Looking beautiful in the winter afternoon light the very impressive Château at Pierrefonds is a bit of fake. The original 14th century castle was impressive in its own right but fell into ruin in the 17th century. Napoleon III decided to reconstruct it in the 1850s & the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc recreated an ideal castle as it would have existed in the Middle Ages - not that it ever did in this form.

It is now a popular tourist site and has been used as a backdrop for films and TV productions, the most recent being Merlin the TV series.

The splendid building in the foreground is on Rue de Beaudon.

Happy New Year and HFF to everyone.