Vaux-le-Vicomte and Fontainebleau?

I stayed at the Hotel de Londres in Fountainebleau in July of 2013 and had a wonderful time. The hotel is typical Rick Steves in that it is clean but not fancy, the breakfast is awesome, the staff are very nice, it is located across the street from Napoleans Palace. Just 2-3 blocks east there are several great outdoor cafes. The bus will take you from the train station to the hotel and back, overall I think you would like it, but since your driving the bus is probably not a factor. You would have to get up very very early to leave Fountainebleau and make it to CDG airport with plenty of time to check in the car, go through security and make your departure gate.

My only insight is to tell you to allow at least allow three hours to account for traffic, getting gas, and the rental car return. So, if you are taking a transatlantic flight and not one connecting through another EU location, that will mean leaving Fontainebleau no later than 5:30 AM. It's only normally about an 1.5 hours drive.

You have to get up very early to avoid rush hour driving to CDG and it´s hard to say when it actually begins in the morning. If everything goes well, no problem, but one accident somewhere can block traffic severely and can spoil the whole plan, so can be a gamble I guess. I have driven along the N104 and A104 a few times and two times got stuck in a traffic jam. One was caused by an accident and got delayed for more then an hour before finding an alternative route, so missed my appointment.

I think you can enjoy the candlelight experience but look for a hotel as close as possible to CDG and drop off the car there.

Thanks everyone for the input. Will the fact that it will be a Sunday make a difference for the drive to CDG?

Jim, Sunday morning should have lighter traffic. But, traffic follows Murphy's law: if you leave yourself 3 hours to get to CDG, there will probably be no delays but if you leave yourself 2 hours, there probably will be delays. Then you may be agitated which will in turn affect finding a gas station and the rental car return. The worst traffic delays that I have ever experienced were during non-rush hours and one of them took place in France just south of Evry on a Saturday morning.

I made reservations at a hotel near CdG to avoid the anxiety of driving from Fontainebleau the morning we leave. I'm still reluctant to do both Vaux-le-Vicomte and Fontainebleau on the same day. We enjoyed Versaille on our first Paris trip but two chateaus in one day seem like a bit much. Instead, we might drive to Giverny early on Saturday to avoid crowds, and afterwards have a leisurely drive to Vaux-le-Vicomte arriving late in the afternoon. That way we can tour the chateau before they close it to prepare for the candlelight evening and explore the gardens before dinner.

We spent a full day at Vaux le Vicomte -- I would not try to crowd two huge chateaux with enormous grounds into one day -- less is more. And the grounds of Vaux le Vicomte really take time to walk and to appreciate the forced perspective which makes them look smaller than they are.

Thanks janettravels44, your the first to address doing two chateaus in one day. Having already been to Versailles, I was concerned that doing Vaux-le-Vicomte and Fontainebleau on the same day would be too much. I suppose the same could be said of our current plan to do Giverny before lunch and then driving to Vaux-le-Vicomte. However, we will be doing the chateau by candlelight so we don't want to get there too early. Moreover, we're flying home the following day and being exhausted from a long day might make the direct flight to SLC a bit easier.

IMHO you DO want to get there as early as possible - the grounds take a long time and I would want to tour the chateau in the light as well as doing the candlelight thing. This is an enormous place -- we spent about 7 hours there and were disappointed not to have a couple more.

They close the chateau to light candles between 5.45pm and 7pm and the firework show is at 11pm. We thought we'd start touring the chateau around 3pm and then move out to the gardens while the chateau is closed. Somewhere during that time frame we'll also eat dinner at the chateau. All told, we'll have at least 8 hours.

That sounds great -- it is a good mile from one end of the gardens to the other and at the bottom you have to walk along and around the panhandle lake as there is no way across except at the ends.

Sounds like a nice plan.