51 Best Sights in Side Trips from Paris, France

Chantilly, France's equestrian epicenter, is home to the fabled Hippodrome racetrack. Established in 1834, it comes into its own each June with two of Europe's most prestigious events: the Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) on the first Sunday of the month, and the Prix de Diane for three-year-old fillies the Sunday after. On main race days, a free shuttle bus runs between Chantilly's train station and the track.

Further testimony to Senlis’s long and rich history (brilliantly mapped out in the Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie), these circular arenas dating from the first century are unique in northern France. Gallo-Roman spectators enjoyed gladiator fights here until their prohibition in the fifth century, when the circular amphitheater reverted to concerts, pantomimes, and plays. The arenas are accessible by private tour through the tourist office or to the public on the first Sunday of every month between April and October as well as on European Heritage Days in September and National Archeology Days in June.

Opposite the town hall, the Auberge Ravoux—where van Gogh lived and died—is now the Maison de Van Gogh. The inn opened in 1876 and owes its name to Arthur Ravoux, the landlord from 1889 to 1891. He had seven lodgers in all, who paid 3.50 francs for room and board (that was cheaper than the other inns in Auvers, where 6 francs was the going rate). A dingy staircase leads up to the tiny attic where van Gogh stored some of modern art's most iconic paintings under his bed. A short film retraces the artist's time at Auvers, and there's a well-stocked souvenir shop. Stop for a drink or lunch in the ground-floor restaurant.

The former home of van Gogh's closest friend in Auvers, Dr. Paul Gachet, is a local landmark. Documents and mementos evoke both van Gogh's stay and Gachet's passion for the avant-garde art of his era. The good doctor was himself the subject of one of the artist's most famous portraits (and the world's second-most-expensive painting when it sold for $82 million in the late 1980s); the actual creation of it was reenacted in the 1956 biopic, Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas. Even his house was immortalized on canvas, courtesy of Cézanne. A friend and patron to many of the artists who settled in and visited Auvers in the 1880s, Gachet also contributed to their artistic education by teaching them about engraving processes. Don’t overlook the garden—it provided the ivy that covers van Gogh's grave in the cemetery across town.

The landscape artist Charles-François Daubigny, a precursor of the Impressionists, lived in Auvers from 1861 until his death in 1878. You can visit his studio, the Maison-Atelier de Daubigny, and admire the mural and roof paintings by Daubigny and fellow artists Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier.

Here you'll find more than 100 vendors with an eye-popping array of seasonal fruits, vegetables, and every French delight, including truffles and the famous Le Fontainebleau cheese, a creamy, frothy local specialty. The market is held Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday from 7 am to 1 pm at the Place du Marché.

A collection of 85,000 miniature soldiers—fashioned of lead, cardboard, and other materials—depicting military uniforms through the ages is on display in the Musée de la Figurine Historique.

This handsome museum set in a 17th-century priory in the heart of the Parc Royal is dedicated to the art of the hunt, a primary pastime in this once-royal city abutting the forests of Senlis and Chantilly. Paintings and engravings (notably one by Dürer), trophies, china, posters, period costumes, antlers, and taxidermied animals evoke the cultural dimension of this ancient sport. The museum is one of four national museums of the hunt, which includes the superb Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris.

Corot and company would often repair to the Auberge Ganne after painting to brush up on their social life; the inn is now the Musée de Peintres de Barbizon. Here you can find documents detailing village life in the 19th century, as well as a few original works. The Barbizon artists painted on every available surface, and even now you can see some of their creations on the upstairs walls. Two of the ground-floor rooms have been reconstituted as they were in Ganne's time—note the trompe l'oeil paintings on the buffet doors. There's also a video about the Barbizon School.

Just behind the famed cathedral, the town art museum is housed in a handsome 18th-century building that once served as the bishop's palace. Its varied collection includes Renaissance enamels, a portrait of Erasmus by Holbein, tapestries, armor, and some fine (mainly French) paintings from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. There's also a room devoted to the forceful 20th-century landscapes of Maurice de Vlaminck, who lived in the region.

