A day told by the Art & Culture association

With my Art and Culture association, this year we wanted an outing in the Paris region. Rather than (re)visiting one of these great monuments of the capital, we wanted to see what we hiding the other face of Île-de-France.

I chose to go through the groups service from the OT Grand Roissy to book a cultural day, which took place busy with the organization from transportation to visits to meals. With a single interlocutor, it is more tailored and more Fast !

Start of the day… the appointment is given at Paris, Place de la Nation to go towards Écouen by tourist bus. 20 km later, we are north of the capital and Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.

Écouen is a tourist town thanks to its historical wealth, as evidenced by the National Renaissance Museum. Located within the magnificent Château d'Écouen, the museum overlooks the beautiful expanse of the Plaine du Pays de France and today houses exceptional collections in a setting magnificent.

From the outside, we are already impressed by this immense property of a Grand Lord of the Renaissance period: Anne de Montmorency.

Our guide welcomes and takes us for a 1h30 visit in the footsteps of this great sponsor who was the Constable.

We begin this visit with the Chapel where I finds on the ceiling a beautiful vault painted with the emblems of Anne de Montmorency. I marvel at this copy of the famous Supper by Leonardo da Vinci executed by his student Marcio d'Oggiono.

We then head to the weapons room where a collection of weapons and armor is thematically displayed. Each object is a real work of art.

Our guide then invites us to go out into the courtyard of the castle where I can admire the wing devoted to the apartments of the king and queen as well as all the period insignia. A real journey through time.

I go up with the group to the first floor where I find the apartments of the Constable and those of Madeleine de Savoie where furniture and sumptuous objects rub shoulders.

In the following two rooms: the Abigail Pavilion and the Psyche gallery, I discover the prestigious tapestry of the story of David and Bathsheba designed and woven around 1520/1525. Each group member is amazed by the grandeur of the latter and by the attention to detail necessary to achieve it.

I see now the King's apartments with its study, its bedroom, its antechamber and its large room.

We end this first visit with the second floor where I am captivated by the artistic creation of the European Renaissance with the collection of goldwork, ceramics, painted enamels, ironwork, bronze and sculpted wood and the vivid impression of having made a return to the past.

It is now time to lunch at the castle restaurant : At the Table of Kings.

Located on the garden side, it has a beautiful terrace from where we have a magnificent view of the plain of France.

The taking of beautiful photos is going well!

Terrace of the table of kings ©table of kings

Un journey and delicate menu is served to us according to the formula previously reserved with our Group Manager.

It's certain these notes of sweetness that we leave the castle grounds and go down the stairs to the left of the Museum exit to reach the terrace of the tea room within the Tourist Office. A completely charming and relaxing setting.

This office has the particularity of being within a period building: The Manor of Tourelles built at the beginning of the 19th century in the former rose garden of the castle.

entirely restored in 2009, its privileged location in the heart of the center history of the city gives it a major role in creating synergy between local sites. It even seems that its second and third floor house a exhibition space and stained glass and painting workshops. We will come back to see all this.

Right here, we divide our group in two. While our colleagues attend the Télégraphe de Chappe exhibition, we are going to take a short digestive and informative walk in the city.

Through a route of 20 lecterns called the painters' journey, we wander the picturesque old streets with the provincial character of Écouen.

These streets have names that are not very evocative: Edouard Frère, Auguste Schenck, Emmanuel Duverger, Paul Lorillon or Théophile Hingre. However, these characters were very renowned painters or sculptors in the second half of the 19th century. We have the fun de More info that over time some buildings are remained intact and are identical to the paintings represented on the lecterns. It is also easy to imagine the scenes of life at the time. Indeed, the specialty of these painters is what we call genre painting or the art of painting the daily life of yesteryear.

The time has come to attend the Chappe Telegraph conference within the Office. This one-hour conference tells us that on July 12, 1793, the first official experiment in successful aerial optical transmission of a message took place on the top of the hill in the village of Écouen. This operation is considered today as the birth of telecommunications. Using written materials from members of the Chappe Telegraph association, we learn how to decipher these coded messages. Impressive !

Finally, we visit the Saint-Acceul Church. Our passionate guide tells us that the church was built from 1536 by the Constable Anne de Montmorency (builder of the Château d'Écouen) who wanted to make this imposing monument a symbol of the rank and power of the Montmorency.

The main particularity of the Ecouen church lies in its stained glass windows which have reached us intact since the Renaissance. A true gem!

I end this enriching day with a gourmet break at the Manoir des Tourelles and the Tourist Office which has a charming and friendly tea room within it. Hot drinks and sweet treats are served to us by volunteers who are always ready to tell us anecdotes about this magnificent town that is Écouen and which fascinates them so much.