Known for
A moated château and princely art collection, paired with a horse town
Must-see landmarks
Château de Chantilly, Grandes Écuries and the Hippodrome de Chantilly
Getting around
On foot within the domaine; Chantilly-Gouvieux station is 25 mins. away
Free to visit
Parish church of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption and the walking route
Jean Aubert built these stables from 1719 to 1735 for Louis-Henri de Bourbon, 7th prince of Condé, and the château calls them the largest princely stables in the world. Inside, the Living Museum of the Horse fills 15 rooms, and equestrian demonstrations run as a 30 minute narrated presentation. The château is a 12 minute walk east.
Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale, assembled what the château calls the second largest collection of antique paintings in France after the Louvre, then gave the estate to the Institut de France in 1886 and named its galleries the Musée Condé. The Private Suites are seen only on a guided tour. The French garden is a 6 minute walk on.
André Le Nôtre laid out these formal parterres and canals in the 17th century within the estate's 115 hectares of grounds, and the château's own history page calls Chantilly his favourite among every garden he designed. The paths lead north toward the English garden, an 8 minute walk further into the park.
Victor Dubois began this English-style garden in 1817 around a lake with a cast-iron Temple of Venus. Its Hameau, built in 1775 with seven small houses of which five survive, served as the model for Marie-Antoinette's own Hameau at the Petit Trianon in Versailles.
The parish church on Rue du Connétable costs nothing to visit, open daily from 09:00 to 18:00 between April and October and 09:00 to 17:00 the rest of the year. Construction began in 1687, and its 1692 consecration marks the official founding date of the town.
A signposted 2 kilometre walk through the Nonette valley follows André Le Nôtre's canals for free, taking about an hour and passing the Pavillon de Manse, whose restored 17th century machinery once pumped water up to the château's fountains.
The 6,344 hectare state forest around the estate is open to walkers at no charge, its wide paths leading to the Étangs de Commelles ponds. The sandy gallops through the forest are reserved for racehorse training every day until 13:00 and are off limits to walkers for safety.
Forty kilometres north of Paris, on the edge of a state forest that belongs to the same institution as the estate, Chantilly grew around a single estate: a moated château that Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale and son of Louis-Philippe, France's last king, filled with what the château calls the second largest collection of antique paintings in France after the Louvre, and the Grandes Écuries next door, stables built in the 1720s and 1730s for a prince who wanted his horses housed like courtiers. The Hippodrome de Chantilly keeps that history working, running the Prix du Jockey Club and the Prix de Diane and training racehorses on tracks cut through the surrounding forest. The estate also runs whipped cream workshops built around what its own tourist office calls the mysterious origins of the cream that carries its name.
Nearly everything sits inside or beside the Domaine de Chantilly: the château, the stables, the French and English gardens and the Hameau that later inspired Marie-Antoinette's own retreat at Versailles. Rue du Connétable, the town's main street, runs between the stables and the parish church and holds most of its shops and cafés. Beyond the estate, the state forest and a free canal walk along the Nonette valley give a quieter, unticketed side to the same domaine.
Most visitors reach Chantilly as a day trip out of Paris, often paired on the same stay with a morning at the Louvre Museum or an evening under the Eiffel Tower before the train north. The château, its grounds and the Grandes Écuries close every Tuesday and for three weeks from 4 to 22 January, dates worth avoiding altogether.
Trains from Paris Gare du Nord reach Chantilly-Gouvieux station in 25 minutes on the main SNCF line or 45 minutes on RER D, and the château sits only 20 minutes from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. From the station, the estate is about a 25 minute walk, a 5 minute taxi ride or a 10 minute bus ride, and everything inside the domaine itself is on foot. Chantilly belongs to the same circuit of great French chateaux as Vaux-le-Vicomte and the Loire houses at Chambord and Chenonceau, all of them among the best things to do in France.