Fontainebleau And Vaux-le-vicomte Castle Small-group Day Trip From Paris

This was a great tour. Our driver was courteous, prompt, and included little extra stops that made the tour a great value. He was flexible on how much time we spent at each stop, and made sure we had seen everything we wanted to see . A great day!

This is an excellent tour! Would do it all over again. We had lunch at Fontainebleau and the food was to die for and the sweets were sent from heaven. You will love this tour. And kudos to the guide…the very best.

Comfortable and informative, and the guide was superb! The guide not only knew the architectural history of the castles, she provided terrific background information on their historical context. Thank you for a great day at the castles.

Cesar was an excellent guide and truly took time to answer all questions presented to him. A truly enjoyable trip.

Versailles is beautiful but always mobbed. Vaux-le-Vicomte inspired it, and Fontainebleau has much more history.

Wonderful trip. Many interesting sights, including some unplanned ones. Fabulous guide.

This was a great way to see two famous castles in one day! Valeria was a fantastic guide. She was friendly, funny, personable, patient and adaptive. She told us lots of fun facts and stories. We had a wonderful time!

Had a great day and our guide Theo was excellent, knowledgeable and friendly Unfortunately it was extremely warm in both chateau but this was out of our control Theo’s suggestion for lunch in Blandy was great

Great small group tour. Our guide Clementine was wonderful. Beautiful palaces and gardens. Very worthwhile.

Comte was then best tour I've been on. Beautiful chateau and gardens. no crowds and great audio tour. System knew which room you were in.....

Clementine was an outstanding guide. Amazing historical knowledge. Great experience. Highly recommend.

Our guide, Anatole, was great! He was very informative and ready to answer any questions. He was an excellent driver, personable, and very well organized. I highly recommend this tour.

We had a wonderful trip to Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte. Anatole spoke perfect English. He was also a great driver and engaging guide. He gave us a lot of background info as we drove to the châteaux. Lunch was on our own, but he showed several brasseries in the quaint town of Fontainebleau. We also stopped in Blandy to see a medieval castle. We had plenty of time at each site and necer felt rushed. Highly recommend!

Agustín and Theo were my tour guides! Yes, mine lol! I signed up for a small group tour but apparently everyone else cancelled but me! Wonderful is short in comparison with the VIP treatment that I got this day! Visiting 2 amazing castles and a small village was amazing and the stories behind them even more! 100% recommended

This was one of our favorite excursions! Pick up was easy, beautiful ride. Valaria, our driver and guide made it so fun and interesting. Avoiding the Versailles crowds and having an air conditioned ride was priceless and the castles were so beautiful and interesting. Highly recommend!!

Our guide made our tour extraordinary! Karim was so wonderful. A member of our group lost his bag and it took a half hour to find. Karim did not shorten our tour at all. He just extended it. He gave us so much time at each chateau for exploring. He even took us to a centuries-old church that was not a part of the tour that we paid for (after checking with us that it was okay). It was amazing! He had so much to tell us and was very entertaining at each chateau and at the church. He is a very animated storyteller. Additionally, my mother has some mobility issues, and he took such good care of her every time she was getting in or getting out of the van. Thanks to Karim, this tour was worthy every penny! He took this photo for us.

The castle at Fontainebleau is incredible. I grade our guide Clementine at 5 stars for her knowledge of both Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-vicomte. The timeline the tour guide must follow made the Fontainebleau experience rushed and we were unable to listen to all the subtopics given for each room of the castle. We had to hurry through the last ⅓ of the tour. Vaux-le-Vicomte is beautiful. However the family maintains the property privately and it is very apparent that the upkeep is substantial. The audio tour is similar to a telenovela instead of a detailed presentation on each room you visit. I would most certainly recommend seeing Fontainebleau and would take it prior to a visit to Versailles for context

Looking at other chateau before Versailles, and the one that inspired its creation, plus it is less crowded.

Karim was amazing! Super funny and knowledgeable! And it goes without saying that Fontainebleau and Vaux-Le-Vicomte were fabulous, and the history for both was fascinating.

A great experience with a very knowledgeable guide.

Guide was knowledgeable, kind-hearted and patient. Viewing Fontainebleau and Vaux-de-Vicomte was very enjoyable.

This is a bit of an undiscovered tour, but both sites are spectacular! Karim was a very good guide and we really enjoyed our day. Kareem‘s secret lunch spot also was very nice.

