Maisons-Lafitte.

Today I’m going to talk about a really cool town near to mine called Maisons-Laffitte. First of all, this is where one of my best friends lives so that makes it pretty important. But there are plenty of things that will make this place sound cool even to someone less biased.

To start, I guess I can point out how much this town revolves around horses. There are so many stables, riding schools, even a hippodrome for professional events, and the slightest (or not so slight) smell of horse in the air wherever you go. It’s basically every teenage girl’s dream. They really like horses—to the point that it’s a little weird. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh that’s not so abnormal” then you’re thinking exactly what I did when I first arrived. On the roads, horses have the right of way. I’ve heard stories of cars being stuck behind horses for a few minutes without the ability to pass them. It’s hilarious. But because of this, you know the events are going to be top notch. I finally attended one of these grand horse events. You can tell I have no idea what I'm talking about because I call them horse events… But I went with my English, horse-event-loving friend who could explain things to me and make us blend in a bit better.

The Hippodrome of Maisons-Laffitte opened in 1878 and its 2000m straight track is actually the longest in all of Europe! I’ve never been to a racetrack but even I could tell this was an impressive one. We went to see the TITLE OF THE RACEDAY. There were eight races and each started every thirty minutes. This gave everyone plenty of time to collect their winnings, place more bets, and refresh their drinks. They also had automated betting machines that allowed you to do all your gambling without talking to people. I am definitely a fan. I could easily spend every weekend at the racetrack.

Another event I had the grand pleasure of attending was a wine festival, which was also held in the Hippodrome. My friend was given tickets by one of our professors and she let me come with her and learn about wine! It was so amazing because they had so many independent distributors, each of which had its unique characteristics and history. We were given a glass for tasting and let loose through the festival. It was so cool learning about the wines of France from Frenchmen and through wine itself made from amazing regions. They also had so much food to pair with the wine including cheese, bread and olives of various forms and varieties.

Finally, we decided to go to the Chateau of Maisons. Compared to the others around Paris, this one isn’t too impressive from the outside. It’s still a huge place but compared to royal residence, it’s more of a modest summer home. The man who handled a lot of the construction is René de Longueil. He was a high magistrate of Parliament and his family was one of the oldest in the Parliament of Paris. When his father died, Longueil renovated their manor to a castle that was worthy of receiving the King when he visited St Germain. He also wanted an estate that was more worthy of his rank and fortune. The architect was Mansart and started in 1640 and finally finished nine years later. Louis XIV attended the inauguration of the Chateau in 1961.

In 1804, the estate was sold to Marshal Lannes who did some work on the park and created place de Napoleon. He died in Battle and in 1818 ended up in the hands of Jacques Laffitte. Laffitte was a politician and helped create the first Band of Paris and hosted friends to plot against Charles X. The bank (Laffitte’s company) eventually went bankrupt which left him unable to pay back his debts. But this guy was so generous that his friends felt that they owed it to Laffitte to buy the property to help him out. After getting on his feet, he bought back the property and got to work. He started selling parts of the park for people to build villas (with some monetary incentives) and preserving the park. The houses had strict guidelines in order to maintain the park atmosphere such as hedges of a certain height surrounding the gardens. This is why we have the modern day Maisons-Laffitte for his extensive addition to (fabrication of) the town itself.

And that’s the watered down story!