Chantilly

Off to Chantilly today but when we arrived at Gare du Nord, the tracks with our train and the ticket machines were behind yellow police tape with police and army patroling again.  We waited for 15-20 minutes and the tape came down so we went to the ticket machine and bought our tickets, but somewhere we hit a wrong button and ended up with four round trip tickets instead of two.  It's only a 22 minute train ride and I read it was a 20 minute walk to the Chateau so we set out on the most scenic route through the woods.  There were signs pointing the way but I think we missed something as we walked for an hour and still couldn't see the Chateau.  We stopped in at the church, Notre Dame, along the way, saw a carnival being set up and finally saw the stables followed by the Chateau.  It is a very imposing sight, surrounded by water and gardens.  The castle is in the French Renaisssance style and was built in 1528 during the 200 years it was owned by the Montmorency family.  Henri IV  was a  frequent visitor.  The space is really vast and would take more than a day to see everything.  The collection of paintings alone, second only to the Louvre in number, would take a day, plus there are many other artifacts including massive silver services, Chantilly porcelain and jewels.   We walked over to the stables, where we had a light lunch of a crepe for me and a cheese baguette for Leas, as we had tickets for the 2 o'clock horse show.  The stables are the largest in Euorpe and are quite an 18th Century masterpiece; I think I read that they cover 3 acres and a horse museum is included.  The horse show was very interesting and different than anything I've ever seen. There was a story, music, light show and costumed riders as they put the horses through their paces. The show was in a round theater in the stables.  They also have an outdoor show ring and race course. We walked casually back to the train station through the town and stopped at L'Arsenal (a little bistro on St Antoine) for a beer (served with popcorn) once we were back in our neighborhood.  We picked up some cheese, and a baguette to go with the ham and wine we already had for dinner in the apartment.  All in all a fun and interesting day - Chantilly is definitely worth a visit.