My wife and I will be touring Vaux le Vicomte by Candlelight on our next visit to Paris, and will have dinner that night at Les Charmilles overlooking the gardens. We plan to arrive around 3pm and tour the chateau before they close between 5.45pm and 7pm for candlelight implementation. Dinner reservations are available at 7pm, 7:30pm, 8:00pm, 9pm, and 9:30pm. Sunset will be around 10:00pm. Any suggestions on when to eat dinner? Are there times after it re-opens when the chateau is more crowded that we should avoid? Is it better to tour later when it's darker outside? Any input would be appreciated.
Posted by
Chicago
8551 posts
I would eat as late as possible and use your time to walk the amazing grounds in daylight. It is a long walk -- longer than it looks due to the forced perspective of the grounds. You can see our visit at:
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/vaux-le-vicomte-our-last-chateau/
We haven't done the candlelight tour but highly recommend touring first in the daylight so you have both experiences.
Posted by
Long Beach, California, USA
3398 posts
When we went we first toured the gardens in the late afternoon, had dinner around 7:30, then went back into the gardens when they had them lit with candles, and then finally went into the chateau after dark to tour it by candlelight. It wasn't terribly crowded except in some of the smaller rooms like the bedrooms on the upper floors and the smaller sitting rooms on the ground floor. We were lucky enough to have a massive lightning storm while we were touring the chateau - so dramatic!