The privately owned Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte and its fabulous formal gardens, 20km north of Fontainebleau and 61km southeast of Paris, were designed and built by Le Brun, Le Vau and Le Nôtre between 1656 and 1661 as a precursor to their more ambitious work at Versailles.
The château’s beautifully furnished interior is topped by a striking dome. Don’t miss the stables’ collection of 18th- and 19th-century carriages , or if at all possible, a candlelight visit .
During the same period as candlelight visits, there are elaborate jeux d’eau (fountain displays) in the gardens from 3pm to 6pm on the second and last Saturday of the month.
In the vaulted cellars an exhibition looks at Le Nôtre’s landscaping of the gardens.
The beauty of Vaux-le-Vicomte turned out to be the undoing of its original owner, Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s minister of finance. It seems that Louis, seething that he’d been upstaged at the château’s official opening, had Fouquet thrown into prison, where the unfortunate ministre died in 1680.
