Surprise

It’s so typical of Paris. Just when you thought she’d revealed all her sightseeing secrets, she casually casts another jewel in your path. So it was on Sunday we stumbled across the Domaine National de Saint Cloud. I’d seen a picture of it on one of those Monuments Nationaux flyers you see in museum cashiers and hotel lobbies. Not having heard anything else about it, we’d assumed it would be some third-rate park or wannabe Jardin de Versailles.
It turned out, of course, to be a magnificent surprise. Four hundred and sixty hectares of manicured lawns, ancient forests, breathtaking vistas and monumental fountains, all perched above the Seine at the western edge of the city. There used to be a grand château; home to Catherine de Médicis (she got around, didn’t she?), Marie Antoinette and Napoleon amongst others, it was burned down during the Prussian siege in 1870. Now all that remain are the expansively lovely grounds laid out by le Nôtre, empty and echoing. They are an enchanting fusion of formality and wildness, with grandiose water-features (a 90-metre Grande Cascade) in stark relief against densely wooded groves. For us, the melancholy sense of lost grandeur was deepened deliciously by the red autumnal richness of the soft and mamfy* day; fragrant wood-smoke curling from half-hidden tea houses nestled rustically amongst the trees.
Enthralling to realise that all this is so close to the tourist-trodden trails of the capital, tucked away at the end of Métro lines 9 or 10, a serenely evocative treasure to discover. I am filled with delight by this city which continues to astonish me with new wonders and unexpected riches.

* from the self-styled acronym for "mists and mellow fruitfulness", with apologies to Keats.