Versailles

A group of us that are here decided to take a day trip out to see Versailles. King Louis XIV began this extravagant (that's an understatement) project in 1661. After 72 years on the throne, his great-grandson inherited the crown and the palace. He continued to make renovations until he ran out of money. Eventually, French citizens stormed the grounds, forcing Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette back to Paris and thus beginning the French Revolution.

This was just a cool clock on the way.



This was another extremely crowded place, but at least it sits on 2,000 acres.


And the extravagance begins...



A miniature scale of the palace and grounds. I couldn't even get it all in the picture.


Room after room of extravagance


LOVE the gold doors everywhere



The Chapel


Every ceiling was painted elaborately --and make no mistake, there are a lot of very large ceilings. Among other rooms, we saw bedrooms, the Salons of War and Peace, meeting rooms, and libraries.






And it went on and on....


The famous Hall of Mirrors-really beautiful



And an interesting exhibit called "Marilyn", after our own Marilyn Monroe. These heels are made entirely of pots and pans.


Marble, marble everywhere (literally)


A bust of King Louis XIV at 27 (with more marble)


The Queens' room, eventually Marie-Antoinette's.



The hidden (open) door on the left is where she attempted to escape to the King's apartment the day French citizens stormed the grounds. There is a bust of her on the mantle.


Eventually we made it out to my favorite part - the gardens. Think beautiful, manicured forest/park and that's a better description. Pictures won't do it justice, but of course, I'll try.












It went as far as you could see, and then some. The canal you see below is a mile long, and Louis the XV would take gondola rides with his lovers to pretend he was in Venice. Today, they have boat rides you can pay to go on.



This statue/fountain of Apollo rises out of the canal



Continuing our exploration of the grounds, we made our way to the Petit and Grand Trianons. Basically, a few more mansions in case they ran out of room at the chateau. (Actually, the larger one was built for the King to eat light meals away from the palace and the smaller one for the Kings' mistresses.)

I was all about the rose colored marble in the Grand Trianon. Loved it.






Oh, just taking a picture in front of my rose-colored dream house ;)



You definitely need a day all for exploring Versailles. We actually ran out of time and didn't make it to Marie-Antoinette's farmhouses and watermill (where she pretended to be back at her family's retreat in Austria--which I think is a lot of pretending to be somewhere else when you basically live in a city) because of a performance that shut the place down early. But it's definitely worth visiting--especially the gardens/park/forest/etc!


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Location:Rue des Irlandais,Paris,France