Fountainbleau

Bon jour, mes amies,
I am settled in or beginning to be after the day's adventures.  Just before coming home I went to buy my weekend croissants and a baguette because I am having cheese for dinner.  At the boulangerie counter I ran into someone who actually spoke less French than I do, something I thought was hardly possible.  She was Irish by the sound of her and had a baby in tow and wanted to sit down and have a snack.  I taught her how to say "sur place" as opposed to "emporter" or take away.  Go moi!
I visited Fountainbleau today, and it is amazing, but I thought it would be an easy day trip, and for a while it was anything but--all due to a series of errors and bad decisions on my part.  My first and fundamental mistake was not looking on line for train info.  I trusted the guidebook, which while not wrong, proved woefully incomplete.  I got to Gare de Lyon all right, but that's where things began to go wrong.  Used to be one could buy a combo ticket for the train, bus, and chateau.  Not any more.  Fountainbleau is in the Ile, so one buys one's ticket downstairs with the RER tix, but as I discovered after wasting a ticket on RER D, the RER does not go that far.  One has to go up stairs to actually find a train.  It look me about forty minutes to figure this out, but then I was on my way.
We arrived at Fountainbleau-Avon.  Here comes the bad decision.   According to the guidebook the chateau is a mere two kilometers away from the station.  I can walk it easily, I surmised--once I knew where to go.  The map was no help, but I overheard a French couple who intended to walk, so I followed them.  The young woman had google maps or some kind of app, but they appeared uncertain.  I accosted a passing French woman to ask.  Her reply.  "Ooh la la!"  Yes.  The French actually say that.  She thought we were nuts, and she had a point, but we all soldiered on and at length and in a round about way arrived at gates.
But not of the chateau.  We had arrived at the park called Le Foret de Fountainbleau, and had to cross it to get to the palace.  This was all right with me because walking in the forest was something I wanted to do.  So I had a nice walk under the trees.
I fetched up at the chateau, snooted around the gardens a bit, then bought my ticket.  It was more crowded than when I had been there last, and it seemed to me that a lot had changed, and more rooms were open.  In contrast to Versailles, Fountainbleau is Renaissance although evidence of the later Louises and Napoleon is also there.  Zowie.  Talk about ornate.  Some of those rooms make Versailles look like an underdecorated shack!  We have a concept in Art History called horror vacui--fear of empty spaces.  Every available surface was covered in decoration, ceilings, walls, furniture, floors.  I marveled at the wall and ceiling frescos and gasped at the wonderful, richly colored tapestries.  Paintings?  Statuary?  Clocks?  Tables?  Chairs?  Whatever you fancy is on offer, and it's all elaborately and luxuriously decorated.
Then I walked around the gardens some more, but the weather turned sultry, and I was tired by then.  When I emerged the folks were dismantling the market.  Now if I had taken the bus, I would have been able to do a quick walk through.  I certainly wasn't going to walk back either!  I caught the bus and then the train, and here I am.
A demain.