Château d'Écouen — Attraction in Sarcelles

This museum is a bit of the hidden gem. The collections of French Renaissance art are outstanding and the castle is a remarkably consistent and well preserved example of French Renaissance architecture. I've been there several times and have only ever seen a handful of visitors, plus the occasional group of school kids. If you're only going to see one museum in Paris the Louvre certainly has a larger and more prestigious collection of Renaissance paintings and sculptures while the decorative arts collections are pretty similar. However, if you have an extra day and want to get away from the crowds while also enjoying a stroll in the park I highly recommend this museum. Somewhat surprisingly there is also a very notable collection of Iznik ceramics which we were surprised to stumble upon during our...

An embarrassment of riches

First of you, this is an absolute must see. A quite stunning collection of treasures in an extraordinarily beautiful castle.

But really, while it gets 10/10 for the collections the standard of interpretation is very poor. Some galeries have extremely hard to read (in the low lighting) composite labels far away from the artworks they are explaining. Others have qr codes (bad luck if your phone isn’t working) taking you to lengthy essays from which you will struggle to identify many objects. The stand out collection of tapestries barely gets any interpretation. Whoever is the director of this museum - and one assumes it is a fairly prestigious position - needs to make an effort to...

Visited during the holidays. Beautiful place and so much to see. I paid €5 for the entry - children were free - the park is free, you only pay to go in the house. There are free lockers to keep your bulky stuff in. You can take photos without flash. What I specifically liked was how accessible it was for disabled or less able people. If you have a disabled badge you can park right at the entrance. If you don't, you can drop off at the entrance and go back to park your cars. Completely wheelchair accessible, they have lifts. Also practically all rooms, if not all, at benches or chairs for visitors to sit. Well...