Chantilly: Horses and Cream

So my mom made it safely to Paris, despite a demonstration happening just outside her hotel when she arrived, forcing her to walk the last few blocks since the taxis were turned away. We rested up a bit and then headed out to walk around the town so I could give her a short tour of the surrounding area and a quick view of Notre Dame.

Today we took a nice day trip north of Paris to the town of Chantilly. It's a 25m train ride and its a quaint little town with a château and huge horse stables. We took the scenic forest path to get to the castle but got slightly distracted by an exhibition going on and walked in the VIP entrance to an horse dressage and jumping competition on the grounds of the racetrack and stables. I'm pretty sure we needed tickets but we just made sure to look like we belonged and walked right in. Eventually we found what we were looking for: the ticket booth for access to the castle, gardens and the horse show going on at the moment Metamorphoses. My uncle Kim actually found this for us and recommended it. The show wasn't until 2:30p so we toured the castle first. Unfortunately it was misty and gray the entire day, but since it wasn't pouring rain on us, it wasn't too bad.

After this we stopped at a little café for a bite to eat and then headed into the stables for the show. It was an odd combination of music, dance and horses, with two cute little burros/donkeys as part of the show too.

After the show we walked through town and along the canal for a bit, mostly just wasting time since we had a few hours before our return train to Paris. We found a nice little English Tea Shop where we had hot scones with Chantilly cream and jam. We ended up getting a second order of it because they were delicious. We were fortunate enough to catch an earlier train back to Paris, since the town was pretty much shut down, being Sunday and French Mothers Day. Now were are back at the hotel planning tomorrows day trip. Au revoir!