Saint Germain-en-Laye

At the end of June we took a little metro ride into Saint Germain-en-Laye because someone from church said there was a great little chateau there and it was a lovely town.  The nice thing about having a mass transit pass (AKA "Navigo pass") means that on the weekends you can go all around Paris, not just stay in your designated pay zones.  Our current Navigo passes let us go all over Paris proper and one area further, this happens to be about a 35 minute train ride away from our house - north west of Paris.  The nice thing about Saint Germain-en-Laye is that as soon as you walk up the stairs from the metro this is what you see.  Most of the other places you go to see a metro you have to also walk or take a bus to the actual grounds.  So...this is what we saw whenever we ascended those many, many steps from the bowels of the earth aka metro land!

Upon entering the gardens there was this lovely princess bed in the fountain...French art, what can I say!

                 
                    A better shot of the chateau from the front

I never get tired of the perfectly planted trees and shrubs all over French chateau gardens.

At one end of the gardens we came across this gate.  Apparently, this is where Louis XIV was born...

not exactly in the chateau but in this building next to it.  Now this building has a great looking restaurant with a beautiful view and is also some sort of boutique hotel.

They still grow and harvest grapes for wine on a small bit of the land here.

I attempted to get a good picture of the vast view from the grounds but pictures didn't do it justice, so I just took a pic of Jeremy instead.  If you look closely you can see La Defense in the background (the tall business buildings)...that is the place that we frequent to feel American, and for groceries, movies, the Apple store and the Gap!

If I were an artist, I would totally have sculpted naked shrub ladies on top of red flower buds heading into a boxing ring...You?

This is where we grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch.  It doesn't look special and I don't even want to know what critters live here in the night time but it was one of the best toasted tomato, basil and mozzarella baguette I have ever had.  Well done!

We even spotted some good ole Mormon missionaries at the chateau.  We didn't bother to say hello, they looked deep into conversation, but we did take a sneaky photo of them without them knowing.

After we walked a lot of the grounds, we strolled through the town for a while.  I can promise you that I will be back.  They had some adorable stores with nice home decorating things and it was a clean, friendly place to be...a nice escape from the Paris tourists!