Fontainebleau
A bit farther out beckons a smaller, quiet alternative to Versailles.
10 million people visit the Palace of Versailles every year and that is why I have never been. But if you have an extra day or two I highly recommend jumping the train to Fontainebleau (from Gare de Lyon) and renting a car. Yes, the car rental agency outside of the city may not have English speaking staff like in Paris, but it is totally worth all the pointing and shrugging to avoid the drive out and back through the City of Traffic Lights. Be clear that your car insurance is covered by your credit card (it is, right?) since that will be the most expensive question to get wrong. They may also put a deposit on the credit card for damages, not because you look shifty, but because, well, there is a lot to scrape against on windy, narrow European streets.
300,000 people visit the Royal Château of Fontainebleau and it is probably more than you can do in a day so spend the night locally. Stroll the small town and find a hearty country meal with an equally hearty country wine.
Also worth a visit is the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte — sometimes used as a movie stand in for Versailles. Built between 1658 and 1661, the history is a bit sordid, which makes it so much more fun to retell. The king, Louis XIV, had his superintendent of finance, Nicolas Fouquet, imprisoned for life after being a little suspicious Fouquet could build such a place and hold such wonderful fêtes without his fingers in the royal till. It didn’t help that Nick’s competitor for the coveted Finance position definitely led the king to believe the funds had been stolen. Voltaire remarked on the famous fête, "On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was nobody." The king was then inspired to build his own palace at Versailles which led to everyone getting their heads chopped off.
I may have left out a bit in the middle…
You might find you are the only people in the formal garden at 3 PM on a Tuesday in October. Enjoy the Autumn sunshine.
