Dampierre sits in the soft green fold of the Chevreuse valley, and its château is one of the most elegant in the Île-de-France. The present building was rebuilt in the seventeenth century by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, for the Duc de Luynes, and the family still owns it today after nearly four centuries. The pink brick and pale stone, the tall slate roofs and the long moat-like canals give it a calm, symmetrical look, and the formal gardens were designed by André Le Nôtre, who also laid out the gardens at Versailles. Inside, a salon was painted by Ingres, the nineteenth-century master of line, in a project that was left unfinished.
The village that surrounds the château is tiny, with just over a thousand people, a handsome main street and a parish church. Lévis-Saint-Nom, nearby, is a small village of similar charm. The whole area belongs to the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse regional park, created to protect the valley from the sprawl of Paris, and it shows. Meadows, woods and ponds fill the valley floor, and the hills on either side are covered in oak and beech. Horses graze in fields, and the roads between villages are lined with old stone walls and hedges.
For a motorcyclist, this is a lovely stretch of country. The valley roads are narrow and winding, with gentle bends, wooded sections and glimpses of water, and the traffic is light on weekdays. At weekends the roads fill with cyclists, walkers and families heading for the château, so keep your speed down and watch the blind corners. There are cafés and restaurants in the village, and in Chevreuse you can find a good bakery.
Check opening times if you plan to visit the château, since the interior is usually open on selected days and in the afternoon, and the grounds may have a separate ticket. Even if the doors are shut, the exterior is worth a walk along the canal, where the building reflects in the still water, and the geese are in charge.