The Chevreuse Valley is a very nice place at 30 km south-west of Paris and 10 km from Versailles.
Today mainly protected by Regional Park rules, this place with few buildings despite the vicinity of Paris, keeps its attraction with a lot of woodland and natural or artificial ponds, dug out in the 17th century to provide for the waterworks at Versailles.

Well known by the sunday walkers, by the fans of cycling or by the mountain bike riders, this plateau shaped by number of small rivers presents various landscapes of meadows, fields and woodland with picturesque villages and quite a few castles and parks.

http://www.vallee-de-chevreuse.com/

Castles and Muséums

The Château de la Madeleine (20 km of Marcoussis) is a castle located in the town of Chevreuse, in the French département of Yvelines (Île de France). In good state of preservation, it was built on the top of a hill and dominates the town.

The name comes from the chapel of the castle, dedicated to Sainte Marie-Madeleine.

http://jsthery.club.fr/Chevreuse/chevreuse_chateau.html#Histoire%20du%20Château

The Château de Breteuil (20km of Marcoussis) was built in the early 1600s and decorated principally in the 18th century. It is located in the Île-de-France and the département of Yvelines, France, 35 km (22 miles) to the south-west of Paris in the heart of the renowned Valley of Chevreuse. The château is set in a listed park of some 90 hectares.

The family of the Marquis de Breteuil who still lives there gave three ministers to the Kings of France.

The building compares with the Château of Dampierre-en-Yvelines by Jules Hardouin-Mansart.

http://www.breteuil.fr/FR/intro.php?Lg=FR  

The Château de Dampierre (15km from Marcoussis) is the castle in Dampierre-en-Yvelines, France. Built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, 1675-1683 for the duc de Chevreuse, Colbert's son-in-law, it is a French Baroque chateau of manageable size.

http://www.chateau-de-dampierre.fr/en/index2.htm

The Château de Rambouillet, which is the summer residence of the Presidents of France, is located in the town of Rambouillet, Yvelines département, France, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Paris.

The château was originally a simple fortified manor dating back to 1368, which was expanded during the Renaissance, though it still retains its four-square bastioned footprint. Rambouillet is where King Francois I died in 1547. Like the Hôtel de Rambouillet in Paris, the château was owned by the marquis de Rambouillet during the reign of Louis XIII. The wooded park was laid out with wide rides radiating from the chateau. More than 200 square kilometres of woods remain, the remnant of the forest of Yvelines.

http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/anglais/the_elysee_palace/presidential_residences/the_palace_of_rambouillet/the_palace_of_rambouillet.20334.html

Family walks 

A lot of family walks and VTT,  more than 250 km of arked out roads.

For more idea:  http://www.parc-naturel-chevreuse.fr//

For some photos: 

http://www.all-free-photos.com/show/showgal.php?idgal=vallee-chevreuse&lang=en

As Marcoussis take place in a wonderfull countryside, you have many choise to practice golf, as I do.

Paris, France is a city rich in history and culture, that, with its annual 30 million foreign visitors, is one of the most visited cities in the world.^[1] Most of Paris' charisma is in its monuments and architecture, such as its Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower and neo-classic Haussmannian boulevards and buildings, but Paris also is a source of more modern attractions such as its suburban Disneyland Paris. Paris' many museums, operas and concert halls are also rich sources of Parisian culture and entertainment.

• Arc de Triomphe - monument at the center of the Place de l'Étoile, commemorating the victories of France and honoring those who died in battle.
• The Conciergerie - Located on the Île de la Cité, it is a medieval building which was formerly used as a prison where some prominent members of the ancien régime stayed before their death during the French Revolution.
• The Eiffel Tower - a "temporary" construction of Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Universal Exposition.
• Les Invalides - Museum and burial place of many famous French soldiers, including Napoleon.
• Église de la Madeleine
• The Louvre - extensive art gallery.
• Montmartre - One of the most famous Paris districts, located on a hill and hosting the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur and the Place du Tertre.
• Notre Dame de Paris (Cathedral of Notre Dame) on the Île de la Cité - Paris's 12th-century ecclesiastical centrepiece.
• Palais Garnier - Paris's central opera house, built in the later Second Empire period.
• The Grand Palais - a large glass exhibition hall built for the 1900 Paris Exhibition.
• Sainte-Chapelle - Also located on the Île de la Cité, it is a 13th century Gothic palace chapel.
• The Panthéon -Church and tomb of a number of France's most famed men and women.
• The Sorbonne - the University of Paris, the centre of Paris's Latin Quarter.
• Statue of Liberty replica - a smaller version of the New York City harbor statue which France gave to the United States in 1886, located on the Île des Cygnes on the Seine. Another version is in the Luxembourg Garden.
• Place des Vosges - square in the Marais district laid out by Henry IV.
• Père Lachaise Cemetery
• The Wallace Fountains, spread throughout the city.
• Flame of Liberty Replica of the flame held by theStatue of Liberty.
• Centre Georges-Pompidou - Hosting the Paris Museum of Modern Art.
• Parc de la Villette - Hosting the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, a science museum, and the Cité de la Musique which houses various musical institutes, a museum, and a concert hall.

