Translating Paris: ABC = Another Bloody Castle

Today, I saw another castle: Chantilly. It would have been more interesting with a more interesting guide - the one we had spent about ten minutes per painting, and all the time was spent telling us things that anyone who has a functioning set of eyes can see. For example, there was one painting of a dog barking. She had to point that out. I know nothing about art - I would have been happy if she had spent all that time talking about what made them good paintings, but instead, she wasted my time. We didn't get to finish the tour because we had lunch reservations and apparently, two and a half hours for a tour just didn't cut it with this lady (who had been a tour guide there for at least twenty years, based on the picture on her ID badge). She didn't even show us the book room!

Anyway, the lunch was fantastic - and very French! A goat cheese salad and bread (I didn't like the ham, though), chicken with a tasty sauce, rice with almonds, and spinach, and bread, then a chocolate/coffee layered cake with some chantilly (aka whipped cream). All served with red wine, of course. We had lunch at the Hippodrome overlooking the horse track. I felt like I was in Saratoga again, a little.

Finally, they gave us tons of time to walk around, but there wasn't much to do. We saw kangaroos (some eccentric king's collection?), walked in the gardens, saw a waterfall (another mini-Niagara Falls, but even less impressive than the cascade at Buttes Chaumont), and raced through a little labyrinth. It was a relaxing day, but I think they could have picked a better day trip than this - it was a nice castle, but enough is enough! I'm sick of them!

Anyway, here are a few pictures.