Wednesday Walk: The palace gardens of Fontainebleau

in #wednesdaywalk5 years ago (edited)

Hello dear Steemians and photography enthusiast,

Today I want to share with you my wednesday walk that I did through the palace gardens of Fontainebleau. It's located a about 50km south of Paris and the first record of a castle at Fontainebleau dates back to 1137. Since then a lot of different french kings have used the castle and made a lot of constructural changes and additions. For example, Napoleon Bonarparte used the place for his meeting with the pope to get crowned.

IMG_8340.jpg

The castle of Fontainebleau.

We are here mainly for bouldering in the forest, about which I will make a post as well pretty soon. But on this day we went into the town of Fontainebleau to do some shopping and send some letters to germany. After that I wanted to go into the castle garden to take some photos. I have been there several times and I knew this would make a perfect wednesday walk to share with you.

IMG_8259-1.jpg

The frontyard is majestic already.

We entered the estate through a big gate with golden ornaments from a big town square. Through the gate we had a perfect view onto the frontyard of the castle with its horseshoe staircase. A big group of tourist was standing close to it listening to a guide explaining. To take the shot, I almost had to step inside of the group...

IMG_8266.jpg

The staricase was initally build for Henry II in 1547–59 and was rebuild for Louis XIII 85 years later.

After that we walked through an archway to reach a side court of the castle. From there we could see the first part of the castle gardens. On the right side there was a big green lake with people riding rowboats on it. In the middle of the lake a small lodge was build on an island and big purple carps were simming in the water. The court was equipped with different statues made from stone and metal.

IMG_8272.jpg

The lodge in the middle of the lake and a rowboat in front.

IMG_8277.jpg

Some supposably well known guy in a noble stance.

IMG_8282.jpg

Awesome sculptor work. This must have taken forever.

IMG_8285.jpg

And another one...

Through a second archway we reached the vast back part of the gardens. The lawn and flower beds are arranged symmetrically around a huge water basin with a fountain in the center. My grilfriend was already tired from walking around the city all day, so she sat down on a bench and I headed off alone. Along the side of the castle there was an avenue where occasionally horse-drawn carriages drove by.

IMG_8302.jpg

Probably antoher guided tour riding around in a carriage.

IMG_8308.jpg

A very long strip with hundreds of flowers.

I went down to a long strip of flowers and followed it to the end of the garden. On my way I took a few photos of the awesome flowers growing there.

IMG_8309.jpg

A beautiful purple blossom with lots of petals.

IMG_8311.jpg

And a orange blossom with perfect shape.

At this end of the garden there was another basin with a statue of a bird looking into the distance. After a crossing street there was a second basin which was really long and had broad strips of lawn on the sides.

IMG_8324.jpg

The arrangement of the basin, the trees and the lawn made for an awesome perspective.

After that I walked to the opposite side from where we entered the gardens. From here I had a perfect view over the gardens with the big castle in the background.

IMG_8332.jpg

A nice angle of the garden and the castle.

IMG_8326.jpg

And another one in black and white, which i find quite interesting as well.

I walked back through the middle of the garden because I wanted to have a closer look at the fountain in the middle of the whole arrangement. Some swans attracted the eyes of some visitors more than the fountian or the castle. Me included as I took some photos of them as they dived for some food on the ground of the basin.

IMG_8348.jpg

Curious swans swimming close to some people taking photos.

IMG_8351.jpg

A swan, diving for food...

After this little distraction I focused again on the fountain and took some photos from different angles. I decided to make one of these images the introductory photography at the beginning of this post. The following one is shot with a slightly wider angle to get a better overview of the garden.

IMG_8341.jpg

After that half hour walk through the gardens, I retuned to my girlfriend and we decided to head off back into the forest. It was a nice and enjoyable day, but we now wanted to get back into the less crowded forest again.

