Forêt de Fontainebleau
An hour south of Paris by train, the Forêt de Fontainebleau is 25,000 hectares of ancient oak and beech threaded with sandstone gorges, bizarre rock formations and 300 kilometres of marked trails. It is where French Romanticism was born — Corot and Millet painted here — and it remains one of the great wild escapes within reach of any European capital.
Rock Climbing & Bouldering
Fontainebleau is the birthplace of modern bouldering: the rounded sandstone outcrops that erupt from the forest floor — locally called chaos — have been graded and mapped since the 1930s. The Rocher Canon and Gorge aux Loups circuits near Barbizon are accessible to beginners, while the Cuvier Rempart sector draws elite climbers from across Europe year-round.
Even non-climbers should walk the Gorge de Franchard circuit (8 km, easy) where the path winds between house-sized boulders draped in lichen and fern. In autumn the beech canopy turns amber and ochre in a way that makes the forest feel almost theatrical.
The Town of Fontainebleau & the Château
The Château de Fontainebleau in the town centre is the most lived-in royal palace in French history — every monarch from François I to Napoleon III left a mark, which gives the interiors a layered, personal quality that Versailles, for all its grandeur, sometimes lacks. Napoleon's farewell to his Old Guard in the Cour des Adieux in 1814 is one of the defining scenes of the Napoleonic legend.
The town itself is calm, prosperous and well-supplied with patisseries. Pick up a tarte Bourdaloue (pear and almond) from one of the bakeries on Rue Grande before heading into the forest — it is the correct fuel for a morning among the boulders.
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