Le Château de Versailles

When I was planning out all of the things I wanted to do while I was in Paris, there were two days trips just outside of Paris that I knew I had to take: Disneyland Paris and the Palace of Versailles. The former will come in October when I go with my dad, but the latter I visited last Friday with two of my former roommates at the FIAP who now my good friends: Sara and Jillian. Also, as a side note, I just figured out how to make pictures in my posts bigger so you can actually see the details in them! (Hey, what do you want from me? I'm new at this blogging thing!)

The chateau is very easy to get to from Paris; it's about a 35 minute train ride from one of the metro stations near AUP. We got there almost exactly at 9, when the place opens, which is something I would highly recommend that you do should you visit Versailles in the future, because not too long after that the place is absolutely swamped with tourists.

Rounding the corner from the train station, my first view of Versailles looked something like this:

Make no mistake: this place is HUGE. The chateau alone took us about three hours to tour, and after that there's the gardens, the Grand Canal, the Grand Trianon, the Petite Trianon, and Marie-Antoinette's Hamlet, which took us another four hours to see.

Before I launch into a grand description of my visit, allow me a brief history lesson about Versailles: The technical name for what most people refer to as "Versailles" is actually the "Chateau de Versailles", a magnificent palace and estate in the village of Versailles. The town itself has existed since at least the eleventh century, but the chateau was begun as a hunting lodge built for Louis XIII. There were four main building campaigns that created and expanded the estate, the biggest and most well-known expansion taking place under Louis XIV, who officially moved his court to the chateau in 1682. It remained there until 1789 when a pesky little revolution forced the king and queen to return to Paris. After that, Napoleon took up residence for a time at the Grand Trianon (a kind of secondary palace) and Louis-Phillipe turned the chateau into a museum in 1833. While its primary function remains being one of Europe's most-visited museums, political events do occasionally still take place at Versailles. Okay, end of history lesson.

We went through the chateau first, helped along by the audioguide that makes it look like everyone going through the chateau is listening to a cell phone circa 1999. The very first thing we were treated to was a peek at the lower level of the Chapel:

And later on in the tour we see it from the upper level:

A closer look at the ceiling:

Then before we got to the main rooms of the chateau, we went through a sort of miniature art museum dedicated to paintings of the chateau in its various stages of construction, paintings of famous residents who lived in and architects, painters, and sculptors who worked on the chateau. There were also a number of scale models of the estate and little rooms showing short films detailing the construction of Versailles.

After that, we finally made it to the really good stuff. The tour first lead us through the series of salons built for purposes of entertaining the royal family's guests as well as showing off the wealth and power of the monarchy. Each salon is dedicated to a different Roman god or goddess: Diana, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus. Some salons were used as dining rooms, others as ballrooms, billiard rooms, or music rooms. Each one features beautifully painted ceilings and sculptures. I'm afraid that, for better or for worse, I can't remember which picture goes with which salon, so just appreciate a sampling of some of the pictures I took:

This painting was a gift from the Doge of Venice. It's very, VERY big, and the king had the salon that it's in built just for purposes of displaying it.

This biggest fireplace in the whole chateau, on the opposite wall from the previous painting.

The ceiling of the same room.

The general view out the window as we walked through all of these salons (which are all mostly in a neat little row). The "backyard" of the chateau stretches out towards the left, while the town of Versailles is straight ahead.

Me standing in front of that giant fireplace from before, to give you some idea of how big it is. (Also to prove that I did take some pictures with me in them while I was here.)

After the salons, we got to the REALLY good stuff: the Hall of Mirrors, the king's bedroom, and the queen's bedroom:

The Hall of Mirrors.

Proof that I was in the Hall of Mirrors!

The king's bedroom.

The queen's bedroom. One of my favorite rooms in the whole chateau because I think the colors and pattern used in here are so pretty. Just think about how much time and effort had to go into making and sewing all of this stuff BY HAND.

Seriously. Why can't I have beautiful embroidered EVERYTHING? Also, when that little door is closed, it's almost impossible to see that it exists unless you get right up close. It was through there that Marie-Antoinette escaped the mob that stormed Versailles in October of 1789. I honestly can't even wrap my head around the fact that Marie-Antoinette slept in this room.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Hall of Mirrors is an impressive, beautiful space, but the one place in the chateau I actually liked better came afterwards. Beyond the Hall of Mirrors and the apartments of the king and queen is a series of rooms dedicated to the Museum of the History of France, extending from before the absolute monarchy to after the revolution. The biggest part of this museums is another hall named the "galerie des Batailles" (the gallery of battles) which feature dozens of immense paintings detailing all of the most famous battles ever fought by the French (insert stereotyping French surrender joke here). 

Jillian, Sara, and me taking a break on a bench in the galerie. 

That's all the really good stuff in the chateau. Given the length of this post already, I think I'll give you all a second post dedicated just to the buildings and gardens beyond the chateau to really do them justice. 

Until then, grosses bises! xoxo