The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Make Europe’s treasures plain sailing
Chantilly, one of France’s finest but most overlooked chateaux, is just a ferry hop away, says Nick Trend
Wandering through the clipped avenues and water gardens which frame the Château de Chantilly in northern France last October, I saw a flash of orange catch the sun high overhead: easyJet. I thought of that plane full of people speeding south, and it reminded me of how the age of cheap airfares has distracted us from the huge and varied appeal of our closest neighbours – those parts of mainland Europe which, from the southern half of the UK at least, are easy to get to without the hassle of flying. The benefits of travelling by sea are promoted during National Ferry Fortnight (see discoverferries.com), which begins today. But in this particular case, what were those easyJet passengers missing?
For me at least, it was a new discovery. I knew the two most famous chateaux on the periphery of Paris – Versailles and Fontainebleau – but I had no idea of the attractions of Chantilly, an hour to the north.
Beyond the associations with dangerously delicious cream and Big Bopper lace, I had only the vaguest notion of what I had always assumed to be a rather ersatz monument somewhere on the fringes of Picardy.
But before me now was one of France’s most beautiful – and to my mind, least appreciated – chateaux. The former home of the Duc d’Aumale, the son of the last King of France, is moored like a slightly ungainly ocean liner among a network of artificial lakes and vast lawned terraces.
Laid out by Le Nôtre in the 17th century, they don’t quite match the endless perspectives of his gardens at Versailles, but the grand sightlines merge into a picturesque combination of oak forests and, to one side, much less formal English gardens – though these were designed 200 years later for an anglophone prince.
The idealised village Le Hameau, tucked away among the woods, inspired Marie Antoinette to build her own model village at Versailles just before the revolution.
The chateau itself comprises two halves. The original buildings suffered badly during the revolution, plundered by the sans-culottes, and the suite of rooms in the older part of the building – the Petit Château – is all that remains from the 16thcentury buildings. wall space of the grand reception rooms.
They include great works by Raphael, Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, and a brilliant series of 16th-century portraits by Jean Clouet. And there’s a world-class collection of books, medieval manuscripts and drawings – including an extraordinary portrait of a semi-naked woman by Leonardo or his workshop, which distinctly resembles the Mona Lisa.
But it’s not all about the art and the gardens. Equine-lovers will want to time a visit with one of the regular race meetings on the adjacent course. Even non-equine-lovers will be astonished by the Great Stables. Put up in the early 18th century at the height of French aristocratic extravagance, and at around 100ft high and nearly 200yd long, the building is much larger than Buckingham Palace. Thirty horses lounge in the capacious stalls – including, bizarrely, Shetland and Welsh ponies and three donkeys, though most are grand thoroughbreds used for equestrian and dressage displays in the indoor ring beneath the dome. There is also a museum dedicated to horses and their history.
So that, easyJet passengers, is what you are missing – one of Europe’s greatest stately homes, set in historic gardens and housing one of the world’s best art collections, as well as its most pampered Shetland ponies.
And there’s so much more. Our four-page special highlights our pick of the myriad attractions of northern France, as well as a detailed guide to cross-Channel routes and fares this summer.
‘The chateau is moored like an ungainly ocean liner among a network of lakes’
Nick Trend stayed at the Auberge du Jeu de Paume, next to the chateau and looking out over the gardens (doubles from £183 per night; telegraph.co.uk/tt-jeudepaume).