Hope you enjoyed my entry for the wednesday walk,
if you did please let me know in the comments :)

Have a good week and see you next wednesday!
Constantin


Equipment used: | Canon EOS 50D | Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM | Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM |

Sort:  

What an amazing place for a walk so much history and beauty thanks for sharing with us

Thanks for joining Wednesday Walk :)

!trdo

Congratulations @tattoodjay, you are successfuly trended the post that shared by @constantshots!
@constantshots got 6 TRDO & @tattoodjay got 4 TRDO!

"Call TRDO, Your Comment Worth Something!"

To view or trade TRDO go to steem-engine.com
Join TRDO Discord Channel or Join TRDO Web Site

I'm happy that you like th shots!
It is indeed and awesome place. I would've liked to include a little more historic background information but I was a little short on time and I think the photos are telling their own story already :)

The photos do tell a wonderful story 😎👍😎

This is a combination of different photography. I love Paris and I hope to visit there someday

What an amazing and fantastic place! That stonework is just incredible. Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, I thought the lion looks more like from the asian culture. I figured maybe it was a gift from another country? It definitely has the longest tounge I've ever seen on a lion :D

Hello @constantshots, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!

Thanks a lot for the support!

Hi constantshots,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.

Wow, thanks a lot for supporting my work here on steem!
I really appreaciate it :)

What quality of photos so clear, also that you knew in what position to place them, I really admire you for having gone there!

Thanks a lot for the compliments!
I'm trying to give my bests to shoot good photos :D

Thanks for sharing this ride. The photographs are very, very beautiful. You made several angles, approaches, panoramic, you made us live the walk in Fontainebleau with you. Thank you for giving us the Wednesday walk. I hope you have a spectacular Thursday. Kind regards @constantshots

Wow, thanks a lot @marcybetancourt for the kind words!
I'm happy you felt like you could experience the walk through my view.

I hope you have a spectacular Thursday

Actually I had a really awesome thursday, thanks for your wish :D
Have a happy weekend!

You have a very cute typo in the text - grilfriend :) It made me smile :)

Great photos of a great place and the weather was stunning. You couldn't wish for a better day :) I've been to Paris a couple of times but I spent my time there. Now I see I should have traveled a bit :) When I'll go there next time I'll know better :)

Thank you for sharing and congratulations on your curie vote!

Haha, awesome!
Funnily enough, my "grilfriend" proofread this post and didn't notice as well :D

Yep, the weather was perfect, I didn't even realized it until I started editing...
I can really recommend visiting Fontainebleau if you're already in Paris.
The palace is supposed to have an amazing interior as well.

Also if you have the time, take a walk in the forest of Fontainebleau as well if you love to get out into nature. In my today's post I'll post some photos of the forest so if you're interested, you can have a look on my page later.

Thanks for your nice comment & have a great start into the weekend!

Hahaha :) Sometimes it happens. It also happened to me that I read the post many times and realized that there was a typo after I posted it :) So annoying..

Thank you for the tips! And I will try to have a look at your post today :)

Have a great start into the weekend too!

As long as a typo doesnt conflict with the meaning of your post I really don't mind it that much.
In the end we're all just humans, and my articles on steemit are more on the just for fun side than on a professional level.

I don't know if you looked into my post about the forest of fontainebleau, if you haven't, better have a look at my wedneswalk today, there I have more and better photos of the forest!

Have a nice wednesday!

Such beautiful photos @constantshots. I am intrigued by the lodge in the middle of the lake. What is the purpose of it, do you know? And the flowers, so beautiful! And amazing you caught the photo of the swan dunking its head into the water. Hehe.

Actually I'm not quite sure about the use of this pavillon.
I guess it was used for some intimate hours?

Thanks for your nice comment,
I really appreciate it!

Have a nice day!

Ah that is a good point - to have some intimate hours. I can imagine how lovely it is there to be surrounded by the calmness of water all around.
You deserved the comment :) And thank you! Wishing you a good remainder week!

Posted using Partiko iOS

Yeah, at least in past days, can't imagine it being intimate now with all the tourists at the waterside xD

Wish you a nice weekend!