C'est La Vie: Versailles

This weekend was reflected in the weather. It was gloomy and drizzly, then sunny, then pouring rain, then hailing, then sunny again, then hailing again, and finally out came a beautiful rainbow. As I tell my story, you’ll be able to see why the temperamental weather is a good analogy for this weekend’s adventure, which will be told in two parts.

On Friday morning I headed to the train station for my 6am departure for Versailles. I’d decided a couple months ago to skip class for this because I wanted to be at Versailles to see the Grandes Eaux musicales (Musical Water show) and spend the most amount of time possible at Versailles (the trains on the weekend get to Versailles later than during the week). It was the second day of the high season which meant everything would be open longer (and be more crowded) and it was the first day for seeing the Grandes Eaux. The Grandes Eaux are special because it means that the fountains are active and period music is played all throughout the gardens. It is more expensive to go on this day, but definitely worth it, considering that the glory of Versailles is its fountains.

I slept for a couple hours on the train, but was awake to catch my first glimpse of Versailles. I honestly couldn’t believe it and consciously thought, “That can’t be Versailles … it’s too big.” It took about 15 minutes to walk from the Versailles Chantiers station to Versailles. Along the way I passed the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and a World War II memorial. I passed by a statue of Louis XIV on a horse, went through the outer gate and then waited in an enormous line to get my passport (entrance to the palace, gardens and domain of Marie Antoinette). Then I waited in an even longer line to get into the palace. The wait was comparable to waiting in line at Disneyland. The line stretched all the way from the inner courtyard to the outer gate, but it moved quickly and only took about half an hour.

The château Versailles is almost completely symmetrical. On either side are two colonnaded building with the words, “A Toutes les Gloires de la France” meaning “To all the glories of France.” The chapel on the right hand side throws off the symmetry, but in my opinion, makes it far more interesting. Alright, I thought Chambord was big (and it is for just a hunting lodge) but it can’t compete with Versailles (ironically Versailles was originally a hunting lodge as well). Versailles is absolutely gargantuan. It has 700 rooms and 67 staircases with around 6,000 paintings, 2,000 sculptures, 15,000 engravings, 2,000 windows, and over 5,000 pieces of furniture and other objects of art. I toured the King’s, Queen’s, and Dauphin’s rooms and saw an exhibition on photography of Versailles throughout the years.

My favorite rooms in the palace were the Hall of Mirrors and the Hall of Battles. Louis XIV certainly knew what he was about when he wanted to impress people because the opulence of the Hall of Mirrors was unreal (I also had fun taking pictures of myself in the mirrors). The Hall of Battles featured enormous tableaux of battles throughout the centuries. Joan of Arc and George Washington were figured in some of these scenes. I also liked the bust of Champollion, the Egyptologist who is credited with first deciphering the Rosetta stone, and all of the Napoleonic imagery, especially Jacques Louis David’s masterpiece “Le Sacre du Napoleon.” The painting was basically an enormous portraiture and you couldn’t see David’s brushstrokes at all.

While the palace itself was amazing, the grounds and gardens are what make it truly spectacular. The grounds are so extensive that even though I was at Versailles from 11am to 7pm, I still managed to miss some of the groves and fountains. In 1661, André Le Nôtre was commissioned by Louis XIV, the Sun King, to design the gardens and fountains and wow did he do an amazing job. There are approximately 50 fountains with 620 jets, 200,000 trees, 210,000 flowers, and if you were to run around the perimeter of the Grand Canal, you would have run a 5k. With so many fountains, water was, and still is, the greatest problem for Versailles. Louis XIV had somebody divert an entire river just so the fountains would work and there were various machines and hydraulics invented for the fountains. The Grand canal served as drainage for the fountains and a system of pumps, windmills and horsepower helped to circulate the water. Even still a system of whistles was employed by the servants so that the fountains could be turned off and on whenever the King walked by. In the Grand Canal there used to be scaled down ships, including a warship equipped with canons, and somebody even sent Louis XIV some gondoliers as gifts for use in the canal.

