The Val-d'Oise, north of Paris, stretches out with its forests, agricultural plateaus and valleys between the Oise and the Viosne rivers, offering a preserved natural setting where castles and abbeys line the historic roads. This department has always been a land of passage and power: the kings of France hunted here, the Church founded its monasteries here, and the nobility built their summer residences here.
Écouen is home to one of the finest Renaissance châteaux in France, built for the Constable Anne de Montmorency and now housing the National Renaissance Museum with its collections of 16th-century earthenware, enamels and tapestries. Chantilly, a stone’s throw from the border with the Oise, extends its influence as far as the forests of the Vexin. Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh spent the last months of his life, and L’Isle-Adam, a royal town on the banks of the Oise, complete a heritage landscape of remarkable richness.