Based on the amount we paid, we expected a much better experience. We only had a driver (no knowledgeable, experienced guide) in a very small, crowded van. Nothing was provided, not even water. I have never been on a group tour where water was not available. The driver, Clementine, spend most of the time talking about her personal life, one-on-one, to the person sitting in the front with her. When we arrived at the first stop, she used a 3-ring notebook to quickly describe the history of Fontainebleau, then left us on our own. We were given audio guides but no headphones. She expected us to hold the audio guides up to our ears, while also holding the water bottles we purchased at the vending machine, our phones/cameras and any other items we carried with us. The audio guides were useless because, if we had listened to the full description of each room, we would not have gotten through in the short time she allowed us. We, and others in our group, were never able to find the courtyard and some of the rooms. We joked that there should be a prize for the first person who asked a question the driver was actually able to answer. We arrived back in Paris nearly 2 hours early because the driver wanted to get ahead of traffic. Regarding the driving, she only came to a full stop at stop signs if there was another vehicle clearly visible. The round-abouts - scary!! This was a very expensive, very disappointing experience. I expected more from Viator.

This is an interesting all-day excursion from Paris. Our tour guide/driver was very good and gave us valuable historical information about both Fontainebleau and Vaux-Le-Vicomte. The morning was spent in Fontainbleau walking through the palace/castle as well as through all the Napoleon artifacts. We then took a one hour lunch break in the town of Fontainbeleau. In the afternoon, we went out to Vaux-Le-Comte which is one of the few remaining private chateaux in France. Drop dead beautiful gardens. During the course of our tour, we were greeted by Charles De Vogue who with his two brothers own and operates the Chateaux with a staff of around 30 people. It is a fulltime job maintaining and upgrading the Chateaux and its surrounding gardens. An altogether interesting and relaxing day taking us back into the history of 16th century France. I would recommend this day trip if you would like to get out of Paris. Peter S. Matorin

The tour was fine, but most of the tour was audio guide. Our tour guide was very sweet and helpful, but more like a glorified van driver.

Our guide Caesar was great. He was so knowledgeable and you could tell that he enjoyed his job. I would definitely recommend this trip. It’s broken up enough that you aren’t consistently standing. Unfortunately our group had 2 women that didn’t bother tipping, while not required Caesar went out of his way for the group and he deserved to be tipped. Thank you Caesar, sorry for the selfishness of the women.

Will was very personable and ensured we had a good time. He provided good information about the sites and instructions for meeting times and places.

Very enjoyable and interesting! Fontainebleau was gorgeous and Vaux-Le-Vicomte was Versailles on a manageable scale! The small group was perfect. Our guide, Will, was full of fun facts and very nice.

These are both great castles to see, and guide did a fantastic job of describing background of both. I was having mobility difficulties and she was extra helpful in finding best route to wall so that I could see everything with minimum difficulty.

Wonderful experience, but if you are tall or injured get there early. My husband and I loved the experience, but he has stenosis of the neck and is 6'5" tall. He had to sit in the worst seat in the van, given we were the last ones there. Getting to this tour early to stake your claim in the mini van is important as this really impacted our comfort level. We were the last ones there so we got theeee worst seats and we were the tallest people in the crowd. Made for a tough journey, but no one's fault but ours. We loved the castles and the guide Valeria was terrific. The history and sites were on our bucket list and totally delivered.

This tour was fantastic in every way! My husband is a Landscape Architect so he was in heaven the entire time! We loved the small group experience and the fact that we felt like we had both places to ourselves, mainly because more people visit Versailles. These chateaus were just as amazing in their own ways though! What made it the most special was our guide, Caesar, who knew and shared so much significant information about each chateau. He was a fun and easy guide but also very invested and passionate about all he shared. He really took the tour to the next level for us. This was a tour we would recommend to everyone!!

This is another booking with Viator (the other one was in Strasbourg last April 2025), in which the "tour guide" is a glorified driver. They were both just a driver with poor knowledge of the destinations.

Our guide was very knowledgeable. Very funny and friendly. Fontainebleau was absolutely amazing!! Loved the little town also. Highly recommended!!!

I was travelling on my own and wanted a tour that went to these two places - I was so impressed by the professionalism of my amazing guide Brunhilde. The knowledge was beyond what I expected and fantastic English. This day tour is one of the best I have ever taken.

