Versailles

It started out as a King Louis XIII’s modest brick and stone hunting lodge in 1622.  Then he bought a lot of the surrounding property and began enlarging his lodge.  When Louis XIV came along, he became interested in the hunting lodge.  (There was a lot of political unrest in Paris, and he wanted another residence away from the Louvre Palace.)

So the Sun King hired an architect, Louis Le Vau, and started expanding and remodeling.  He also hired a famed gardener, André le Nôtre, to create a garden for the new palace. After Le Vau’s death, Louis XIV brought in Jules Hardouin-Mansart to continue the expansion (he tripled the size of the palace!).  The next step was to furnish the place and add lots of art to put icing on the cake, so to speak.  The finished palace was breathtakingly beautiful.

Hard to capture the size of the palace in a picture,
 but this one David took of part of it will give you an idea.

When the French Revolution came, most of the furniture was sold at auction.  Thankfully, the incredible collection of paintings, antiques, and other works of art that had been amassed at Versailles was transferred to the Louvre and other important items went to the National Library and Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.  The palace was still pretty impressive!  In fact, Napoleon spent his summers at Versailles until he abdicated. 

But, we have Louis-Phillipe to thank for the palace we see today.  In 1830, on his own nickel, Louis-Phillipe transformed the chateau into a grand museum dedicated to "the glory of France."  And, in the 1960s, curator Pierre Verlet somehow managed to get some of the furnishings back and restored a number of the royal apartments. Today, the garden and much of the interior are open to tourists.

Anna with a view of part of the gardens in the background.

We booked a guided tour, and it was money well spent.  We walked past all those people standing in a serpentine line that looked incredibly long, and were treated to some great information beyond what the tour books offer.  The high point of the tour was, of course, the Hall of Mirrors.  The hall has seventeen mirrored arches that reflect the seventeen arcaded windows which look out onto the garden. Each arch contains twenty-one mirrors (many of which are original ones), for a total of 357 in all. The hall is 240 feet long, 34 feet wide, and 40 feet high. It is truly magnificent!  What continues to amaze us is that people actually called this place “home.”  

Our guide took this picture of us in the
Hall of Mirrors.

After our tour, we wandered around a bit and looked at the garden.  We were pretty much on museum/tour overload at that point so it was time for a nice, leisurely meal and some wine on a terrace outside a nearby café.  A very civilized way to end our time in Versailles!  Then we hopped back on the RER for our ride back to Paris.