Arriving at the Palace of Versaille was like a dream. The regal gold gates, large sandstone building, huge courtyard, and of course the 800 hectares of gardens surrounding the Palace.
Built by King Louis XIV to replace the Louvre as the royal residence in France, the Palace was designed with no expense spared. Some time after the French Revolution when King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were killed, and Napoleon stayed in the palace temporarily, the Palace was deserted for about 40 years before being restored to be used as a museum for the people.
In case you didn’t know who built this place, there is a nice statue of Louis out the front so no one would forget.
We first took a look inside the palace, where the Hall of Mirrors was built over 6 years with mirrors made in Venice as it seems they had a monopoly on the market! The ornate passageway also spared no area up above, with paintings covering the ceiling along the 73m hall.
The Royal Opera of Versaille inside the palace was just as ornate.
King Louis XIV seemed to change his mind as to where in the Palace he was to sleep, as there were 2 bedrooms for Louis in the one wing alone! This was in addition to his bedrooms at the other residences in Versailles.
On the other side of the Kings apartment you enter the gardens of the Palace. These ornate gardens stretch over 800ha and contain 50 fountains and 620 water jets. Unfortunately the fountains do not operate in the winter when we were visiting, but the sculptures are pretty impressive themselves.
The view from the palace overlooking the gardens and the expansive Grand Canal
We start our walk down to the Grand Canal, where you can hire a row boat, or have lunch by the water. We continue on to the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon which were built so that the King could escape the pomp and politics of the Palace. These two homes were beautiful, made of pink marble, with their own extensive manicured gardens.
Marie Antoinette lived mostly in these homes and steered clear of the Palace. It is thought that this perhaps contributed to the French people despising her as she had no idea what was going on outside Versailles. She, in fact, was so detached from real French life that she arranged for her own Hamlet to be built like a traditional French village, with most of it being for show only (read: fake dairies and wells) so that she could host cute gatherings for her friends.
The Queens Hamlet was possibly the most suprising but enjoyable part of my visit to Versaille, as the area looked like it was straight out of a fairytale.
After walking through Marie Antoinettes estate, we headed back to the main palace – about 30 minutes down the road! Perhaps hiring bikes would have been a good idea….
Finishing our trip through the gardens, past most of the fountains and sculptures, our feet could not carry us any further and we hopped back on the train to Paris.
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