Château de Versailles

During the February school holidays we decided to go to Versailles for the day. A chance to get out of the city and enjoy the Château without huge crowds to spoil the experience. That was the plan anyway. We had been there in the July and the queues on the esplanade outside the Château were so long that we opted for the lesser known Trianon and La Domaine de Marie Antoinette, also well worth a visit. When we were there last week there were no queues to get into the Château, the marble courtyard was nearly empty.

They have recently gilded the gates to the Château and also the dormer windows. Who ever heard of gold window frames? The French Kings bien sur!

We started off our visit on the ground floor in the central part of the Palace. We were guided through the Appartements des Mesdames, built for Louis XV's daughters, princesses Adélaïde and Victoire. The restoration of these apartments was completed two years ago in April 2013. 

Here is the bedroom of Madame Victoire. These rooms are very extravagant, but as it turns out they are rather rather low key and discrete as compared to the apartments built for Louis XVI and his entourage.

My favourite part was the pale creamy stone in entrance arcade. Exquisite.

Once we got to the Galerie des Glaces, the hall of mirrors, the place was heaving and it was impossible to take any photos without crowds of people in them, unless you zoomed in to an architectural or decorative detail of which there are plenty!

Or looked up!

I was surprised to learn that back in the 17C the hall of mirrors was mainly used by courtiers and the visiting public as passageway and a waiting and meeting place rather than for special ceremonies. It is so extravagant, it looks like the perfect venue for huge parties.

After the Galerie des Glaces we had to leave quickly as our parking ticket was about the run out. Here is another 'over-everybody's-head' photo. I likes the perspective of bright colours. 

We quickly glimpsed Louis XVI's rather fabulous red bed chamber as we squeezed our way through the crowds.

And then headed out of the gates and back to our car, catching a last glimpse of gold as we ran.

The Château de Versailles is open seven days a week. More details can be found on their website, here.

The Queen's Hamlet

Last week during our Easter 'stay-cation' in Paris we went to Versailles. Not feeling brave enough to join the enormous queue leading up to the Chateau, we decided to go to the Petit Trianon instead. The Petit Trianon is a much smaller chateau located on the grounds on the Palais de Versailles. It was Marie Antoinette's favourite place to retreat from the formality of court life. We were particularly aiming to seen the Queen's Hamlet, a small farm within the grounds of the Petit Trianon from which, back in the day, food was supplied to the main palace. 

We went straight to the gardens of the Petit Trianon, heading for the Queen's Hamlet. 

We only walked a few minutes before seeing the house where the Queen liked to stay.

Other buildings in the Hamlet include a farm, a dovecote, a mill, a guards room, another smaller house for the Queen known as The Boudoir and the Malborough Tower where it is said that communication, via signals, took place between the Palace of Versailles and the Hamlet.

The Petit Trianon chateau was restored in 2008 and several buildings in the Queen's Hamlet are now being restored. They look beautiful in their crumbling state but will not last much longer if some serious repair jobs don't happen quickly.

This wisteria, however, does not seem to be suffering!

Further information about The Palais de Versailles and the other sights to see on the Palace grounds can be found here.

Opulent Versailles

I love Paris stay-cations. There is so much to see in and around Paris, but if you live here the tendency is to get complacent and postpone the outing to another day. It usually requires vistors to properly get us going. We've had my parents staying and this has meant more site-seeing action in the past ten days than we usually manage in ten weeks. Our latest trip was to Versailles. It takes about an hour to get there by metro and RER from our place, door to door. We should really go more often.

The scale of the Chateau and gardens is totally over the top. The Chateau is HUGE, the stables are HUGE, the gardens are HUGE. No wonder there was a revolution, so much opulent extravagance, while the majority of the population were starving. 

Here is a view of the Palace from the gardens.

We didn't go into the Chateau but we did wonder around the gardens.

Apollo's ornamental lake.

Apollo and his horse drawn chariot.


Dauphin's Grove.




The Flora ornamental lake.



An avenue of trees running away from Apollo's ornamental lake.


Looking back up towards the Chateau.


Gold.


A maze by the Chateau, with a dusting of snow. Despite it being mid March, we of course also had snow!



For more information about visiting: Chateau de Versailles.