VERSAILLES BASICS

                                          One Huge Palace
       
         We decided to take the train from Paris for the hour ride through the countryside to visit the  Château de Versailles. Before heading to the subway we stopped in a cigar store to purchase a two-day museum pass. On arrival and seeing the long line to buy tickets,  we were especially glad we already had ours! It was nice to bypass the line and go directly to the side and enter the chateau where the first stop was reception to buy English ear phones and pick up a map.

            Chateau Versailles is a bit of a misnomer, as it is truly a magnificent palace radiating wealth, grandeur and ceremony. A UNESCO site for the past thirty years, it is an excellent example of 18^th century art. Louis XIII built Versailles as a hunting lodge.  Louis XIV expanded the structure and moved the court and government there in 1682. Three French kings occupied the 18,000 square meter palace---the seat of power until 1789.

The château also includes lavish royal apartments and the Châteaux de Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s hamlet. Magnificent gardens, 250 acres of them, surround these monuments. In the 16^th century the area was a clay quarry for making tile. Catherine built the palace after Henri II died in 1559. The Italian style reminded the queen of her native Tuscany.

Between 1660-1994 the palace was redesigned in French style. a renovation took place in 1990, statues were added and the palace was separated from traffic. In 1994 a foot bridge was added across the Seine River.

The palace tour starts at the Louie XV chapel, completed in 1710. The two-level room faces the east and the rising sun. The king sat in the top level, his family to the sides and the public on the ground floor. Mass was held every day.

            Marble wainscoting and wooden parquet floors were in the apartments. The gorgeous salon ceiling, containing 142 figures, took three years to paint. Belgium marble in a quilt pattern edged the contrasting colored marble walls. The 236-foot long hall of mirrors in the grand apartments dates back to the 1670s. There are 17 multi paned mirrors, gilded together rather than soldered, on the inside wall of the long room. Seventeen arched windows are opposite on the outside wall. Three rows of crystal chandeliers go the full length of the hall, plus there is a row of gold statues on the side walls holding up additional chandeliers. Large red, grey and gold tapestries hang on the king’s bedroom walls. To say this part of the palace is ornate, and busy, is a bit of an understatement!    

             The dauphin (oldest son of the king) apartments, dating back to the 1670s, were much prettier and calmer. The white walls had lovely painted raised, probably plaster, decorations running around all the edges. Forty-three coats of alternating paint and varnish covered the decorated parts. These rooms, apartment if you will, were a contrast to what we’d seen, and although I loved them, they were occupied by a male and seemed very feminine to me. 

            We walked through the gardens to catch a little tram ride through the forest to Marie-Antoinette’s apartments where she raised sheep. Her quarters were peaceful in a quiet setting. Marble was popular and she had some unique furniture pieces. It was easy to see why Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793), an Austrian princess and brother of Emperor Joseph II as well as the wife of Louis XVI, would love to stay here. She had a flair for entertaining. Besides raising sheep, she was a music and art lover and played the harp.

            In the 19^th century Versailles became a museum of French history. 

INCA CULTURE continued

                                     Inca Lifestyle

      At lower altitudes in more temperate and subtropical valleys bananas, coffee, beans, yucca, avocado, plus a variety of fruits and vegetables are grown. Such crops are rotated with corn, wheat, and alfalfa. There are special rituals that accompany the planting of corn where the men plow, but the women do the planting.

      Water symbolizes eternity, and where there is water, there is life. Sources of water are sacred; springs are regarded as entrances to the inner earth.  Immersion in water is a healing practice.  Ceremonial baths have been found in all ancient Inca ruins. Mineral waters and hot springs are found in the mountains surrounding Cuzco and Machu Picchu.  Mayu means river.

       Quechua women dress in vibrant bright colors. Traditional dress of Quechua women is a combination of pre-Spanish and Spanish colonial. Skirts are full and gathered, and worn in layers giving the hips a broad dimension. Hats may be a Panama-type woven from palm fibers, but the most common hat we

Always willing to pose!

saw was a brown woolen rounded top-hat type that sat on top of the woman’s head. I tried in vain to figure out how they kept these hats on. Women wear their dark hair long in two braids fastened in back with a ribbon. The women are short (generally a little less than 5’) and physically small. Babies and supplies are carried on their back held by a large colorful  woven cloth.

Men wear traditional western clothing including a vest and brimmed hat. Footwear is either leather sandals or ones made from tire rubber. Men carry small woven pouches to hold coca leaves. Coca leaves are an integral part of Quechua life. The leaves are often chewed as a digestive aid or as an appetite suppressant, and of course to brew tea.

     It takes about six months to spin, dye, and weave the ponchos that are distinctive in color and design which identify the wearer’s village/district.

     Young girls weave a multi colored scarf, called a chilina. She works on it in her spare time. At a festival or celebration when she sees a young man she wishes to have a serious relationship with, she gives him the chilina and once it is accepted, they go off to consummate their relationship.

      Young boys learn songs and how to play an instrument, often a mandolin or flute. At a festival, if he sees a certain girl he desires, he’ll serenade her. If she also desires, they go off to consummate the relationship.

 But whatever the custom, after the commitment, the couple visits her parents, who in turn call his parents. Parents exchange coca leaves. The young couple moves in with one of the families, and helps where needed. Pregnancy soon follows. The child is accepted by both families and after living together two years the law gives the same rights to women and children as by any formal ceremony.

       The Incas had no written language, but intricate patterns woven into their fabrics told a story. Fabrics were crucial to the culture. Awa is the Quechua word for weaving, and is considered the highest of the Quechua skills. One of the first things girls learn is how to use a drop spindle to spin alpaca or llama wool into thread.

     The alpaca is domesticated and raised almost exclusively for its wool, which is finer than sheep’s wool. The alpaca is sheared every two years.

      In one form of Awa a portable backstrap loom attached to a belt is braced around the weaver’s waist, the other end is anchored to a stake in the ground or around a tree. This ancient art, threatened by modernization, is being revived. The fabrics woven by the Quechua are beautiful. They make many things from these cloths and sell them for very small prices.