Visiting Versailles

Yesterday we took the train to Versailles, as no horse and carriage were available. I had always pictured it as being way out in the countryside, but the view from the train seemed to be pretty much uninterrupted suburb and sprawl. Along with thousands of others we walked up to the gates and stood in line to enter the Chateau Versailles. We were standing between 2 other American couples from Colorado Springs and Arizona. One couple had just gotten married the same week that he graduated from the Air Force academy and were traveling around Europe visiting places they might be stationed next year.

The Chateau is really quite splendid as one might expect. The apartments of Louis XIV especially featured lots of marble and gold trim. The Dauphin's apartments were a little less ostentatious, but I think they had suffered more changes over the years (loss of original paneling and paint). The lack of privacy of the king and queen was remarkable. We got the impression they were seldom alone and even getting up and going to bed were accompanied by rituals involving many people. The queen gave birth to her children "in public" so there would be no doubt about heirs.

Ah, the gardens! The main palace gardens are extremely formal and extensive. There are also many squares of wooded areas in which are hidden fountains, collonades, statues etc. (and now cafes and restrooms). Don't bother eating at the cafes in this area though, wait until you are further downhill near the large ponds where there is a much nicer assortment of eating places and better restrooms!

We actually liked Marie Antoinette's little palace, the Trianon, better, although it was still huge. The best part was actually the "Hamlet", a little village Marie had built as an idyllic addition to the palace grounds. I'm sure the houses in the hamlet were far superior to anything peasants actually lived in!

You can rent bikes or boats to get around or get a ticket on a little train-like bus, but it didn't seem that you could take bikes into the palace or Trianon grounds, so that would be best for viewing the more remote parts of the grounds I guess. It was a LOT of walking though!

We caught the train back and had a nice dinner of salads at our old favorite Le Philosophe in the Marais.