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Vaux-le-Vicomte

Ever since we arrived in mid-May, Hervé Rufin has been trying to organize a Saturday night visit to the chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte for the candle-light visit. Finally, last Saturday the stars aligned and we made it.

(Full disclosure: because we were there at night and I didn't want to drag a tripod around, I took zero pictures; these are taken from the Web. Also, a bunch of pictures did not make the migration from the old blog site to the new. I'll try to find them Real Soon Now.). (Image of Vaux-le-vicompte missing) (Image of Vaux-le-vicompte missing) (Image of Vaux-le-vicompte missing) We were there for the night visit, so here's a picture of the chateau with its 2,000 candles. It was truly a beautiful sight. (Image of Vaux-le-vicompte missing) Mary took this picture of Laurie and me. Not many pictures of me in this blog, as I'm usually doing the picture-taking.

The night was warm and beautiful, and after a fabulous fireworks display, we decided to wait out the crowds leaving the parking lot by having a glass of champagne. So our last memory of the evening is sitting in lounge chairs at 11:30 at night, in the warm air, sipping our champagne as we looked at the candle-lit chateau. Now, is that the way to spend an evening or what? Thanks - many, many thanks - to Hervé for getting us organized for this night. It will certainly be the most memorable evening of our stay here this year, and will draw us back again on future trips. Oh, one last bit of history about the chateau. In 1651, not long after the chateau and gardens were completed, Fouquet held an enormous fete to show it off. It succeeded too well: Louis XIV was invited, became convinced that the money to build it had come from royal funds diverted by Fouquet in his role as Finance Minister to the chateau, and had Fouquet arrested. He then swiped the artists - le Vau, Le Notre and Le Brun - and took them to Versailles, where they created a chateau even grander than Vaux-le-Comte. Today Versailles is wall-to-wall tourists all the time; Laurie and I have never visited it. Vaux-le-Compte may be a "mini-Versailles," but its beauty is just overwhelming and much easier to visit andview; we'll be back.