Barbizon and Foret de Fontainebleau

In the town of Barbizon, they have mosaics of the most famous Barbizon School paintings on the main street.

Our trip planner, Pierre, took us away last weekend.  We rented a car and headed south of Paris.  The truckers, who were protesting an eco-tax only slowed us down for an hour or so.  They were blockading a couple of the lanes out of Paris.  Our one hour trip took...more than an hour.  Thank goodness for the ipod and our downloaded kids' books.

Our first stop was  the village of Barbizon, which was made famous by the 

Barbizon School of painters.

According to Wikipedia: In 1824 the Salon de Paris exhibited works of John Constable, an English painter. His rural scenes influenced some of the younger artists of the time, moving them to abandon formalism and to draw inspiration directly from nature. Natural scenes became the subjects of their paintings rather than mere backdrops to dramatic events. During the Revolutions of 1848 artists gathered at Barbizon to follow Constable's ideas, making nature the subject of their paintings. The French landscape became a major theme of the Barbizon painters.

The leaders of the Barbizon school were Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Charles-François Daubigny; other members included Jules Dupré, Constant Troyon, Charles Jacque, Narcisse Virgilio Diaz, Pierre Emmanuel Damoye, Charles Olivier de Penne, Henri Harpignies, Gabriel-Hippolyte Lebas (1812–1880), Albert Charpin, Félix Ziem, François-Louis Français, Emile van Marcke, and Alexandre Defaux.

Many of the Impressionists took interest in the Barbizon painters and followed their footsteps to  Foret de Fontainebleau, which is next door to the village of Barbizon.

 Today, it is an area that is very popular among rock climbers, hikers, and horseback riders.  

We enjoyed hiking and scrambling on the rocks.

 There are caves to explore and many rocks that look like animals.

 We stayed at an old farm that had been converted into a bed and breakfast.  It was so nice to look at the window and see green.

 We stayed in one of the outbuildings.  This is the main house; its claim to fame is that it was owned by a speculator who ruined many people, including Manet's in-laws.

When the speculator lost all of his money, there was a big sale.

The next morning we went to the Chateau de Fontainebleau.