave and thought the next train didn't leave for 90 minutes.  It was a good thing we didn't board that train because we were looking at the arrival board, not the departures, and that train was coming from Paris.  Who knows where we would have ended up.  So we were lucky we couldn't jump on that train.  Our train to Paris left in 45 minutes and we had a smooth ride back to the city with our properly validated tickets.  Sue, Tom and Claire were brave to travel with me outside of Paris.  We ended up with quite the adventure!