| From the Gare de Lyon it’s just a fifty-minute train
ride to FONTAINEBLEAU, famous for its vast, rambling Château (daily except Tues:
June–Sept 9.30am–6pm; Oct–May 9.30am–5pm; E5.50) Musée Chinois open when there’s enough staff, entry included with ticket for the château; Musée Napoléon guided tours morning only, Petits
Appartements guided tours afternoon only,
although both prone to change, both E3; ring for further details T01.60.71.50.70). Bus #A or #B from Fontainebleau-Avon station will take you to the château
gates in fifteen minutes. SNCF sell a combined train/bus/château ticket at the
Gare de Lyon (E9). The château owes its existence to its situation in the
middle of a magnificent forest, which made it the perfect base for royal hunting
expeditions. A lodge was built here as early as the twelfth century, but it only
began its transformation into a luxurious palace during the sixteenth on the
initiative of François I, who imported a colony of Italian artists – most
notably Rosso il Fiorentino and Niccolò dell’Abate – to carry out the
decoration. They were responsible for the celebrated Galerie François-1er –
which had a seminal influence on the subsequent development of French
aristocratic art and design – the Salle de Bal, the Salon Louis XIII and the
Salle du Conseil with its eighteenth-century decoration. The palace continued to
enjoy royal favour well into the nineteenth century; Napoléon spent huge amounts
of money on it, as did Louis-Philippe. The gardens are equally luscious, but if
you want to escape to the relative wilds, the surrounding forest of
Fontainebleau is full of walking and cycling trails, all marked on Michelin map
#196 (Environs de Paris). Alternate spellings:: Fontainebleau, Fontaineblau, Fontainbleau, Fontainblau
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