A Weekend of Climbing, a Chateau, and Résistance

A week has already passed since we first arrived to Fontainebleau. Our sleep routine has fully adjusted, our diet has fully adjusted (1/3 bread, 1/3 cheese, and 1/3 wine), and we have found ourselves in a very comfortable way of life on vacation.

Saturday morning, we enjoyed an easy morning, lounging around the Airbnb and went out to climb around mid-day. Not without a treat, of course, from the corner boulangerie. Today’s choice: cafe eclair.

The crag of the day was Maunoury, about 30 minutes from town. We had a sunny sky and wonderful temperatures again for the afternoon. This crag was filled with “highballs”, these are climbs that are typically taller than the average height. It was some incredibly featured rock, differing from the other crags we’ve been at, set on a slight hillside.

This was a tougher day for me, I had a few sends, but I found myself bailing on a lot of climbs due to fear – which Asa says is tooootally reasonable, but it still doesn’t feel great. This is why I have a love and hate relationship with climbing, accomplishing and overcoming both the physical and mental challenge of a rock is incredibly rewarding, but it can be so easy to feel shut down by the rock. And the rock does nothing, except for existing.

Asa has some good gos too. There’s a streak where he necessarily wasn’t sending every climb, but towards the end of the afternoon, he gets one solid, final send in to cap the session.

This crag had a historic inn, now restaurant, right near the entrance. It once was a hostel, but now it’s a cozy, woodsy dinner restaurant, welcoming locals and the day-tripping climbers and hikers. Some steak and falafel, plus a cheese cake for dessert, however we ended up making an ordering faux-pas.

When asking about the desserts, we inquired about one that had thyme and citrus as listed “flavors”, rather than a vanilla, chocolate, or caramel. The waiter, we understood, repeated what was on the menu “Baby batka” and then said the word “rub”. We gave him a thumbs up, we were intrigued.

Well, when he said rub, he actually said rum.

So delivered to our table was a gorgeous, golden brown cake… soaked in a puddle of rum. We each tried a bite and could not stomach it, unfortunately. Asa was willing to take one for the team and finish it off, but I was worried about the potential aftermath of that action when each bite tasted like it had a shot of rum in it. Instead, we sheepishly said thank you as the server took away the practically whole dessert. Thankfully, we were not shooed away from the restaurant for our lack of understanding.

Saturday came to a close, and Sunday gave us a new day for siteseeing adventures.

After a stop for breakfast, we went to the most famous site in Fontainebleau – Chateau de Fontainebleau. An absolutely enormous chateau that served as a residence for many of the French monarchs, including Marie Antoinette and Napoleon. It’s also where Napoleon signed and agreed to his exile.

Inside the chateau were rooms after rooms of decadent dishware, handcrafted furniture, and many other royal souvenirs, like Napoleon’s hat! It felt very grand, slightly less ostentatious though than Versailles. We couldn’t imagine once being a person walking the very halls we were, living a life of ruling France.

Along with the chateau are the gardens, featuring a basin and a canal. We walked down the park promenade, seeing many geese and swans, and the final fall flower blooms.

Knowing we still had most of the day, we took the opportunity of being so close to Paris and hopped onto a train. Instead of an art museum this time, we went to the Museum of National Resistance – a museum dedicated to the time of German occupation in World War II and the French resistance efforts.

This might have been the highlight of the trip for me. The museum starts with a film, showing video clips of France during the war – fighting, evacuation, political turmoil, and German occupation. From there, the first exhibit starts in 1941, explaining the onset of the German invasion and subsequent takeover of the Vichy government. You’re then taken along the timeline up through D-Day, experiencing what life was like for French citizens through newspapers and political bulletins and propaganda. We learn of the brave people who risked (and sometimes lost) their lives fighting to keep the Allies informed of internal German and Vichy movements, and the amount of horrible repression the Germans forced in the final months to try and maintain control.

From the many novels I’ve read that take place in France in WW2, it was immensely fascinating to see real-life papers documenting news of the day and equipment that was actually used to facilitate opposition to the Axis powers.

Along with the lives of the Resistance, we learned about the politics of the time – how the Vichy government came to power (spoiler: one guy said I’m the ruler now and sided with Hitler) and the maneuvering between Charles de Gaulle and his rival, Henri Giraud. Clearly, de Gaulle won out as his name is on the airport we flew into. Learning about such an immense event, right where so much of it happened is a surreal experience, and one of my favorite things to do when traveling. I’m grateful we were just a train trip away from this astonishing museum.

We chose a relaxed Indian spot for dinner and hopped back on the train to Fontainebleau. Sunday came in at 18,000 steps – our highest count yet! From the 1600s to 1940s, we saw quite the span of French history in one day.