7th Day in Paris…

I wanted to visit Versailles, often recommended by tour guides and travel experts as a must see attraction in not only Paris, but France, and all of Europe. OK, well, with all that hype, it must be pretty special. From where I was, Porte d’Orleans, south of the city center, I had to head south west to reach Versaille. Here’s a map…Porte d’Orleans to Versaille. It’s not that easy to get there if you don’t have a car. I tried to talk my host, Youssef, into taking the day off from work and driving over there with me, but he couldn’t.

The next morning really threatened rain, but I had an umbrella and a hooded jacket so I walked to the subway station, the Metro, traveled to a nearby RER station which is the Regional transport system, bought a ticket and board RER-C for a 12 mile ride to Versaille. Recall that the King disliked the palace in Paris. What he didn’t like was that he thought the buildings ugly, than he hated the stench of city life in those days, the usurping of the courts power by the royalty, and finally he hated the hordes of people asking for something. By moving to Versaille, he could have his ministers greet and meet at the Paris palace while he hung out at Versaille. Wasn’t as stinky either. And he had a hand in deciding decor. Wasn’t that simple of course, and the whole story took a hundred years, so here’s a wiki article: Palace of Versaille History.

The station where you arrive is well marked with signs to the palace and it’s just a few steps from the station to one business that sells entrance tickets. I’d known about the different tickets but I didn’t realize that getting there at 9:30 would be too late to get the package I wanted. Still, I wasn’t going to miss Versailles so I just bought a general admittance ticket. Then you walk up the street 100 feet, and take a left onto this street and you can see the palace in the distance. Five minute walk. Versaille use to be a sleepy hamlet outside of Paris. Now it’s part of the suburbs.  

In the picture below, see that line over there in front of the gates? That’s the short and quick line you get to be in if you get those special tickets that they’d sold out of. They are holders of the ‘skip-the-line’ tickets. Damnit. Regular tickets are 24€ and skip the line tickets are 35€ but I would have been happy to pay that. So I had to stand in a queue of around 100 people snaking back and forth in the rain to get to the general admission entrance. It did move fast but that wasn’t much compensation for the discomfort. It was wet, and sometimes we were standing in a heavy rain, but thankfully the day was warm and wind was light. My hooded jacket and umbrella were enough to keep me fairly comfortable.

That reminds me, my hosts in Turin, seeing that I didn’t have an umbrella, were nice enough to just give me one. It was so small, but large enough when open that one person could stay dry, that it comfortably fit in one of my inside jacket pockets. Light enough that I barely noticed it when it was in the pocket. I was very happy to have it. Marco told me they only cost 3€.

It’s a self guided tour here, though you can pay 28€ for a guided tour, and once inside the gate I kind of followed any small groups I saw heading into buildings. I’m pretty sure I followed those people on the right in the below picture into the palace. The king’s private chapel. It was being set up for something, or it was just after Easter so it was roped off and you couldn’t enter. Well, it’s nice being in out of the rain. I did get here early enough in the day that I could find empty hallways occasionally. And out there in the rain is one of the worlds greatest gardens. The original gardener employed by the king made it a 40 YEAR project. And his brilliance at garden design is still studied today by gardeners from all over the world. 

A little better view of a small portion of the garden. One of the many kings of France. One of the 13th century kings after a big battle. After climbing some very nice marble stairs to the second floor, a bit further on, another set of stairs. Nicer and grander than the servants stairs I came up on, I see that nice mural on the wall over the stairs……walk over there for a better view, look up and see this. Whoa.

And then the ceilings of the lesser rooms kind of continued the motif along… And then we enter the salons, these are like the private quarters for the king and family. Some very rare marble adorns this salon.  Down in the courtyard are some passenger trains, some toilets, some food to buy too I think, and a place to buy tickets to the Petit Trianon. Just to the left a place to rent a golf cart.

This archway is the entrance to the famous Crystal Hall…or rather the Hall of Mirrors.

This place is amazing, astounding. And to think, one family called this home. It was about this point in my self guided tour I was thinking that a visit to Versaille alone was worth going to France. What a great tribute to the French people for keeping it unlooted during the French Revolution of 1789. Though much of the furniture was sold at auction, much remains as part of this museum and even more was purchase back years after the auctions. The Louvre is also part of that heritage. Thank-you to the French. Love the French! Viva la Revolution!

