Forêt de Fontainebleau
An hour south of Paris by train, the Forest of Fontainebleau covers 25,000 hectares of ancient oak and pine, punctuated by the surreal sandstone boulder fields that made it Europe's first outdoor climbing destination in the 1870s. It's where Monet, Rousseau and the Barbizon painters came to paint en plein air — and the light really is that good.
The Boulder Fields & Climbing
The Bleau boulder fields — Franchard Isatis, Cuvier Rempart, and Bas Cuvier are the most celebrated — offer thousands of graded problems on warm orange sandstone. Climbers come from across Europe to work the low-to-the-ground 'circuits' colour-coded by difficulty; even non-climbers find the moonscape of rounded boulders stacked like giant eggs completely otherworldly.
The Gorges de Franchard loop trail (about 7 km) threads through the best of the boulder scenery without requiring any climbing skill — just sturdy shoes and a willingness to scramble over a few rocks.
The Town of Fontainebleau
The forest wraps around the town of Fontainebleau, whose royal château — a favourite of Napoleon — is less visited than Versailles but arguably more intimate and historically layered. Napoleon signed his first abdication here in 1814; the room where he did it is preserved exactly as he left it.
The town's main street, Rue Grande, has a handful of excellent boulangeries and a Saturday morning market on Place de la République that draws producers from the surrounding Seine-et-Marne farmland. It makes a perfect post-hike lunch stop.
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