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extraordinary grandeur!). Displays cover everything from riding equipment to horse toys to portraits, drawings and sculptures of famous nags. The last tickets for the museum are sold one hour before it closes. Every visitor, big and small, will be mesmerised by the 30-minute Présentation Équestre Pédagogique (Introduction to Dressage) – a Chantilly must-do included in the admission price. Presentation times are: 11.30am, 3.30pm and 5.15pm Wednesday to Monday from April to October; 11.30am Monday and Wednesday to Friday, and 11.30am, 3.30pm and 5.15pm Saturday and Sunday from November to March. Even more magical and highly sought-after are the handful of equestrian shows performed in the stables each year; tickets are like gold dust and can be reserved online.

Less in demand but equally entertaining are the plays and theatrical pieces staged during July and August in the open-air Theatre de la Faisanderie (www.theatredelafaisanderie.com) of the Potager des Princes ( 03 44 57 39 66; www.potagerdesprinces.com; 17 rue de la Faisanderie; adult/under 18yr €7.50/4; 2-7pm Wed-Mon Mar-Nov). Arrive before 5.30pm, when the last tickets of the day are sold. Hidden behind an old stone wall, these lovely little-known gardens embrace a watery and romantic Jardin Fantastique crossed with bridges and grottoes; an exotic Jardin Japonais, a flower-filled Verger (vegetable garden), several Italianate waterfalls, a 19th-century rose garden and puppet theatre (shows Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday). The rabbit obstacle-course races held in the Lapinodrome – a rabbit village with church, town hall etc – will raise a smile, be it one of amusement or sheer disbelief.

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TRANSPORT: CHANTILLY

Distance from Paris 48km

Direction North

Travel time 25 minutes by train

Car By motorway, Autoroute du Nord (A1/E19), exit No 7 ‘Survilliers-Chantilly’; by national road, N1 then N16 from Porte de la Chapelle/St-Dénis.

SNCF train Paris’ Gare du Nord is linked to Chantilly (€7) by SNCF trains, departing almost hourly between 6.30am and 10.30pm.

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South of the chateau is the 6300-hectare Forêt de Chantilly (Chantilly Forest), once a royal hunting estate and now crisscrossed by a variety of walking and riding trails. In some areas, straight paths laid out centuries ago meet at multi-angled carrefours (crossroads). Long-distance trails that pass through the Forêt de Chantilly include the GR11, which links the chateau with Senlis 10km northeast, an attractive medieval town of winding cobblestone streets, Gallo-Roman ramparts and towers and a lovely cathedral; the GR1, which goes from Luzarches (famed for its cathedral, parts of which date from the 12th century) to Ermenonville; and the GR12, which goes northeastward from four lakes known as the Étangs de Commelles, to the Forêt d’Halatte.

The tourist office sells IGN’s indispensable walking map Forêts de Chantilly, d’Halatte and d’Ermenonville (No 2412OT; 1:25,000; €9.50) and the ONF (Office National des Forêts; National Forests Office) has information on walks and mountain-bike trails in the forest.

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CHÂTEAU DE WHIPPED CREAM

Like every other self-respecting French chateau three centuries ago, the palace at Chantilly had its own hameau (hamlet), complete with laitier (dairy) where the lady of the household and her guests could play milkmaids. But the cows at Chantilly’s dairy took their job rather more seriously than their fellow bovine actors at other faux dairies, and news of the crème Chantilly (sweetened whipped cream) served at the hamlet’s teas became the talk of aristocratic 18th-century Europe. The future Habsburg Emperor Joseph II clandestinely visited this ‘temple de marbre’ (marble temple), as he called it, to taste the stuff in 1777, and when the Baroness of Oberkirch tasted the goods she cried: ‘Never have I eaten such good cream, so appetising, so well prepared.’ Sample it in any café or restaurant in town.

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INFORMATION & ORIENTATION

The chateau is just over 2km northeast of the train station; cut along