The Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte

After you visit a few chateaux in France, they can begin to seem the same.  The Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte is delightful because it's not huge (like Versailles) and because the architecture inside and out is wonderful. Most important the gardens were designed by Andre Le Notre, France's first and perhaps most famous landscape architect, who also later designed the gardens at Versailles and the Tuileries (the gardens next to the Louvre).  I visited on Dec 30 when the house and grounds are decorated for Christmas.  I think it's worth a revisit in spring when it's not raining and the gardens are more in season.   Here's the main entrance after dark dressed for Christmas.

Vaux le Vicomte at the holidays

Here is how it looks in sunny spring weather:

Vaux le Vicomte was built by Nicolas Fouquet, minister of finance to Louis XIV.  The interior of the building was designed as one whole piece by the painter Charles le Brun and was intended as a special place for the King.  However when Louis XIV visited. he was jealous of what Fouquet had and was convinced that Fouquet was cheating his treasury and thinking to embarrass him.  Fouquet's chateau was given to others, and Fouquet spent the rest of his 34 years of life in prison!  Louis hired the architects and interior designers of Vaux le Vicomte and had Versailles built.

The interior is really lovely as the photos below illustrate.

Many of the rooms include wonderful tapestries

The Great Reception Hall decorated for Christmas

Ceiling of the king's bedroom

Cornices of the King's bedroom

The duchess of Villars who lived in the chateau after it was taken from Fouquet

The Hercules Room

Painted ceilings

The most remarkable part of this chateau is the gardens.  Below you can see it decorated for the holidays on a rainy day.  The water (pools, canal, great fountains, and canal around the chateau) come from streams that run through the property and that Le Notre diverted to create the gardens as they appear in the last photo.

Side garden (with canal around the chateau)

Gardens of Vaux le Vicomte at the holidays

The gardens in summer