Paris Break

Our neighbours JJ and Nadine kindly invited us to stay with them in Paris and so we went up last Thursday.  I wanted to visit a small museum, the Marmottan Monet in the very chic 16th arrondissement.  It holds the largest collection of Monet's painting and I was able to see a wide range of his styles as they evolved over time.

The next day was planned for a trip to the Chateau of Chantilly but we were perturbed to awake to snow!

 Fortunately the snow wasn't enough to cause us any major problems and we started our day off with a trip to an Orchid Centre just up the road from our friends.

It was lovely to see so many orchids together in great banks of colour.

By the afternoon, the sky had cleared and the sun had come out, showing off the chateau and it's parkland to wonderful effect.

The property holds a huge collection of art relating to French national history; statesmen, military campaigns .... and hunting!  it is an amazing house, especially considering that some of it was only built in the 1880's to house the collection.

There is also in the park, an extremely large 'stable' block with a horse museum which was unfortunately shut.  In front of the 'stables' is a Racecourse which is a national centre for 'trotting' races.

It would seem we need to go again in the summer!