PARIS ATTRACTIONS & THINGS TO DO WITH THE PARIS PASS

The Paris Pass entitles you to FREE entry at over 60 of the most popular museums, monuments and sights in and around Paris. Paris attractions covered by the Paris Pass include:  (see website)

  http://www.paris-pass.com/Find_Paris_Attractions?ref=Goo&gclid=CO_OssqL2pACFR9paAod1WxRVw

To find the list of museums in Paris:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Paris

 Here some exemples:

 The Louvre (French: Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is the most visited and one of the oldest, largest, and most famous art galleries and museums in the world.

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine, housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist masterpieces by popular painters such as Monet and Renoir. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/accueil.html

The "Centre Georges Pompidou" (constructed 1971–1977 and known as the Pompidou Centre in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the IVe arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles and the Marais. It houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a vast public library, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg. It is named after Georges Pompidou, who was president of France from 1969 to 1974, and was opened on January 31, 1977.

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Accueil.nsf/tunnel?OpenForm

The "Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle" The museum includes sites throughout France, including the original location at the Jardin des Plantes in the Ve arrondissement in Paris (métro Place Monge). The galleries there include the Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology, the Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, and the famous Grand Gallery of Evolution (Grande Galerie de l'évolution). The museum's Menagerie is also located here.

http://www.mnhn.fr/museum/foffice/transverse/transverse/accueil.xsp

The" Grévin Muséum" is a waxwork museum in Paris located on the Grands Boulevards on the right bank of the Seine with some 500 characters arranged in scenes from the history of France and modern life. The Musée Grévin has a baroque architecture and includes a mirage room and a theater for magic shows.

http://www.parisdigest.com/museums/museegrevin.htm

The vast Carnavalet Museum, devoted to the history of Paris, occupies two adjoining mansions (the Hôtel Le Peletier de St-Fargeau and the Hôtel Carnavalet). They include entire decorated rooms with panelling, furniture and many works of art.

The main building, The Hôtel Carnavalet, was built as a town house in 1548 by Nicolas Dupuis. The Hôtel Carnavalet is a Renaissance jewel that in the mid-1600s became the home of writer Madame de Sévigné. The 17th century Hôtel le Peletier was added to the museum in 1989 to contain the larger part of the museum's 20th century interiors.

http://en.parisinfo.com/sites-culturels/232/musee-carnavalet-musee-de-l-histoire-de-paris?1

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a museum of the decorative arts and design, 107 rue de Rivoli, Paris 1er, France. It is part of Les Arts Décoratifs.

Located in the Louvre museum's western wing, known as the Pavillon de Marsan, the museum was founded in 1905 by members of the Union des Arts Décoratifs. It houses and displays furniture, interior design, altar pieces, religious paintings, objets d'arts, tapestries, wallpaper, ceramics and glassware, plus toys from the Middle Ages to the present day.

http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/

The Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) or Arab World Institute (AWI), in English, was established during 1980 in Paris, when 18 Arab countries concluded an agreement with France to establish the Institute to disseminate information about the Arab world and set in motion detailed research to cover Arabic and the Arab world’s cultural and spiritual values. The Institute also aims at promoting cooperation and cultural exchanges between France and the Arab world, particularly in the areas of science and technology, thus contributing to development of relations between the Arab world and Europe. Libya joined the agreement in 1984.

http://www.imarabe.org/index-ang.html

The Musée Picasso is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris. The hôtel particulier that houses the collection was built between 1656 and 1659 for Pierre Aubert, seigneur de Fontenay, a tax farmer who became rich collecting the gabelle or salt tax (the name of the building means "salted"). The architect was Jean Boullier from Bourges, also known as Boullier de Bourges; sculpture was carried out by the brothers Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy and by Martin Desjardins. It is considered to be one of the finest historic houses in the Marais.

http://www.musee-picasso.fr/