Luckily I had Chris’ tablet, and it takes decent pictures. This is the “backyard”.
I loved the gardens, there were tons of them with cool fountains, sculptures, playgrounds, and even a little hedge maze.
This sculpture is a famous Roman statue called The Venus Callipyge – literally meaning “Venus (or Aphrodite) of the beautiful buttocks.” I thought it was an interesting name for a statue, and also interesting that she is lifting her gown to look at her own beautiful buttocks. Seriously?
There was a herd of sheep on the grounds. This is how they mow the lawn. No really, there was a big sign explaining why it is better to “mow your lawn” with sheep instead of lawn mowers.
This is the “Island of Lovers”. Also beautiful. I wish I had more time to wander around these beautiful gardens!
I stopped for a snack and had to try the famous, authentic Chantilly Cream. I had it is hot chocolate and on top of raspberries, and it was seriously the best dessert I have ever had. Ever. It was amazing.
I went inside the stables (beautiful!) and there is now a horse museum inside part of the stables. This is the practice ring, they actually do horse shows here.
These are pictures of famous horse riding schools – the one on the top right is the Spanish riding school in Vienna. I saw it and was so excited I had to take a picture. Been there! Also beautiful! I love the horses in Vienna.
The inside of the chateau had 17 rooms of artwork that the duke used to show to his guests. I love that I was allowed to take pictures (sad I didn’t have a better camera).
This is a statue of Joan of Arc. Love it. There is a similar one at the Musee de Orsay (where I could NOT take pictures) so I was excited to see this one!
This was a long hall with stained glass windows depicting the love story between Cupid and Psyche. It was actually pretty interesting to read about, and also suggested that the windows were put it because the story represented the fall and eventual redemption of the human soul.
This room was cool. The ceiling was all carved with different emblems of families. And at the end of the room there are lions hanging on either side of the door. The tapestries were amazing.
This is the only display I got to see of Chantilly lace. And it is gorgeous. And apparently quite famous, although I read that most of it was actually made in Belgium and other areas of France.
This is Chantilly porcelain. Also beautiful. And famous. The Prince Conde collected Asian porcelain, so Chantilly porcelain began being manufactured to try and copy some varieties of Chinese porcelain, but due to the fact that there was an ingredient used in Chinese porcelain that was unavailable in France, it was actually a type of porcelain called “soft porcelain”. Eventually the necessary ingredients were found to make “hard porcelain”, but by then the soft porcelain had become quite popular, so both were manufactured until about 1800 when the manufacture stopped altogether. There was one shop selling porcelain in town but it was VERY pricey.
The picture above the mantle is a mosaic, very intricate. This place was really ornate.
This is from the chapel. All the walls were covered in wood paneling like this. Amazing workmanship and this photo does not capture at all how beautiful it was.
This is the chapel.
This is not a great picture, but this is the library. It was very large with a great collection of books. When the last owner died, he specified in his will that he wanted his library open for public use. People can actually still come and check out and use the books in this extensive library (he also had another library). I thought that was pretty cool. There were some books out for display with beautiful artwork in them.
All in all, if you are ever in France – visit Chantilly! I loved it, it was beautiful and the town was fun with good food. It was a great venue for the paintball tournament and I believe they are talking about holding it there again next year!
This was my birthday, so we ended it by going to the store so the guys could buy me a chocolate torte (SO GOOD), ice cream (I forgot how much I LOVE European ice cream, so creamy!), and the ingredients to make raclette. When we tried out the raclette machine we tripped the circuit breaker. Luckily Chris was able to interpret the French breaker box and get the power back on, unfortunately, NO raclette. So we baked all our vegetables in the oven with the cheese on top and it still tasted pretty good. And I successfully blew out my tea light on the torte. Such a fun day.
