Day 3: Thursday, April 24, Versailles

Paris has a good subway and light rail system that criss-crosses the city and connects it with the suburbs. We rode it out today to Versailles to spend the day there. As we got off of the train we ran into two other people who were also following Rick Steve’s guidebook. (He really is good.)

I knew Versailles had been built as a brand-new city of 10,000 specifically to house (and amuse) the courts of Louis XIV, the “Sun King.” According to Rick Steve, however, this was a calculated move because it kept all of the nobility within easy watching distance and ensured they weren’t stirring up the masses into revolt. It also turned the other nations green with envy. Whether this was an intended effect or not, I don’t know, but I do know that it was estimated to have cost one-half of France’s entire GDP at the time. It shows. The place is a massive complex with a massive garden, massive main “chateau,” and a “simple” (read: only McMansion sized) farmhouse.

Interior of a Versailles room.

The inside is ridiculous. “Stunning” might be a better adjective, because that was half of the purpose of Versailles – stun everyone into worship for the king who built a capitol for France (and, to a significant degree, Europe) from scratch. The motif of a face with sun rays emanating from it recurs throughout Versailles. Louis XIV was associated everywhere with Apollo, god of War, and Louis XIV certainly intended himself to be awed as god on earth. It might not have been the same “god incarnate” idea of kingship as found in Egypt or another civilization, but this was as close as you could unofficially get. Every room had ornate gilt molding from roof to ceiling framing massive paintings or frescos or outlining marble designs. What I couldn’t fathom was the time required to paint all of the paintings. Many were bought/gifted from elsewhere, but the ceilings and others had to be painted after the room was completed. Every room was like a mini-Sistine Chapel. What I admired most was the marble work – beautiful red, green, and other colors in the walls as well as great marble busts of Greco-Roman figures. The Hall of Mirrors was a disappointment, honestly. However, I can imagine that it was much more spectacular when mirrors were a rarity and natural light (which the mirrors double) was the primary source of light.

Looking back at the palace from 1/3 of the way into the gardens.

The estate is huge. A cross-shaped man-made lake (more like a wide canal) makes up the center. Various gardens make up the rest. It resembles a huge adult garden maze with “centerpieces” at various points – for example, fake Roman ruins. There are also lots of fountains in the gardens. I was trying to figure out how they powered them since they didn’t have electricity and there were no water towers in sight. Apparently they diverted water from the Seine at a higher elevation and then used constricted tubes to make the jets – like putting your thumb over a garden hose. Very impressive. Usually they only turned the fountains on as the king walked past, meaning they probably didn’t have enough water pressure to power them all at once. We also visited ancillary buildings, such as Marie Antoinette’s mini estate. My first thought upon seeing it was that I had stumbled onto a Disney set for Snow White. It is made up of “farm houses” with thatched roofs that are all picture-perfect. The gardens aren’t the structured layout of the main gardens, and there is a fake rock arch that is made to look natural.

There were lots of renovations going on, but as a result the front had tarps and scaffolds over half, several wings were closed, etc. Also, we are right between seasons, so there were no flowers in the gardens – I’m assuming they are normally resplendent with colors since they were tilling the flower gardens, presumably in preparation for planting. Having said that, the weather outside was great and the crowds weren’t bad (relatively – only 2,000 people instead of 6,000 or something like that). I took a picture down a garden path not because it was beautiful but simply because there were no people in sight.

A Romanesque statue inside of Versailles.

That night we stopped to get groceries at the same place we had patronized two previous nights. All of the shops around here are tiny, and there will be multiple bakeries, butcheries, grocery stores (which only have dry goods/bread/milk), and wine/cheese shops on the same block. You can’t do a one-stop shop. On the other hand, Parisians probably couldn’t do a one-stop shop since moped is the primary means of transportation. Wine is E3.50-10, a baguette is usually E1, meat is expensive – E15/kg and up. A whole roasted chicken was E10 and chicken cordon bleu was E2/piece (it was good, though). Milk is E2/liter, or ~$12/gal. Ham and cheese baguette: E2.80. Fixed-price 3-coeure lunch: E10-16. Café dinner is E12-18, pricier ones are E20-30. True restaurants are more. Apples E3.5/kg, jam is E2, sandwich bread is E2, peanut butter is about E2.50, cereal is E2.50-4.

Like I said, mopeds are everywhere. You quickly get used to stylish Parisian women and dapper French suit-clad businessmen sitting ramrod straight on their mopeds and zipping between traffic with the engine huffing and puffing plaintively.