Versailles

Saturday dawned with a forbidding look to it. (Susan kept referring to the sky as ‘brooding” all day long; that’s what she gets for being a voracious reader!) The plan was to head out to Versailles, something we had been meaning to do now for some weeks. And so we did. (photo: colorful urn at the Chateau Versailles.

And speaking of photos see the rest of my photos online; just click here!)

After our morning coffee, we showered, dressed and walked the ten minutes over to Gare Austerlitz where we picked up the C5 RER train to Versailles, about 20kms from Paris. (The rail transport system here revolves around three components: the Metro which pretty much feeds central Paris and the immediate suburbs, the RER trains which go a bit further into the suburbs, with far fewer stops in historic Paris but with a smoother ride, and the SNCF trains, which go to pretty much every else in France.)

We boarded at about 11:30, climbed to the upper deck of the train and enjoyed a scenic ride along the Seine and through the southwestern suburbs to Versailles (if you like looking at never-ending strings of apartment complexes). After the train station (which sported quite an attractive façade I might add) we turned right, walked up to the next block (Rue de Paris), and turned left, up the tree-lined boulevard we could see the entrance to the chateau:





Those of you who have been there already (and you know who you are) will forgive me for just a moment . . . This place is HUGE! Massive! Enormous! Ostentatious! Grandiose! Extravagant! Flamboyant! Did I say BIG? We had always heard it was “large” but I had no idea it could pass for a small country!


So we walked through the “gate of honor” – which was only fitting of course – passed the “gate of having to go” (the queue for the “toilettes”), passed the entrance into the apartments and on into the gardens proper. We decided that our focus for this trip would be spending our time outside, exploring the gardens and particularly Marie Antoinette’s estate. We opted not to take the “petit train” that whizzes visitors around the grounds, or rent one of the electric cars, although that did rather appeal to my ambition to be a professional golf cart driver. We came to walk and walk we did (it’s 3.5kms from the chateau to the end of the Grand Canal).






We strolled down along the central artery of the gardens to the halfway point of the Grand Canal, passed the boat rental dock. The grounds are covered with statuary depicting virtually every major scene form antiquity and nearly every significant story from Greek and Roman mythology (or so it seemed to me). There is also major construction as well as ongoing restoration of both the chateau itself and the grounds. (Some of the gardens were closed while a large chunk of the chateau’s façade was encased in scaffolding, much like the rest of Europe.)


It was nice to see a few beautiful flowers still holding court (although most had been removed for the winter) amidst fall color change.


At the center of the Grand Canal we turned right toward the Grand Trianon and Marie’s private estate. We slid beneath the portico of the Grand Trianon (photo above), a small palace that Lou the 14th built over the village of Trianon, so that he could get away from the hectic court life at Versailles. Of course he had to demolish the village of Trianon first, but what the hey, they’re only peasants.

But that paled in comparison to what we soon came upon: the storybook hamlet (“hameau”) created for Marie Antoinette. But to get to the hamlet you first had to go through the English “landscape, cross the English river, all apparently designed to create the easy informality of what was perceived as the English idea of place.


This is where she would come to indulge her rather childlike fantasies, in world apparently designed to allow her to escape from another, harsher world of court life and all its unpleasantries.

Once you get past the obscene indulgences of such a place it is truly remarkable to see – Nevertheless you have to wonder just what these people did all the time? And as you look around the seemingly endless gardens you also have to wonder if they actually used all this space. Of course it also helps to explain why they eventually lost their heads, literally. It’s hard to have much sympathy for them after seeing Versailles.

Take the RER line C (no. 5) to the Versailles station. The official tourist office is to the right out of the station and then the first left and on your left. You can also find information desks to the left as you enter the grounds of the palace itself (look for the big “I”). And of course you might want to check out the chateau’s official website (in English). Bathrooms are scattered throughout the grounds and there are several places to find food within the park as well.

You can also download the very same maps and guide which they will give you at the information booths; just click here!

Wish you were here,

Steve