Courses du Château de Sully

Let’s be clear: the odds of getting into the park at the Château de Rosny-sur-Seine on a May weekend are usually close to zero. Except this one, thanks to the CSM Rosny Athlétisme who runs the Courses du Château de Sully, and who clearly has very good relations with the owners 😄. Four formats will be offered so that no one stays on the couch: "la Sully" on 10 km, "la Rosnéenne" on 5 km, "la Marquise" walking for 5 km as well (because running fast is still sport, and knees sometimes have their say 😬) and "les P'tits Bouchons" on 1.2 km for children 🧒. Almost everything starts and ends at the stadium Roland Leduc, crossing the Château park and along the banks of Seine. Musical animations punctuate the route, and rewards await everyone at the finish. Only the start for the younger runners will be given at the castle gates, heading toward the stadium 🏟️. Last detail and not the least: the race is organized for the benefit of La Note Rose, which fights breast cancer 🌸. That is, part of your registration fee goes to the association 💪. Running for a charitable cause in a park classified as a Historic Monument, even Sully wouldn’t have thought of that 😏.

Exactly, Maximilien de Béthuneduke of Sully, minister of finance of Henri IV 👑 and the man who emptied France’s pockets to replenish the Royal Treasury 🤑, was born precisely here in 1559, even before the castle took its current shape 🏰. It was he who had the brick-and-stone building erected on the foundations of a medieval fortress razed by the English during the Hundred Years' War (which lasted 116 years 🤓). Designated a Monument Historique since 1941, it was bought by a Japanese company in 1984, emptied, and left to decay until a fire in 1997. The manor and its park were tastefully renovated so you can stroll there in spring-like ease printanière. Needless to say, a castle that has seen kangaroos in its park and a fire in its walls surely deserves a detour to see what it has become today.

The trail itself is a wonderful surprise for anyone who imagined Rosny-sur-Seine as just another ordinary town in the Yvelines 🌊. The banks of the Seine that line the route are part of a landscape that drove impressionist painters wild (Monet, Pissarro, Sisley were all coming to paint the bends of the river in the region at the end of the 19th century), captivated by the light playing on the water 🎨. The profile is flat and the distance is human, leaving plenty of time to look up and take in your surroundings rather than stare at pavement with the air of someone regretting life choices 😉. The park’s wide avenues, ancient trees, the calm wide river below... There are events where the scenery does the job for you. This is one of them 🌳.

Just steps from Rosny, the Yvelines and the Vexin hold a few wonderful surprises to extend the day 😋. La Roche-Guyon, a few kilometers downstream on the Seine, is one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France, its troglodyte castle carved directly into the chalk cliff overlooks the river since the Middle Ages 🏯. The history of this region evidently isn’t bland. On the food front, we’re in the land of the Terrines de Mérinos 🐽 a delight beyond words for the palate 😋. And the fruit tarts and pastries from local bakeries, baked that very morning, finish the job 🥐.

Ready to tame the Château du Sully like a king? 😜