Monday is going to be Lucy's birthday. so we took a day trip to visit Chantilly. The town is famous for it's chateau and race course. Funnily enough the town is twinned with Epsom & Ewell (home to another famous race course) where Lucy's sister used to live.
We arrived at about 11am, walked through the town which hadn't quite woken up (I forget that French towns don't really go in for the weekend shopping in a lot of places), past the race course and horse museum and on to the chateau.


When we arrived at the chateau we found that the moat had been drained for work to be carried out on it which had confused the local duck population. The chateau is a bit smaller than any of the other ones that we have visited around Paris, but houses one of the biggest collections of artwork in France outside of the Louvre. The famous Raphael and the painting of Arabs crossing the Syrian desert were my favourites.


Then it was on to check out the library full of handmade books, and home to one of the first ever printed bibles and The Book of Hours from the 1400's, and the family chapel. The urn in the centre of the picture contains the hearts of all the previous Condé family until their line ran out in the mid 1800's.
Finally we went for a quick wander around the gardens before moving on to the horse museum. It felt really cold in the gardens, but this could be because it was so exposed and we are used to living in the middle of a city, where it never feels quite as cold. Although, proof of how cold it was could be seen in the smaller fountains in the gardens which were thickly frozen over.

On to the horse museum, which I have to say was a bit strange. I guess you have to really love horses to appreciate it which, as Lucy mentions in her blog, the Prince Condé obviously was because he thought he would be reincarnated as a horse and ask for stables to be built that would be fitting for a horse of his rank!

We walked back through the town and treated ourselves to some crepes before jumping back on the train to Paris.


Obviously I couldn't resist taking a couple of panoramics whilst I was there.

The Horse Museum on the left and Chateau on the right.


The empty moat.


Lucy outside the chateau.


In the evening I popped down to l'Autobus again where everyone had gathered to see the Metropolitan Skateboards teaser trailer video. It seemed as if most of the Paris skate scene had turned out for this and it was cool to see everyone.

Benjamin ended up going out last night until 5am and was feeling a little worse for wear!


Pat was there representing Metropolitan.