May 20, 2014
So today we went to the incredibly ornate palace commissioned by Louis the XIV. Versailles is a thirty minute train ride away from our hotel. We started off with the usual breakfast and walked passed the eiffel tower to the train station where we waited for Darrin to appear with our tickets.
We Waited…
and waited…
and waited...
Did we miss him? Did he leave without us? All these thoughts were probably thought by someone in our group amid the “I blame Darrin” comments.
We finally met up and took the train to versailles. I was standing next to Kylee and there was something off with our car. It smelled like either rotten fish or rotten vegetables or a combination of the two. Let’s just say it was enough to make me sick to my stomach. We finally figured out that a little chinese man with a grocery bag was the source of the odors. Not the man himself but whatever he had in the bag. We know this because he got off a couple stops before we did and he took his bag and Voila! we could breathe!!! no funky fish smell!
So we got off the train at the chateau de versailles stop and had to hike for a bit. but we came down the street and there in front of us was the golden tip fence in front of the palace. beyond that the golden accents on the front of versailles glinted and gleamed even with the overcast conditions.
The palace of Versailles itself has a floor area of 67,000 meters squared or it equates roughly to 721,000 square feet. The gardens of versailles are 800 hectares or just over 3 square miles. Massively huge!!!!
When we first arrived we didn’t go into the chateau, we headed into the gardens to look at the grand trianon and the petit Trianon and the queen's hamlet WAY out away from the chateau. Darrin led us through the gardens and into (what I felt like) a maze from the fourth harry potter film. The hedges were so high and the fountains were going and it was cool.
The gardens were so extensive I felt like we would get lost multiple times. We made our way through the gardens to the Neptune fountain I think and after a long while of wandering we spread out and had a small picnic lunch on the grounds of versailles.
We were sitting across the way from a pond where you could rent a boat and go for a boat ride. But there weren’t too many takers as the sky was clouded over and the wind picked up and brought the long awaited forecast of rain! It was rather chilly! But I being me, did not bring my sweatshirt so I was rather chilled. I did have my umbrella so that provided a small iota of protection from the rain. Yeah not much.
We meandered through the grounds to the Grand Trianon where the royal family had used as an escape from palace life. The Grand Trianon was much less ornate than the main chateau but it was still over the top compared with normal houses.
The Petit Trianon was built because the grand Trianon was still too much for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to handle. They wanted simple. But still the Petit Trianon was still over the top. It was an entirely different world. The royals were so distanced from the normal life of their subjects that I guess it was a void that was too wide to gap.
Overall the palace at Versailles was absolutely incredible! We went inside and saw the hall of mirrors and toured the royal apartments and saw the queens bedchamber and the kings bedchamber. The history extends from Louis the XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte and even into the French Republic.
The Palace of Versailles is also home to Napoleons Throneroom which was cool to see after taking history and learning about it.
Words do little to paint the picture of Versailles. The beauty lies in the history of it's walls. The dreams of a kingdom, an empire and finally a republic as it seeks to find it's place in a new world. The magic of versailles is as indescribable as it is powerful.
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