Four Americans in France: Versailles

We're now home in New York, recovering from the hustle of our last few days in France and the 6 hour time change, but I want to post the photos of our last adventure--a trip to Versailles, the palace Louis XIV built, and which his grandson, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lived in until they were ousted by their subjects during the start of the French Revolution in 1789. The history of the palace is fascinating, and I left wanting to read more about the period and the French royal family who once inhabited the beautiful landscape of Versailles.

The trip to Versailles from Paris was much easier than I expected--a short tram ride out of Paris, followed by a 10 minute train ride to the village of Versailles, now a mostly sleepy tourist haven. Once we left the train station in Versailles, we walked the few blocks toward the palace. Along the street (which runs from Versailles all the way to Paris, as it has since the time of the palace's construction) the brick buildings that once housed the horses and carriages of the royal court remain.

At the end of the street, tourists are greeted by the impressive golden gates of the palace, as well as this statue of Louis XIV atop his horse. Versailles seems in many ways one oversized and over-opulent tribute to Louis XIV, in fact, as there are many busts and statues and portraits of him throughout the grounds and palace. Clearly, le roi de soleil was a man with no shortage of ego!

Below, we're checking our stroller (strollers aren't allowed in the palace), and Finn is having fun playing peek-a-book with Nathan through the fence posts.

Here's the palace from inside its grounds. It's magnificent, both in its lavish details and grand size, and in the strange perfection of the landscaping in particular. Nathan kept noting the obsessive symmetry of the place, and we spent several minutes watching the grounds crew manicure the gardens (they set up lines, by the way, against which the hedges are trimmed to straight perfection).

Our students had been to Versailles the day before we arrived, and had come back complaining of the scant shade and the terrible heat. We, however, lucked out, and were blessed with a much cooler day. It felt like autumn, actually. The temperature was in the very low 70s, the sky was at turns gray and bright as the brisk breeze sent clouds chasing across the wide horizon. We even got a bit of rain, which was so lovely! Afterward, the sun came out and the light was a clarified, thin white that came beaming in the windows of the palace and glinted off the wet gables of the roofs outside. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day for our visit.

We ate lunch on the lawn near the large reflecting pond. We noticed that on weekend evenings Versailles puts on fireworks displays over the pond, which would be truly something to see.

You can see our French picnic here, bought at one of the snack vendors on the palace grounds (there are several food vendors, restaurants and cafes on the grounds, and even little orange juice carts at which you can watch the cart operator squeeze your juice from fresh oranges). We stopped at a sandwich shack, where we bought jambon et fromage baguettes (ham and cheese sandwiches on baguette bread), beer (it's France, so you can drink in public without trespassing on any social etiquette or legal taboos), and Cokes.

Here is Marie Antoinette's hameau de la reine (queen's hamlet), the little "village she had built for herself just off the palace grounds as a retreat from the order and expectations of the formal court. The hamlet is bizarre, honestly, in that it has a certain theme-park falsity. It was intended to look like a real peasant village, and the buildings are all thatched roof, the gardens really produce vegetables and herbs, the orchard fruits, and there's even a working mill; during Marie Antoinette's time the village also housed a dairy farm, and the milk, cheese, and produce that were the products of the hamlet were served at Marie's table. But the place is too perfect to look real, and the order and orchestrated beauty gives the hamlet an unsettling fake air.

Here, below, is the unkempt inside of Marie Antoinette's living quarters at the hamlet. I found it interesting that while the rest of Versailles is meticulously restored and maintained, this place is falling into disrepair.

This pond on the hamlet grounds was seething with carp, which kept the kids entertained for several minutes. We also spotted a swan and her cygnets and a duck and her ducklings tutting around the waters.

Here, not far from the hamlet, is one of the many luxuries of le Petit Trianon, the hunting chateau the royal family kept just outside the main palace. This place is the temple of love, at the center of which is a statue of cupid, his bow and arrow ready to strike a new pair of lovers.

Again, Petit Trianon. This building is one of the drawing rooms on the chateau grounds.

Le Petit Trianon is some hunting cabin, eh?

There was an installation of contemporary fashion up inside le Petit Trianon's main building, and it was interesting to see it alongside the period furniture.

Here, Vivi and I walk between the chateau and the central palace of Versailles. The walk is not short, but we found it a lovely transition from the bustle of the palace to the quiet of the chateau. Though the two are not all that far apart (not as far as a year-round home and a summer home usually are), it was easy to see how the royal family could have felt a sense of separation from the palace out at the chateau.

Here, on the walk and in the wind. It was wonderful!

This is the fountain of Apollo, my favorite of the many (many!) fountains on the palace grounds. In this sculpture, Apollo and his chariot are rising as if from beneath the waters of this fountain. We heard a tour guide tell a group that at sunrise, the sun comes up just over Apollo's back here, so that it seems he is pulling the sun itself with him from beneath the deep.

The palace grounds are, as I mentioned, ordered and meticulously manicured. It was easy to imagine these long pathways crowded with ladies in fine dresses and gentleman standing about beneath the statues conversing about court matters.

Here, we're inside one of the many large corridors of the central palace at Versailles. The statues lining the walls are of the royalty and saints of France.