Visiting Chateau Fontainebleau, France/Carlos Pueblo

Visiting Chateau Fontainebleau, France/Carlos Pueblo

One night, a Taiwanese female tourist recommended Chateau Fontainebleau

for me to visit and explained the palace has been famous for its gardens and

was a palace for the emperors mistresses. I took a subway train to Lyon Station

and transferred to a railway to Fontainebleau-Avon Station about 34 miles

southeast of Paris. The palace was established in 1137 as a fortress of the king

and later became a hunting place and palace for mistresses. It was also an

administrative palace for some kings and emperors during times.

Again, I took a direct bus from the train station to the front gate of the palace.

On the map, it is stated as Fontainebleau-Avon and I assume there are two small

cities adjacent to each other. It’s been a capital; therefore, the cities appear very

nice like Versailles. I entered a side gate through a park later know is Diane Garden.

Diane was then a mistress of King Henry IV. The flowers bushes closed to the palace

building attracted me very much; however, I could not name them except later in

another garden a gardener told me one of them deutzia, a kind of snow like flower

in Chinese description in the dictionary. There is a statue of Diane in a small pond

with spring fountain and her 4 handsome dogs accompanying her. I walked along the

edge of the garden and noticed that I was late for roses or peonies. Outside of the

building wall, there is a bronze plate shown the garden’s name and brief introduction.

This bronze plate is facing the big palace square with the famous horse shoe stairs to

the main palace facing the main gate and outside is the city’s Place of General De Gaulle.

There were visitors started to come in include two groups of school children line up to

visit one side of the palace. The main portion was not open until later. I continued to

walk into a larger Jardin Anglais, English Garden. There are small brooks, grass ground,

lakes, bridge, and many beautiful flowering bushes. I asked a gardeners group of three,

one of them wrote two names of flowers for me, Rhododindon and Deutzia, I believed

in English, Rhododendron and Deutzia for both. I recognized Rhododendron immediately

because of running into the season on my trip to Seattle and Alaska. I believe that azalea

is a sub-species of rhododendron which seems combined several azalea flowers together

into a bunch. There are several kinds of colors, red, pink, and yellow rhododendron in

the garden. There is a pavilion on the lake with white swans and row boats for the interested

visitors. On the other side, there is a huge Palace Park and la grande prairie, a grand praire.

I noticed when I studied the search which interested me very much. Louis XIV utilized this

Palace as well as Chateau Versailles, his grandfather, Louis XIII was born here. Both

Napoleons loved here, the first signed his abdication here while the third received Siam

Group with presents here. He also joined the British forces invaded Peking and robbed the

Summer Palace. He kept both Siam and Chinese staff inside the Palace Chinese Museum.

He, the third, lost the French-Prussian War and was a prisoner of war at the end.