Again, to make sure our troup of lethargic adults and fussy kids do not get stuck in queues, I hustled everyone into the car and in front of those golden gates before opening time at 9am. I was not the only one with that idea. When we arrived 10 minutes before opening time, there was already a queue of 200m, and it kept growing even as we hurried to the end of line. People, if you want to be one of the first inside Versailles, go half-an-hour before opening time (have your coffee & breakfast while queuing, and tell me if it works!).
Inside the Grand Courtyard (the main entrance). Those golden gates are impressive.
Hehehehe....guess who's the older sister?
Once inside, my brood knows my battle plan: ram through all those rooms on the ground floor and keep heading upstairs to the Hall of Mirrors. We reached the room in about 20 minutes, and there was already a handful of people milling around there. This is the pièce de résistance of Versailles.
It is grand: 73 metres of gilded 357 ceiling-to-floor mirrors reflecting the light from the 17 equally large arched windows on its opposite side. Imagine light flooding in from the windows, and reflected inside the room by the mirrors, resulting in a glowing sensation in the room.
It is functional: in the 17th century, this served daily as a passageway and a meeting and waiting place.
It is historic: important weddings and receptions were held during the times of the monarchs. The treaty of Versailles which sealed the end of World War I was also signed in this room in 1919.
It is tragic: This is also the palace from which Louis XVI and his Austrian wife, Marie-Antoinette were seized at the height of the French Revolution. They were moved to the Tuilleries, and spent some time in the Conciergerie before their meeting with the guillotine.
The French court, prior to the 17th century, was a nomadic one, moving from one palace to another in different parts of the country, which is what gave rise to all those castles & palaces you find in the Loire Valley. However, from the 17th century, they began to settle into a more sedentary way of living. Hence when Louis XIV wanted a palace to suit his new lifestyle, in the most ostentatious display of power, he set out to build the mother-of-all-palaces by engaging in the services of the trio responsible for the Vaux-le-Vicomte (another intriguing story, that one).
The king's bedchamber
Apparently, the king & queen were accompanied and observed every minute of their day, from the rising ceremony (about 100 people in attendance), to their dressing, to their meals. Here you can see stools placed in front of their dining table for the "spectators", usually nobles, courtiers, and the usual palace hoi polloi.
The palace is said to have 700 rooms, but that pales in comparison to its gardens. I was adamant that we rent an electric buggy to take us around its 100 hectares, to my delightful brother-in-law's amusement, who thinks we can cover it on foot. I know it is not an impossible idea, but with 3 young children, it is probably a bad idea.
(Just a tip, though, the buggy doesn't take you everywhere where the bicycles do, but bicycles cannot go into where the buggies go. It's OK if you don't understand - it took us quite to digest this, and to strategise our action plan, which involved illegal overloading of the buggy...ssshh!)
Anyways the electric buggy keeps the kids motivated
A view of the gardens and its famous water fountains, which were supposed to dance but were pretty much just spouting water when we were there...pfffh.... In the far horizon, you can just make out the Grand Canal where Louis XVI and his descendants held boating parties.
We planned for a picnic, but it took our navigator quite a while to find the picnic spot. You can tell how relieved and ecstatic we were to find it after a long and arduous trek outside the gates and into an isolated but lovely meadow with only cows and goats for company.
Hurrah!! We can finally eat!
The kids mucking around with broken tree branches and grass
New parents.....muahahahhahahaha!!
3 comments:
We were at Versailles in 2001. Beautiful. The last part was really funny. Poor them. Muahahahahaha!!!
hmmm the fountain was on so you were there on a weekend? actually, i've been there twice in recent months (thanks visitors, for making me take you guys there :p) and regardless weekday or weekend, there's still tons of people. at least less queueing weekday but within some rooms, we were still moving like herded flock of lifestock... loooooove the gardens though, and next trip out, i'm going to avoid main castle altogether and head to the trianon instead.
i LOL at the last pic of daddy yawning n the caption!
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