When I first walked into the gardens it had just started hailing, but I was determined to see as much as possible and a little rain wasn’t going to stop me. I made my way down the massive staircase to the Orangerie. Unfortunately, since it was still pretty chilly outside the Orangerie trees weren’t in the garden. I’m sorry, the trees weren’t outside? Aren’t trees always outside? This will make more sense after I tell you that Louis XIV was the only guy in France able to grow orange trees. The way he did this was by keeping all the orange, pomegranate, and palm trees in boxes which were moved inside during the winter and outside during the summer. I guess he must have really loved oranges.

After a while the rain stopped and then someone announced over the speaker system that the Grandes Eaux would begin. I watched as the fountains sprang to life under the magical influence of music. It totally reminded me of Disney’s Fantasia. My two favorite fountains were the Colonnade and Mirror Fountains. In the center of the Colonnade fountain is a stature of Pluto abducting Persephone. For some reason this has always been one of my favorite myths. The story goes that Pluto fell in love with Persephone, daughter of Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, and took her with him into the underworld. He was ordered by Zeus to give her back to Demeter, but unfortunately Persephone ate seven seeds from a pomegranate. Thus Persephone had to live seven months of the year in the Underworld during (fall and winter) and could only be above ground with her mother for five months (spring and summer). That’s an extremely brief account of the story, but it’ll have to do.
The Mirror fountain was located near the King’s Garden and it was cool because it danced around to the music. See below.


My absolute favorite part of Versailles was the domain of Marie Antoinette. The Grand and Petit Trianons and the Hameau (Hamlet) were so homey and idyllic: I don’t blame her for wanting to spend time there away from the palace. The trianons were light and airy, very feminine with great attention paid to the smallest details (like the curtains and tassels). Either Marie Antoinette had a lot of help picking things out, or else she had very good taste because the trianons were exquisite.
The buildings were small and comfortable because their purpose wasn’t to impress people.
On the Trianon grounds were a grotto, rock formation, theatre, pavilion, belvedere, and Temple of Love. The Hamlet included a mill, dairy, pond and Marlborough tower. It was picturesque and its beauty was only accentuated by the rainbow which stretched across the sky. The only thing I wish I could have taken a picture of was her theatre. It wasn’t red and gold like most, but blue, white and gold.

By the time I left the farm it was around 6pm and I had to walk all the way back to the palace. My feet were really starting to protest that they couldn’t walk anymore, but I just kept going. (I think I must have walked something like 27 miles. No wonder my feet hurt.)

I am so glad that I stayed as long as I did because Versailles was so beautiful with the fading sun shining down on its façade. I’m really tempted to go back to Versailles to see the Grandes Eaux Nocturnes or just walk around the gardens again.

I had to get back to the train station for my 7:45 departure and along the way I stopped at a boulangerie to grab a mushroom quiche and chocolate sable cookie. Food never tasted so good, especially since all I’d munched on all day were two apples, three rolls of brioche and an orange.

After nine hours of just walking around my legs were dead tired and I couldn’t wait to be able to sit down on the train and sleep for the next two hours. Little did I know that 8 o’clock is just about the worst time you can board a train that had just come from Paris. The train was crazily jam packed and I barely managed to get on. I had to stand up and I didn’t even have a railing to hold on to so whenever the train slowed down or went faster I’d bump into people so that I wouldn’t fall. Two stops later the train had cleared out enough so that I was able to grab a seat. Thank goodness because I don’t think my legs could have handled that for much longer. I decided I couldn’t go to sleep so I read part of Isabelle by Andre Gide, my homework for lit class. I got off at Le Mans and waited for my connecting train.

The departure board said the TGV to Angers/Nantes would be at track 4 so that’s where I went. The train was ten minutes late because of the rain, but I boarded it and grabbed a seat. I was so exhausted and so grateful that I’d be back in Angers in half an hour. But as we were leaving the station the lady announced that this would be an hour long non-stop trip to Rennes and that she wouldn’t bother us again because a lot of people wanted to sleep. Hold on…Rennes?? I’m on a train to RENNES? Where the heck is Rennes?!?

To be continued...