budget,  travel

Last adventure in France: Fontainebleau

July 10, 2019 /

This will be my last travel post about our trip to Europe. I have enjoyed reliving our adventures through writing and recording our trip. Before leaving the north of France, we decided to visit Fontainebleau, a castle that began in the medieval times (nothing much is left from that era, just a small donjon stairwell) through the 19th century. It bcomes a large palace especially during the 2nd part of the reign of Francois 1er (1494-1547). Napoleon 1st will also spend time there in the 1800s.

Since my husband and I had never visited the inside of the palace and the day was forecasted to be rainy, we drove to Fontainebleau with a picnic lunch and enjoyed a couple of hours visited the grandiose rooms of this palace. There was a art festival going on that day so admission was free which is always wonderful news for this budget minded mom. I think that children are always free and adult admission is usually about 14 euros so still not an expensive outing if you have to pay admission.

As you can see with the bedrooms, every thing is very ornate and heavily decorated. Tapestries cover the walls, carpets cover the floor and the ceilings are carved and ornate as well.

Aren’t these fireplaces amazing? Even though there were a few school groups, we were mostly able to take our time and walk leisurely and see what we wanted to see. We were able to borrow a stroller for our youngest at the entrance so we did not have to carry him.

I think the detailing is what amazed me the most! How much money and time was taken to build this palace? For an alternative to Versailles with less crowds, I would suggest visiting Fontainebleau which is about 1 hour outside of Paris. If I remember correctly there are about 1500 rooms/halls in the palace. Incredible!

There were a set of Chinese rooms that were some of my favorites! The Chinese Museum was among the last rooms decorated while it was still an imperial residence. In 1867, the Empress Eugenie had the rooms remade to display her personal collection of Asian art, which included gifts given to the Emperor by a delegation sent by the King of Siam in 1861(Wikipidia).

For those who may be curious and since this is a blog about budgeting and as I want to encourage people to travel, the trip including everything (the lodging we did have to pay for, car rental, gas, tolls, food, airplane tickets, souvenirs…) was right at $6700 for a family of 6 for two weeks. Yes, this is less than it would be if you had to pay for all of your meals and all of your lodging. But that is how we chose where we travel: do we have friends we can lodge with for part of the time, can we use hotel points, can we eat lunch without eating out..? The car rental did surprise us since we paid $200 more than planned for it but I am glad we were comfortable and had lots of space in that enormous van and thankfully it was pretty economical being a hybrid and using diesel which is cheaper than regular gas in Europe.

Combining visiting our wonderful friends with visiting 2 beautiful countries made for a wonderful vacation. Next vacation in France and Spain will be more relaxing since we will spend less time in the car and more time in each place (yes, I am already planning that one in 3 years probably). Not sure what next summer will bring. I am planning to be a very thrifty mom and will not depriving our family of clothes and food, I want to focus on saving for our next vacation so be prepared for more post focused on free or affordable fun in the future and new outfit posts sharing how you can dress fashionably on a budget.

A bientôt!

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Here are the links to some of my blogs posts on budgeting and how we have such great vacations!

Choosing lodging on a budget

Find deals on international flights

Save money on food while traveling abroad

Saving for a trip

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