Dampierre-en-Yvelines is dominated by a house that thinks it is bigger than the village, and it is right. The Château de Dampierre, built in the seventeenth century by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, for the Duke of Chevreuse, is a grand brick-and-stone palace set in a formal park with a long canal. It has belonged to the Luynes family ever since, and inside, one gallery contains murals painted by the great neoclassical artist Ingres, a rare example of his work on a domestic scale. The château is open for visits at certain times of year, and is worth a stop.
The village itself is small, barely a thousand people, but the setting is lovely: stone houses, an old church and, behind the château, a long avenue of trees. The area around is part of the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse regional park, and the valley is a patchwork of woods, meadows and ponds. At about a hundred and fifteen metres above sea level, it is not high, but the sheltered position and the shade of the old trees give it a cool, peaceful feeling.
The bends in question are a pleasant string of curves on the lanes between Dampierre, Lévis-Saint-Nom and Chevreuse. They are not dramatic, but they are well-surfaced and well-cambered, and a rider can find a nice rhythm on a quiet morning. The road runs along the edge of the park wall for a while and then dips into the wooded valley, with a view of the church spire coming and going between the trees.
Be careful in autumn, when leaves, mud from farm vehicles and wet stone walls can make the road slippery, and at weekends, when cyclists and walkers arrive in numbers. Cattle and horses graze in the surrounding fields, and there are a few blind corners where a tractor can appear without warning.
For fuel and food, Chevreuse is the nearest town of any size, a few kilometres away, with stations, bakeries and cafes. Dampierre itself has a bar or two and a bakery, and the smell of woodsmoke in the cooler months is a pleasant companion on the ride.