Lots of history here, and lots of memories visiting and riding once living in nearby Versailles. The town of Buc is in the Yvelines department no ,78 in the Île-de-France region of my belle France. It has been a while and perhaps nostalgic ,glad to found me pictures in my cd rom vault that should be in my blog for you and me, Do read my other posts on this wonderful town, Therefore,here is my take on the Château du Haut-Buc and arboretum of Buc !!! Hope you enjoy the post as I.
The park of the Château du Haut-Buc can be visited freely all year round. An educational arboretum, a secret child of Louis XIV, an eccentric astronomer and a setting for Blake and Mortimer, this public and free domain is just a few minutes from Versailles. Sports fields and a street workout area welcome fitness enthusiasts, while children have their own corner with the “Les Elfes” play park; here, you can picnic, run, play, and stroll.The Château du Haut-Buc has been transformed by the town into a hub of cultural and sporting life, with a program that blends the Romantic Music Festival, Opera Nights, concerts, a comic book festival, and sporting events such as the Buc Olympic Fun Run. The building also houses the Buc municipal music school, whose students regularly give concerts in the castle’s rooms ; a rather poetic way of bringing music to the place where a royal child was once raised in seclusion.
The column with the sphinx, the pools, the Temple of Love, and of course the château itself. This Temple of Love is particularly worth a visit: it is an almost exact replica of the one at the Petit Trianon in Versailles, set within a row of Ionic columns at the foot of a pool. The gardens also house a sculptural ensemble of five works, including an allegory of Air, another of Spring, a sphinx, a pair of panthers, and a Hebe with Jupiter’s eagle, all inspired by the works of Étienne Le Hongre and Pierre Legros I.
The arboretum offers a peaceful stroll among a wide variety of remarkable trees, ideal for botany enthusiasts. And the number is impressive: the park boasts 529 trees of 126 different taxa. The estate is located at 20 rue Louis Massotte in Buc, a few minutes by car or public transport from Versailles. By car as we always came is less than 6 km from our former home along the rue de la Paroisse right on Rue du Maréchal Foch continue on Avenue de l’Europe, Avenue du Général de Gaulle, Rue Royale, then bear left onto Rue Henri de Régnier then bear left onto Rpe Saint Martin or D938 road continue thru forest roads and then bear right onto Rue Louis Blériot on same D9638 road then bear right onto Rue Jules de la Bouliniére on a residential neighborhood continue same road now Rue des Lavandiéres then Rue des Fréres Robin ,then make a sharp left turn onto Rue Louis Massotte a curvy road downwards continue on this street to the park castle, The park is open every day, from 8h to 22h from May 1st to September 30th, and from 8h to 20h from October 1st to April 30th.
The Château du Haut-Buc was part of the vast park of Versailles The current château, owned by the town, was built on the site around 1864. Attached to the royal bailiwick at the end of the 17C and located within the vast park of Versailles at the time, the Château du Haut-Buc served Louis XIV as a discreet refuge for his illegitimate son, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse, and Duke of Penthièvre, whom he had with Madame de Montespan, in order to keep him hidden from the court before his legitimation in 1681. The young count thus grew up here, sheltered from intrigues, while his father reigned over Versailles a few kilometers away. He later moved to the Pavillon des Eaux in Louveciennes (see post). It was destroyed in 1740 on the orders of Louis XV ; wishing to erase the memory of his grandfather’s illegitimate affairs. Only a few statues and the gatekeeper’s house at the park entrance remain from this period. This small, unassuming pavilion, which one passes by without a second glance, is nevertheless one of the last visible vestiges of the 17C on the site.
Other additionial things to see here are the Heart of Louis Massotte: on the dike of the salt flat, a stone bas-relief in the shape of a heart, evoking the Ace of Hearts of the Louis Blériot Company, marks the spot where pilot Louis Massotte crashed on June 15, 1937. The Forest of Versailles covers a large part of the town, It is actually a collection of small forested areas separated by infrastructure. The Bièvre Valley flows through the town, originating at the La Minière ponds and emptying into the Étang de la Geneste. It continues its course through the Yvelines (78), then the Essonne (91), the Hauts-de-Seine (92), the Val-de-Marne (94), and finally Paris (75), where it flows into the Seine river at the Port Saint-Bernard in the 5éme arrondissement.
Anecdotes I like tell us that Blake and Mortimer fans have one more good reason to make the detour. The Château du Haut-Buc appears, with altered architecture and under the fictional name of Château de Troussalet, in Edgar P. Jacobs’ album S.O.S. Météores (1959). In this album, the estate serves as the hideout for Olrik’s gang, at the heart of a meteorological conspiracy spanning all of Europe. As is typical of the series, the album is remarkable for the realism of its settings. The author, Edgar P. Jacobs, even made several trips to the area, as he recounts in his autobiography, Buc is mentioned in Victor Hugo’s poem: A Virgile (To Virgil), In 1918, Gentilli di Giuseppe, a passionate astronomer, bought the château and, in 1922, installed a giant 60 cm aperture telescope in the garden. When WWII broke out, his family, of Jewish origin, had to leave the city. His son, Marcel, took refuge at the Pic du Midi Observatory in 1942. A year after the end of the war, he donated the telescope and its dome to the Observatory, in gratitude for the years of exile spent at the Pic du Midi. The instrument that had scanned the sky from the gardens of Buc thus ended its days at the summit of the Pyrenees.
The town of Buc on its arboretum and park : https://www.villedebuc.fr/534/ma-ville/environnement/la-nature-en-ville/parc-et-espaces-verts-publics/parc-du-chateau.htm
The Versailles Grand Parc community of town on Buc : https://www.versaillesgrandparc.fr/253/l-agglo/territoire/buc.htm
There you go folks, a historical wonderful area we love from our former hunting ground. The town of Buc is worth the detour, and you should enjoy it all surrounded by lush surrounding in noble French traditions. Again, hope you enjoy this post on the Château du Haut-Buc and arboretum of Buc !!! as I .
And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!
