Ile de France

Just what is it that makes the Ile-de-France so attractive, so comfortingly familiar? Is it its proximity to the great city of Paris—or perhaps that it's so far removed? Had there not been the world-class cultural hub of Paris right nearby, would Monet have retreated to his Japanese gardens at Giverny? Or Paul Cézanne and Van Gogh to bucolic Auvers? Kings and courtiers to the game-rich forests of Rambouillet? Would Napoléon have truly settled at Malmaison and then abdicated at the palace at Fontainebleau? Would medieval castles and palaces have sprouted in the town of St-Germain-en-Laye? Would abbeys and cathedrals have sprung skyward in Chartres and Senlis?

If you asked Louis XIV, he wouldn't have minced his words: the city of Paris—yawn—was simply démodée—out of fashion. In the 17th century the new power base was going to be Versailles, once a tiny village in the heart of the Ile-de-France, now the site of a gigantic château from which the Sun King's rays (Louis XIV was known as le roi soleil) could radiate, unfettered by rebellious rabble and European arrivistes. Of course, later heirs kept the lines open and restored the grandiose palace as the governmental hub it was meant to be—and commuted to Paris, well before the high-speed RER.

That, indeed, is the dream of most Parisians today: to have a foot in both worlds. Paris may be small as capital cities go, with just under 2 million inhabitants, but Ile-de-France, the region around Paris, contains more than 10 million people—a sixth of France's entire population. That's why on closer inspection the once rustic villages of Ile-de-France reveal cosseted gardens, stylishly gentrified cottages, and extraordinary country restaurants no peasant farmer could afford to frequent.

The Ile-de-France is not really an île (island), of course. This green-forested buffer zone that enfolds Paris is only vaguely surrounded by the three rivers that meander through its periphery. But France's capital city seems to crown this genteel sprawl of an atoll, peppered with pretty villages, anchored by grandiose châteaux. In the end, Ile-de-France offers a rich and varied minisampling of everything you expect from France—cathedrals, painters' villages, lavish palaces, along with the bubblegum-pink turrets of Disneyland Paris—and all delightfully set within easy day trips from Paris.

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