These parlors are guest bedrooms. Hah! Lucky guests.

See that pond way off in the distance (not the one in the foreground)? I’ll be walking over there soon as I’m finished here inside the palace. I took the picture out of a 2nd story window. This is the back courtyard of the palace. This hall was build by Napoleon during the Empire years. Has portraits of all the heroic deeds that Napoleon claimed to have been involved. And then outside to begin walking to the Petit Trianon. That’s Marie Antoinette’s favorite house to stay in while the court was in Paris. It’s only 100 miles or so, no big deal. Oh, in the courtyard leading to this pathway, there are these multi-car mini trains you can take. The line seemed a little long to me, so I passed them by. Further on were these 4 passenger electric cars for rent. Hmmm. Nah. The weather was looking much better than it had earlier in the day, the air was fresh, the breeze was gentle, I’ll just hoof it. Good for me to walk it anyway. So off I went. So here I’m at the edge of the palace’s courtyard. Still have to travel to the very end of that pond and beyond to find the next palace. Not the very distant end, the near one in the foreground. Then take a right, walk 50 more miles or so, and I’ll be at Grand Trianon. Take a right on that street, walk 10 miles and you’ll be at the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s house. Whew. It might not have been miles per se, but it was a long, long way. There was a short cut, it took it so I could go to the Petit Trianon first. This is where I make the turn to the right. That ‘Grand Canal’ goes on quite a ways though. And after 300-400 yards on, here’s the little palace. We enter in through the kitchen.

My mom would have loved to have seen this crockery… Nice big kitchen. And Marie’s favorite room…the billiards room. Yes, really. Billiards room. I believe that’s the Swiss Guard’s house, garden, and stables. Taken from the window of the Petit Trianon. The ante’ room. Even people waiting waited in style. The music room. Queen’s salon. And Marie’s bed. Quite simple, yet elegant.  Baby carriage. Pulled by a goat. Part of the garden. The gazebo was fairly popular with Marie.I was done with the tour of the Petit Trianon and it was very nice. Homey like. Easy to see why Marie preferred it over the Palace and the Grand Trianon. Outside the mansion, you walk on a narrow boulevard passed all sorts of utility buildings and then into the courtyard of the Grand Trianon. This was a get away for the king and his consort. A place to get away from the stuffiness of the court. 

Young lovers over there. Pffft. They’ll find out soon enough that it ain’t all that easy. Just the freaking furniture is worth hundreds of millions. Much of the art is priceless. And very few velvet ropes! A snatch and grabber could make off with 10’s of thousands in seconds. But there were a few cameras and a bored uniformed guard or two.

But now it was time to head home. Spent nearly all day here at Versaille. Well worth the trip. Amazing. Spectacular. One thing I did different was to jump on the multi-car mini-train. It was just too far to walk back. I kind of wished I’d taken the train over here from the palace. Wouldn’t be so tuckered out. Then I had that loooong walk from the gates of the main palace to the Regional train station to do yet.

So yesterday I was at the Palace in Paris (now the Louvre), then today the Palace in Versaille (which is really made up of 4 palaces built at different times), then the Petit Trianon Palace (Marie Antoinette’s favorite), and finally the Grand Trianon Palace (the French King’s last ‘get-away’ before the revolution). These people knew how to live in style that’s for sure.

It was 16:25 (4:25 PM) by the time I’d made it back to the Regional train and boarded. Tired. And it started to rain again.After exiting the subway in my neighborhood, I thought, to hell with it. I’m tired of walking, thirsty, and don’t feel like cooking. So 5 blocks later I stopped at that nice bar I’d found and had dinner. I only had 4 chicken breasts and fixings at the apartment and 4 days left anyway so…I was very hungry, hadn’t had any lunch and had walked 200 miles it seemed so this big hot dog, as they call it in France, was just the thing. Good too. Took my time eating so my legs could rest because I still had 7 blocks to walk to get to the apartment. The beer took the edge off though.

Hope you come back for the next installment…thanks for visiting my blog!