Barbizon is a single long street on the western edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, and it is a village that owes everything to a handful of painters. In the 1830s and 1840s, artists began to arrive from Paris, tired of academic studios, and set up easels among the oaks and boulders to paint nature directly. They included Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, who painted peasants at work in the fields, including his famous Gleaners, and their approach, known as the Barbizon School, paved the way for Impressionism. The village's Auberge Ganne, where many of them lodged and covered the walls with paintings, is now a small museum.
A walk along the main street gives you a feel of how the place has changed. Galleries, antique shops and restaurants now occupy the old farmhouses, and the walls are covered in roses and wisteria. Robert Louis Stevenson spent time here in the 1870s and wrote about the forest. The Fontainebleau château is about eight kilometres away, and the village has the air of a quiet corner that has never quite recovered from being so photogenic.
For a rider, Barbizon is a pleasant pause rather than a long stop. Roads from Fontainebleau, which skirt the forest, are smooth and gently twisting, shaded by tall trees, with speed limits that are strictly applied. At the village, parking is simple on the side streets, though on fine weekends it can be busy. Fuel is not usually available in the village itself, so use the larger town of Fontainebleau, which is close by and has several stations. There are cafés and restaurants on the main street, some quite smart, and a coffee at a pavement table is a civilised way to rest.
Come on a weekday morning if you can. The light in the forest is soft, the crowd is thin, and you can walk a short way into the woods to see the boulders and heather where the painters worked. In autumn, the leaves glow, and a few of the old oaks stand with their branches bare against a grey sky.