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.