I had an enjoyable, comfortable day in the countryside visiting these beautiful chateaux and a medieval castle. Will is an engaging, informative guide who created a friendly atmosphere for the group. He gave us histories of each chateau before we took the audio tours of the site at our own pace. I recommend this tour.

Our full day trip from Paris was amazing. Our tour guide Valeria was professional, informative and entertaining. We visited 2 chateaux and town of Fontainebleau where we had lovely lunch. The Fontainebleau chateaux is rich in history of French kings. The wall around the gardens was a pleasant surprise. This tour is highly recommended.

Vauxhall le Viconte is worth the time, effort and expense. Our guide was excellent. Fontanbleau was good also.

The tour was excellent in every way possible. The pacing was good. The Chateau de Fontainebleau and Vaux-Le-Vicomte were beautiful in the French countryside. It was a nice spring day out from Paris and a real treat. At Fontainebleau we were very lucky to be present during an superbe equestrian show. Also, it was a day when there were a lot of costumed persons re-enacting the 1700s. Most importantly, our tour guide was outstanding. He was personable, flexible, and highly informative.

The trip was great and our guide Brun was excellent. She was very friendly, gave us a lot of information, clear instruction, and showed us an extra castle on the way. Last but in no way least, she is a very good driver too.

This tour is highly recommended and a beautiful escape to France’s chateaux life. We were really given the royal treatment by our personal guide, Brunehilde. It was supposed to be a very small group, but that particular day it was just for my aunt and myself. Brunehilde went above and beyond with her attention and kindness. She is/ was a true professional and provided us with detailed and interesting historical and cultural insight to the places we would visit on this day trip. It was seamless and she took great care to make sure our introductions and audio guides at each of the chateaux were all set. She was clear with instructions and recommendations on where to eat and meet up. She was/ is truly an amazing young woman! What a great day! Unforgettable!! Again, I/ we highly recommend touring these chateaux!!!

Will, the host/guide was friendly, informative, a good driver. It was a full day and seeing the small towns along the way was a bonus.

This was our second day trip with Blue Fox Tours and it did not disappoint. Will was an engaging and informative guide and the castles were spectacular.

It was great to get to all the locations without dealing with transit. The group was small and everyone was very nice. If you’re the kind of person who thinks about taking this tour, you will probably enjoy the company of other people who take this tour. The guide/driver Oliver sets a great tone and he was very friendly, funny, and knowledgeable. The only type of person I wouldn’t recommend this for is someone who wants to free roam. My time was short so I mostly just wanted to see as much as I could in as short a time as possible.

My husband and I just returned from our first trip to France and one of the highlights of our time in Paris was our day tour to Fontainebeau and Vaux-Le-Vicomte Castle. It was a full day, small group tour operated by Blue Fox Tours out of Paris. Our meeting point was at a quaint cafe (great lattes and capuccinos) near the Arc de Triomphe and we were met 15 minutes before the tour began by our wonderful young tour guide Brunhilde (yes, named after a powerful Merovingian queen of the area we now call France!). The chateaus were not too far outside of Paris so the travel time to get to each location was not exhausting. Brunhilde made the day perfect...she was incredibly knowledgeable about France, about each chateau we visited as well as the people who lived there, and engaged us in conversation as we drove to each of the locations. Our day could not have been more perfect. We enjoyed both chateaus and especially enjoyed the audio guide at Vaux-Le-Vicomte Castle...make sure to take advantage of it!!! The cost of the trip was well worth it, it included all admission fees, and we especially enjoyed the small crowd sizes at both locations. We were also fortunate to have a beautiful day and had a great lunch with Brunhilde at a cafe she recommended to us. We highly recommend this tour, our fantastic guide Brunhilde, and Blue Fox Tours.

This was a great tour. We saw 3 castles that were not crowded like Versailles. Brunehilde was a great guide too. She drove us safe and gave us so much information. We learned a lot from her. She got us into the castles ahead of lines. Highly recommend this tour.

Great tour south of Paris; very knowledgeable Very much enjoyed the tour and friendly, well traveled guide

This was a very full day of wonderful sites. Valaria was a delightful and knowledgeable guide who made sure everyone was taken care of and comfortable. The two chateaux were fabulous and driving a golf cart around the gardens of Vaux-Le-Vicomte a fun way to see the grounds. While I was tired at the end of the day I felt it was well worth the effort.

Great guide great weather lots of learning

The guide Karim was very competent and enthusiastic about his job. He gave us a few extras thereto as well. It was a wonderful experience.