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From massive — and intimidating, to those who approached them unawares — protective structures to ornate châteaux that housed France's rich and powerful, visiting the country's best castles and palaces offers a studied glimpse into France's history.
- Musée Jacquemart-Andre: In Paris, in the swank 8th arrondissement near the Champs-Elysées, stands a mansion that's like a jewel box. With its gilt salons and elegant winding staircase, it contains one of the best small collections of 18th-century decorative art in Paris. A rare collection of French decorative art is exhibited, along with paintings and sculpture from the Dutch and Flemish schools, including objets d'artfrom the Italian Renaissance. You'll see works by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, Tiepolo, Carpaccio, and the beat goes on.tabmark
- Château de Versailles: Just 21km (13 miles) southwest of Paris lies the town of Versailles and a palace in the center of town that, even though it's unbelievably vast, is as ornately artificial as a jewel box. The kings of France built a whole glittering private world for themselves here, until the French Revolution sent many of the inhabitants of this palace to the guillotine. Go on one of the grandest tours of your life, taking in the Hall of Mirrors where the Treaty of Versailles was signed and the apartments where such mistresses as Madame de Pompadour once romped. It's a moving spectacle.
- Château de Fontainebleau: Seven centuries of French royal history spin around this castle in the town of Fontainebleau, 60km (37 miles) south of Paris. Surrounded by a superb forest, Fontainebleau is more intimate than Versailles and a product of the Renaissance movement in France in the 16th century. Napoléon later added many of the furnishings you'll see here. The Mona Lisa once hung here. François I, who transformed the site in 1528, purchased the painting from the artist Leonardo da Vinci.
- Château de Chambord: In the little town of Chambord, 191km (118 miles) south of Paris, stands the largest castle in the Loire Valley, created by some 2,000 workers between 1519 and 1545. The building represents the pinnacle of the French Renaissance. Set in a park of more than 5,260 hectares (3,000 acres), it is enclosed by a wall stretching for 32km (20 miles).
- Château d'Azay-le-Rideau: This Renaissance masterpiece dominates a little village of the same name. The castle lies 261km (162 miles) southwest of Paris and has a faux defensive medieval look to it. It was occupied by nobles instead of royalty, and construction was ordered in 1515 by Gilles Berthelot, finance minister to François I. Its Renaissance interior is a virtual museum of architecture.
- Mont-St-Michel: Massive walls — more than half a mile in circumference — enclose one of the greatest sightseeing attractions and one of the most important Gothic masterpieces of Europe. Mont-St-Michel, lying at a point 324km (201 miles) west of Paris, can be seen for miles around, a rock rising 78m (260 ft.) high. The tides around Mont-St-Michel are notorious, having claimed countless lives. A Benedictine monastery was founded on this spot in 966 by Richard I, Duke of Normandy, although an earlier monastery was located here from A.D. 708.
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