Spectacular Water Gardens Of Château Courances

If King Louis XIV had seen the extraordinary gardens of Château Courances he definitely would have been as jealous as he was by Château Vaux Le Vicomte!

So maybe it was a good thing that these lovely gardens weren’t completely finished at that time.   If Fouquet at Vaux Le Vicomte was punished for trying to outdo Versailles, then Chateau Courances certainly would have provoked the king’s anger as well!

There are dozens of Châteaux around Paris that offer sweeping grounds, but I found the water gardens of Courances to be as impressive as Versailles, just less ornate.

Here you will find multiple sizes of pools, two grand canals, huge basins, moats, spouting fountains, bubbling streams, statues, and a beautiful Japanese garden.

An amazing fact about these 17 spectacular pools is that there aren’t any motors or water pumps that move the waters around!

Each one is fed by using hydraulic knowledge from the 1600s, where subtle manipulation of water levels fill the basins fed by over 14  natural springs!

I had always wanted to go to their annual garden show but for some reason, I never made it out.  Courances is 60 kilometers south of Paris or about an hour’s ride.

The domain is huge covering over 185 acres. There are sweeping allees lined with tall trees alongside the grand canals.

Prairie land with grazing cows and dense surrounding forests cradle the landscape.  

The exterior of the château has changed throughout the years since it was constructed in 1630.   Likewise, the gardens have changed too as they continue to do so today.

The de Ganay family that has owned the chateau for several generations resides in this magnificent dwelling.

There is a slight American connection to Château Courance in that Jacqueline Bouvier would often spend weekends there with friend Paul de Ganay during her junior year in Paris, back in 1948.

Valentine de Ganay, the current resident, has grand plans for Courances to provide organic vegetables affordable to all, saying that “organic vegetables shouldn’t be just for the elite”.

The gardens are maintained by just 4 gardeners and without any pesticides or chemical herbicides.

She is committed to soil restoration and allowing nature to preside, rather than try to engineer nature to meet human needs and expectations.

Over 1,800 trees have been recently planted and she plans to sow crops in the weed-filled pastures, rather than plow the fields.  Courance no longer prunes the trees either, trusting nature to the chore.

Before Covid, there was a little store on the grounds that sold their produce, but it wasn’t open when I visited.

The Château was not open for visiting but I did notice several small children playing in the front courtyard.  Must be nice to have a play date at a Château!

Another remarkable thing to greatly admire that goes along with de Ganay’s philosophy is allowing algae and duckweed that grows in the canals, pools and moats to remain.

Their growth is kept in check naturally by carp imported from Mongolia, seen swimming in one of the fabulous pools.

Each time I go to a château, I like to feel some of the energy of the place. The grounds, being the only place I could visit at Château Courances presented some mystique and romantic romp as I walked along them.  You could almost hear hushed laughter and whispered words of couples strolling around.

There were certainly lots of places to play cache cache(hide and seek) for capricious lovers in dense little stretches of forest or thick brush around some bubbling wells spilling water into rock-strewn streams.

One spring called the Fontaine du Roi(king) was still burbling King Louis XIII’s favorite table water that he insisted be collected for his use at Château Fontainbleau nearby.

There is the river Ecole that runs alongside the domain, but it was hidden from view.  The grounds take quite a bit of time to walk around from the majestic grand canals both in front and in back of the château and the various side pools and basins.

An absolutely huge basin was dappled with light green algae that deepened in colour in other areas.  Some pools were left undisturbed to invite fowls to settle in for nesting. I saw families of small waterfowl and ducks walking on the lily pads around their mounded nests.

There is a tea salon next to the beautiful formal Japanese gardens.  I forwent having tea or pastries and settled on a bench to just absorb the beauty of the garden.

On the walk back out,  was amazed that I hadn’t been to Courances before, but very grateful that I was able to have a new wow discovery today.

Everything has its time to be discovered and its nice to think that there are still many wonderful surprises in Ile de France!

I definitely see myself returning to walk these very romantic gardens again that may not have the royal history of Versailles but are just as impressive in their own spectacular way.