Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte Trip
 

I'll be visiting France in June with family and during our time in Paris we decided we want to check out a chateau or two besides Versailles. Both Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte have come highly recommended, so we're pretty set on those two. We won't have car for Paris portion of our trip (we plan to rent one whilst we're in Burgundy), and I'm having trouble figuring out if it is possible to take trains/buses to get to both places in one day.

On another note, Vaux-le-Vicomte has candlelit tours Sunday nights- the day we plan to go. Has anyone been there for that? Will it be difficult to get back to Paris if it's later, say after 9pm?

Any information would be appreciated, thanks!

Vaux-le-Vicomte is out of the way. We visited it on our way to Burgundy which made transportation much easier.

Yes, it is possible if you don't spend more than a couple hours at each, as they are on the same train line. YOu could probably do one in the morning and the other in the afternoon as they are only about 15 minutes apart by train. Melun is farther (the stop for Vaux le Vicomte), you should go through Fontainebleau-Avon to get there. Then you have to take a taxi to the chateau, although there might be some shuttle bus, you can check. It isn't far, but farther than you'd want to walk. Same for Fontainebleau, but I think it was pretty obvious there were lots of local buses at the train station going right to the chateau, it was easy to do if you have some advance prep. But there is more to see at Fontainebleau than the chateau (of course both have gardens but the ones at Vaux le Vicomte were very unimpressive when I was there), there is a small museum of Napoleon stuff, and a few other small "Museums" (gallery, furniture). But you can see all that on the website.

I don't do candlelit tours, don't see the point, I don't want to visit tourist sites in the dark.

There are bus tours from Paris that do both places in one day if you want to do that:

http://www.pariscityvision.com/en/sh...trance-tickets

If you want to do it on your own here's how. For transport you want a one day Mobilis pass zones 1-5. This will cover all your transport for the day. For train schedules use www.transilien.com. Let's say you start at Fontainebleau. Take the train from Gare de Lyon to Fontainebleau-Avon and then take bus 1 to the château. The bus terminal is right next to the train platform. Here's the website for Fontainebleau:

http://www.musee-chateau-fontaineble...mmaire&lang=en

Do your visit of Fontainebleau and return to the train station. Take the train back towards Paris and get off at Melun. Melun is closer to Paris than Fontainebleau.

You have two options here. You can take a taxi to Vaux-le-Vicomte, which is about 8.5km from the train station. The taxi fare should be about 15€ each way. Make arrangements for the taxi to return and pick you up to bring you back to Melun.

In the summer there are shuttle buses that run between Melun and the château and I believe you can do the candle light dinner with the shuttle. Look at the Vaux-le-Vicomte website for more info:

http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/

The website hasn't been updated for 2013 but in 2012 the shuttle was only available on weekends and holidays from April 7 to November 11. The shuttle for candle light dinners only runs in June, July and August. They don't have the schedule for the shuttle on the website yet but I imagine that will be up before April:

http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/en/us...nfos-pratiques

There are usually taxis outside the train station in Melun but if you want to call ahead and reserve just google "taxis melun" and you'll get info about taxis in Melun. The gardens at Vaux are beautiful and they served as the model for the gardens at Versailles. It looks like a smaller version of the gardens at Versailles.

Note that the RER D and the suburban trains both serve Melun but the suburban train from Gare de Lyon is faster (about 25 minutes).

From Vaux-le-Vicomte we stopped overnight in Sens, which is worth a visit.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...55059630/show/