Some people might say that if you’ve seen one château, you’ve seen them all. I haven’t found that to be true … yet.

On our trip from the Alsace region of France back to Senlis we visited Luneville (pronounced loon-ay-vee), the “Versailles of Lorraine.” The town sits where the Meurthe and Vezouze rivers meet, and is over a thousand years old. German princes used to own the place, but then those darn bishops got involved and created a dynasty that lasted more than 200 years.

Luneville has a long and rich history. In 1702, Leopold I brought his court here after building a Louis XIVth kind of palace, an amazing building that now serves as the jewel for the town’s tourist trade.

While the palace is fabulous, it is the gardens, created for Leopold in 1711, that are the real attraction of this place. The garden is registered as a “Monuments de France” (Monument of France), and was given the name of Bosquets. The garden is known as one of the most beautiful formal gardens in the entire region.

Calling the Bosquets a garden is quite a stretch. It’s an event. It’s about the size of a professional football stadium. A walking path the width of a two-lane highway leads from the château to the back of the garden. Our first glimpse of this mammoth space was from the drawing room in the château, where we could see the entire length of the garden.

There were flowers of every description bordering the walkways. Giant reflecting pools with fountains in the middle rested on both sides of the garden walkways. White swans made the picture complete.

After walking around in the gardens for quite a while, I soon discovered the real reason to visit the château. Just as we were about to leave the magnificent grounds to find something to eat, I noticed a sign for the Conservatoire des Broderies de Luneville (school of Luneville embroidery). We walked up several flights of stairs and entered into another world.

The Conservatoire is actually a museum that serves as the home for the private beaded dress collection of Maryvonne Francois-Remy. The clothes look like something from a fabulous fashion show … one of the more outrageous is a dress that looks like it is made of crystals like the ones in a chandelier. The model wears the chandelier-shaped dress as if it were a totally normal thing to do. She even has a hat that looks like a lamp shade, matching this strange (and heavy) dress. I guess it takes all kinds, but for the life of me I couldn’t imagine who would wear such a concoction.

There was an interesting film in French that described the outfits and their origin. Watching the film was just the tonic to put me to sleep after a long garden walk. At one point I looked over at Jay and Cat and they had taken the same tonic, eyes closed, heads resting against each other.

As we left the displays, we stumbled upon another part of the museum that focused on the craft of lacemaking. The women who worked at the museum were obviously experts because they made the whole process look really simple. As Jay always tells me, anyone can make a hard task look hard. The skill is in making it look easy. Watching those women make lace inspired me to try it as well, so I bought all of the little tools and the proper thread so I could go right home and give it a try.

Later, as we sat in a traditional sidewalk café across from the Château de Luneville, we couldn’t help feeling a little smug. Here we were in a lovely little town, sitting on the street across from an amazing place, and the voices at the table next to us speaking German. We chatted between ourselves in a mixture of French and English.

We’ve been on the adventure of a lifetime and, as I look back, it doesn’t seem like we’ve wasted one moment. I hope that when we get back to “the States,” we can hold on to this marvelous feeling. The feeling that everyday is a gift, not a moment to be wasted.