Sweet Joys: Trip Of A Lifetime...Part Four

Versailles Day!!! I was really looking forward to seeing Versailles. We got up, had our yummy breakfast, and took the Metro out to the country (our first and only Metro ride). It was a beautiful day and I couldn't wait to get started. I didn't know much about Versailles before this trip, but I learned a lot. It was a hunting lodge in the country outside of Paris for King Louis XIII. His son, Louis XIV expanded it and turned it into his palace. This is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were living when they fell from power.

My first impression was, "Wow! It's huge!" But I really had no idea how huge it really was until later. The king had basically a mini city built here with enough buildings to permanently house hundreds of his fellow leaders, aristocracy, and help. I think at it's height of power, thousands of people lived here. It truly became the center of French royalty.

The crowds were enormous. This was the busiest place we had visited by far. This was the line to get through security....it took us over an hour to get through it (I guess my celebrity status didn't get me very far in this corner of the world.)

They had just installed these gates within the last few months. They are a replica of the original gates that were destroyed by the peasants who stormed the palace in 1789. They are currently working on gilding the gate and the palace with gold as a part of a huge restoration project...talk about your Golden Gates!!

But golden gates were just the beginning. These French kings and queens spared no expense on their palace. You'll see what I mean as we go through. This is the chapel at Versailles with it's beautiful ceiling.

We then went through a series of rooms that were meeting or reception rooms for the various statesmen or foreign leaders to enjoy. I'm talking at least 6 rooms very similar to this one. How many reception rooms does a king need? A lot, apparently.

Then we came to the famous Hall of Mirrors. Wow! It was amazing (from what we could see through all of the people). Back then, mirrors were very expensive and rare, so in a show of wealth and power, the king had this room built with an entire wall of panelled mirrors that looked out over the massive grounds in the back of the palace. Again, WOW!

The ceiling was incredible!

Just off the Hall of Mirrors was the king's bed chamber. We were told that, as a ceremony, people of the king's court would come and watch him climb into bed and go to sleep. They would also come in the morning and watch him wake up. Ummm, weird!

This was Marie Antoinette's bedchamber. On Oct. 5, 1789, Versailles was taken over by peasants. Marie tried to escape out of a tiny hidden door.

After the main tour, we took a private tour which let us into other parts of the palace. This was the king's writing desk. It was beautiful. The guide told us that the ink well was separate from the main part of the desk so that the servants could refill the ink well without gaining access to the king's locked up papers.

This was the king's library. Ben Franklin enjoyed spending time in here on his visits to Versailles.

This is the back of the main part of the palace. I couldn't believe how humongous it was!

But when you turn around, and face the grounds, you see this!! Check that out!! Who has a back yard that big?! It goes on and on, as you will see. Looking back on this pictures, I probably have to say that the grounds of Versailles was my favorite part of the trip. It was absolutely amazing!

We stopped for lunch at one of the little outdoor cafes hidden in the trees. My Cobb Salad was really good.

Then we just starting walking and looking.....looking and walking. The place was unbelievable. I don't think we saw even half of it.

We went to a place on the corner of the estate called the Chateaux de Trianon, which was Marie Antoinette's own little palace. Yeah, she didn't obviously have enough room in the main palace, so she got her own here. I loved the decorating of this place better than the main house....not so over-the-top. Still very ornate and ostentatious, but not as bad. She used this house when she had her own special guests visiting, and to escape from the stress of royal life.

See, decorated far more simply. I like how everything isn't covering in gold leafing! That was a little much for me!

OK, so the queen had her own separate house...I might be able to buy the reasons for that, but that wasn't enough for Marie. She wanted a little more, so she had a whole little village built on the grounds even farther off. She apparently loved peasant life....not the "work your fingers to the bone your whole life" kind of life, but the "it would be so fun to have a little cottage and grow a garden and keep chickens for whenever I need them" kind of life. Yeah, she lived in a fairytale land, which is why the real peasants took her head! But, I must say, her little "Hamlet" as it was called was quite charming. It had a working orchard, garden, and farm from which she used the food when entertaining.

On our long walk back up to the main palace, we encountered even more buildings hidden in the trees and beautiful grounds and gardens. This place was unbelievable and I wish we would have had an entire day to spend on just the grounds of Versailles!!

This was a large building solely dedicated to the growing of orange trees. The king apparently loved oranges, so he had an "orange house" built.

I was sad to leave Versailles, but we needed to get back. We spent the rest of the night walking along the Champs Elysees again, having a hot chocolate at one of the cafes, and just enjoying Paris.

Our final day was spent mostly in the Musee d'Orsay, a beautiful museum (that used to be a huge train station) full of impressionist art. They wouldn't let us take any pictures, but I loved this museum. I always knew I was a fan of Monet, but I fell in love while at the Orsay. It was a wonderful way to spend our last day in Paris.