Around the back of Notre-Dame, on Boulevard de la Reine (note the regimented lines of trees), are the elegant Hôtel de Neyret and the Musée Lambinet, a sumptuous mansion from 1751, with collections of world-class paintings, weapons, fans, and porcelain (including the Madame du Barry "Rose"). This lovely, serene mansion exemplifies the elegant life of the cultivated 18th-century Versailles bourgeoisie. Because the museum is rarely crowded, it's a pleasure to peruse at your leisure.

This appealing museum in a historic priory is devoted to the work of artist Maurice Denis (1870–1943), his fellow Symbolists, and the Nabis—painters opposed to the naturalism of their 19th-century Impressionist contemporaries. Denis found the calm of the former Jesuit building, set above tiered gardens with statues and rosebushes, ideally suited to his spiritual themes, which he expressed in stained glass, ceramics, and frescoes as well as oils.

If you have any energy left after exploring Louis XIV's palace and park, a tour of Versailles—a textbook 18th-century town—offers a telling contrast between the majestic and the domestic. From the front gate of Versailles's palace, turn left onto Rue de l'Independence-Américaine and walk over to Rue Carnot past the stately Écuries de la Reine—once the queen's stables, now the regional law courts—to octagonal place Hoche. Down Rue Hoche to the left is the powerful Baroque facade of Notre-Dame, built from 1684 to 1686 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart as the parish church for Louis XIV's new town.

A great alternative to Disneyland, and a wonderful day out for young and old, this Gallic theme park takes its cue from a French comic-book figure whose adventures are set during the Roman invasion of France 2,000 years ago. Among the 30 rides and six shows that attract thundering herds of families each year are a mock Gallo-Roman village, costumed druids, performing dolphins, splash-happy waterslides, and a giant roller coaster.

An extensive park—complete with a lake dotted with tiny islands—stretches behind the château. Within it is the Laiterie de la Reine (Queen's Dairy), built for Marie-Antoinette: inspired by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she came here to escape from the pressures of court life, pretending to be a simple milkmaid. It has a small marble temple and grotto and, nearby, the shell-lined Chaumière des Coquillages (Shell Pavilion).

Le Nôtre's park is based on that familiar French royal combination of formality and romantic eccentricity. The former is represented in the neatly planned parterres and a mighty, straight-banked canal; the latter comes to the fore in the waterfall and the Hameau, a mock-Norman village that inspired Marie-Antoinette's version at Versailles. You can explore on foot or on an electric train, and, in the warmer months, take a rowboat for a meander down the Grand Canal.

This lively square in the heart of the Notre-Dame neighborhood is home to the largest market in the region, far outstripping anything in Paris. Outdoors, stalls offer a veritable cornucopia of fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices; meanwhile, the four historic halls (dating to the reign of Louis XV and rebuilt in 1841) brim with every gourmet delight—foie gras, fine wines, seafood, game, prepared delicacies, cheese from every corner of France—providing a sensory experience that will overwhelm even the most jaded foodie. The open-air market runs three half days a week (Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday 7–2), but the covered food halls are open every day except Monday, from early morning until 7:30 pm (closing is at 2 on Sunday). If you're in the mood for more shopping, the town's marvelous antiques district begins at the northwest corner of the market square and extends along the cobbled streets to the charming Passage de la Geôle.

Exquisite 17th-century stained glass can be admired at the church of Saint-Aignan, around the corner from Saint-Pierre.

Off the road to Rethondes, the Wagon de l'Armistice is a replica of the one in which the World War I armistice was signed in 1918. In 1940 the Nazis turned the tables and made the French sign their own surrender in the same place, then tugged the original car off to Germany, where it was later destroyed. The replica is part of a small museum in a leafy clearing.