Chateau De Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainbleu

Up early today to catch a bus to Chateau De Vaux le Vicomte, built by Nicolas Fouquet, the finance minister for Louis XIV.  He used Louis Le Vau as his architect, Andre Le Notre for landscaping and Charles Le Brun, the painter, for decor to create the most opulent residence of the times and, what was to become, the precursor to Versailles.  It is in very good shape and much of it's elegance still remains today.  The bus takes about an hour to get there and we found it interesting to think of Louis traveling there from Paris by coach and how long that would have taken.  Louis was so envious of the chateau that he trumped up charges against Fouquet, had him imprisoned for life and took the chateau as his own.  They have a nice little buffet style restaurant so we had lunch there - shared a Parisian salad (lettuce, ham, tomatoes and hard boiled egg).  They, of course, serve wine and beer.