Around Europe in 21 Days Pt. 4 -- Verily, Versailles

Your daily fact -- Versailles is not part of Paris.  Believe it or not, it is its own town in Île-de-France, and more like a suburb of Paris.  Granted, it is only about 10 miles outside the city center and has a metro stop a mere jaunt from the Château de Versailles - BUT remember when I told you that there were strikes in France strongly affecting the train schedule?  Trains to and from Versailles were still running, but on a somewhat unregulated basis.  SNCF was telling commuters to check the schedules the night before, when daily printouts were being released.  Naturally, the day before I planned to visit Versailles, I was refreshing the website every so often to make sure I would actually be able to make it there and back.

But, what luck, my particular train line was running smoothly.  To the Palace of the Sun King!

No, not this one (where my HZD fans at?)

Yes, this big ole foppy fop on his majestic effing unicorn.

When everyone asked me what I was most looking forward to in France, the Palace of Versailles definitely landed in my top three.  How could it not?  I'd only been hearing of its majesty since I was 13.

The grounds are absolutely enormous.  I don't think I have one single picture that really does the size of the place justice, but I mean... the castle itself is 67,000 sqm, and the grounds cover 1070 hectares.  Hectares, guys.  1 hectare is 100 acres.  When I had looked up guides on visiting the palace, most people said that there was no way that you could cover everything in a single day, so I set my expectations fairly low - just the gardens and the palace.  Even then, I'm sure there was plenty that I missed.

This is not even the entrance yet

What with the sun bearing down, completely unbridled by clouds and the temperatures getting up into the 80s, I figured I'd spend the (relatively) cooler morning out in the gardens, and then the rest of the day in the shade.

Gorgeous.  Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

There was a certain amount of serenity to walking the gardens in the morning.  It was somewhat late in the day (maybe 10:30ish), but the crowds hadn't really formed yet, so I had the opportunity to wander without interruption.  It was incredibly easy to get lost amongst the various groves and bosquets (it's a word), whether you took the prescribed route, or went a little off the beaten path into tucked away corners of greenery.

I mentioned that sculpture is definitely one of my favorite forms of art, and the gardens certainly played into that.  Busts, full-sized statues of the Greek pantheon, and epic scenes were all set, some even laid within the natural surroundings.  

La Colonnade, at center, the Abduction of Persephone

Bassin d'Apollon

Grotte des Bains d'Apollon

The Baths of Apollo was both one of my greatest favorites and the one that caused me the greatest irritation.  Somewhat unsurprisingly, much of the lawn was off-limits, groundskeepers furiously wandering and waiting to wag their fingers and any tourist who thought about flaunting those rules.  The unfortunate result of this is that I really had to admire from afar, and since I was using my phone and not a proper camera, you can see how well that turned out.

Though separated by about 3 centuries, I can't help but wonder how the nobles of France felt when they wandered the grounds.  Do we share the same sense of awe?  Was this unique to them, or just another garden, another show of wealth.  And, more importantly, would they stand for someone in a lime green vest shaking a walkie-talkie at them to get off the lawn.

I hadn't seen nearly close to the entirety of the gardens, but the mid-afternoon sun was starting to bear down, so I figured it was time to make my way to the interior.  Admittedly, waiting until late in the day to tour the palace *might* have been a little of a mistake.  By the time I left the garden, foot traffic had definitely picked up, and... well...

^^^This line stretched the entirety of the plaza, all the way to the parking lot at some points, and while it wasn't torturously slow, it wasn't exactly a pleasant 30 minute wait, either.  

Though hanging out next to this was pretty cool.

But, soon enough, I was through security and in the palace proper!

With its own Laduree b/c why not.

As expected, the interior was a grandiose, beautiful, and insane show of opulence, with gilded surfaces as far as the eye can see.

  

I confess, I didn't end up taking that many pictures of the inside of the palace.  Not because I didn't find it entrancing, but because after some time, each individual room seemed like nothing more than a palette and pattern swap of the one prior, and my mind began to go to some unusual thoughts.  

How would Louis XIV feel about his summer home becoming a museum for the masses?  Would he be flattered, or appalled by the shuffle of unclean feet through his chateau?  Or, would he be disappointed that his place of respite sat in, effectively, disuse?  Sure, all his finery was on display, but were those things meant to be ogled at, or were they meant to be sat upon, dined at, played with?

And the longer I stared at all the shimmering sparklies about me, I became amused at the idea of what it is we as society choose to put value in.  In a modern age that seems to grow increasingly tied to the idea of minimalism, how long would we find value in a place such as this?  Yes, it is a UNESCO world heritage site now, but as the population continues to rise, will we one day find this nothing more than a vanity and an extravagance, razing this relic of a bygone time in order to divvy up all those hectares of land?  Questions gone unanswered, and things I hope to never see in my time.

Alas, all too soon it was time for me to catch my train back to the city.  Would I have liked a second day to view the rest of the grounds that I had missed?  Yes, of course, but there was still so much more to see and so little time.

Paris... to be continued.

Until the next.