Vaux-le-Vicomte

this Chateau is outside the city limits of Paris and is about an hour's bus ride.  It was built by one of Louis the 14th's  main guys and then found guilty of skimming a little money off the top and was banished for life. The movie  "The Man in the Iron Mask" tells part of the tale.    The house is lit only  by candlelight on Saturdays during the summer and since the sun does not set till 10:15-10:30ish we arrived for a dinner picnic and we toured the grounds and the estates lovely gardens until the house was open to the public at 8pm.

The gardens and the house itself becomes a model for Versailles.

Earlier today, I just sat in the Luxembourg gardens playing catch-up on my writing assignments for class.