Weekend in Fontainebleau

Last week we decided to celebrate my birthday outside of Paris. we wanted to get out of the city, travel to the country side, spend time with our friends and relax.
The opportunity came when the lovely J & A invited us to spend a couple of days with them in Fontainebleau.
The town is famous for its beautiful castle, a royal residence for many centuries, for its forest (thre times the size of Manhattan) and for INSEAD.
The lovely J, who happens to be one of the smartest persons I know, is a student at INSEAD. Here she is learning how to save the world from the economic crisis and how to be even smarter than she is.

Incidentally, the day before we left for Fonty, the NYT featured an article on the town, making us even more excited about the weekend getaway. On saturday morning, Mr. R and I walked to Gare de Lyon (10 min ) and got ourselves some return tickets (16 E each). We found the train (it was leaving from a side platform, not the main ones) and started our journey.
In 40 minutes we were in a different world, far away from the temptation of Parisian Soldes and close to a forest, wild animals and fresh air.

A picked us up at the train station, and after dropping our bags at home we went straight to the Jardin of the chateau.
We walked on the icy path, reached the castle, saw the swans that were gathering up by the view visitors in hope of some food. We loved it. The light was incredible, and it felt like we were miles away from Paris.

After a yummy lunch, we headed to Barbizon, a lovely artsy village nearby. Barbizon was the home of artists Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet.

The roof in the picture is in fact the chapel where TR is buried.
The weekend was lovely, the food incredible and most importantly, the company ideal.

We headed back to Paris in the late afternoon, as soon as we got back we opened our computers and started working..home sweet home they say.

More pics here: Fonty weekend