Paris de l’Europe: Versailles

As I write this I’m sitting in a restaurant beside the Grand Canal at Versailles, waiting for the gardens to open for the evening fireworks. I've managed to do a little bit of work today (my plan for Paris was to do half a day of work, and sightsee the rest of the time), which so far has kind of worked.

Day one, I wore my new sandals and did a few hours work by the Louvre. Then I went to buy sticking plasters for my sore feet and went back to my hostel (where they seem to have given me a two person room with ensuite, which is nice, especially as there was no one else there the last two nights I spent there). I decided to call off my Eiffel Tower trip to give my feet a chance to heal, and did some more work at one of the tables in my room (there are two tables).

Day two was Versailles. I'd managed to figure out how to get the normal travel card to add to my collection (‘Navigo', cheaper than the tourist one, but it only runs Monday- Sunday), and caught the métro and then the RER train out to Versailles, where a lot of people were also going. It was a warm day, and I was extremely glad I had bought timed tickets for the palace, which meant I could just show up at the door at a time of my choosing rather than spend an hour or more waiting in the sun to get in. I got a coffee, madeleine and salad, did some work at a café with many separate named rooms to eat in (I chose one with sparkly gold panels) and then presented myself at the palace at 1pm. Apparently you sometimes wait up to thirty minutes even with timed tickets, but I got straight in, went through security and picked up my audio guide (I'm a big fan of audio guides - otherwise you get sore eyes reading all the labels on things, and it also means I don't feel I need to read ALL THE LABELS which can get a bit over-the-top).

The palace, is, of course, amazing. I was a bit disappointed with the plain decor in the first few rooms detailing the history of the palace, but then we got to the main rooms and the effect (and amount) of gold and muralling and sculpted ceilings was just incredible. I've visited a few castles this trip where they said the king/queen etc had wanted to imitate Versailles, and it was completely clear why. The Hall of Mirrors is enormous and beautifully filled with mirrors (of course) and chandeliers and rich paintings and marble (marble is everywhere). There are more rooms, smaller but similarly richly decorated, and then you get to the vast Hall of Battles, with its skylight running the length of the room and expansive paintings detailing more than thirty great French military victories in chronological order from about 700.

I wandered through the gardens a little and enjoyed a musical fountain, then visited Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon (her small house which, while quite small compared to the palace, is a lot bigger than my house). She ordered an English garden alongside the house, which meant excavations to make little hills and valleys and planting of trees to make it look 'wild', and also a working farm and accompanying tiny village. It reminded me a bit of Hobbiton, especially with its lake and rolling hills, and the idea of a constructed pastoral scene. I also saw two otters, which are quite different from the Malaysian otters I've seen in zoos in NZ.

After dinner (aforementioned) I went back into the gardens for the night fountains and fireworks, which you have to pay extra for but which I think was worth it. It runs on Saturday nights in summer, and you wander through the gardens in the dusk light enjoying baroque music (I think) and enjoying the fountains, some of which are decorated in smoking dry ice and coloured lights. I think my favourite fountains were the colonnade fountain (dry ice and lasers in a ring of pillars), the Mirror Fountain (the fountain spouts move! I want to know if they moved in Louis XIV's days) and the Ball grove, which had fire a waterfalls with lights in them, as well as dry ice. Apparently there is no water source at Versailles, so the amount of engineering needed to make all the fountains work is quite incredible, especially done centuries ago. Much, if not all, of the piping is original.

The finale was a fireworks and flame show by Groupe F, with a line of flaming torches going off in patterns up the main 'perspective' as well as fireworks, all to music. Louis XIV probably would have enjoyed it.

Then it took two hours to get back to the hostel, half an hour of which was spent packed on a train waiting to leave Versailles (people clapped when the train finally started to move). But it was worth it.