Versailles

So I swear I still live in France and just to prove it to you, I'm going to tell you about my trip to Versailles.

The visit was a long time coming. I was supposed to visit the first time I came to France with my high school French class. But due to that greatest of French institutions known as "la greve," we had to leave France a day early, and I never made it. So when some friends mentioned that they were taking a day trip to the chateau, I was on board.

It's a short train ride from Paris to Versailles, and there was a special offer where you could buy a ticket for the chateau, the grounds and a special exposition on Louis XIV for eight euros. Not bad by French standards. And they probably use those eight euros to pay off continuing construction costs. Because I don't think there's a square inch of that chateau that isn't decorated, carved, or gilded. From floor to ceiling, there's not one detail that was neglected.




The one word I would use to describe all of the above is "subtle." Very, very subtle. Not ostentatious at all. Not like Louis XIV just said, "Let's throw some gold on all this crap and call it a day." Nope. Not even a little.

The Louis XIV exhibition was interesting, but basically just confirmed my belief that the French kings were crazy people who had all sorts of mistresses (Louis XIV had two at once, who used to ride around in a carriage with his wife) and made their wives give birth IN PUBLIC, as if Marie Antoinette would have just swapped a fake baby in for genuine royal spawn.

One thing they got right, though, was the landscaping. I'm a a sucker for gardens, parks and green spaces of any kind and this place has a lot of those. It rained considerably the day of our visit, so my feet were soaked through almost as soon as we went outdoors. But even when you're freezing and damp, it's hard not to be impressed by views like these.


We wandered around the grounds for hours, from the Grand Canal to the hamlet where Marie Antoinette would pretend to be a "peasant." (Seriously, how did it take so long for these people to get their heads chopped off?) The property is so extensive that they have shuttles to take people from one end to the other. I'll definitely be back in the spring to see the gardens in bloom.

Now, I don't know if any of you saw the movie Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst. I did not, but I have been told that the film includes shots of many delectable French pastries, notably Laduree macarons. Of course, Versailles wouldn't be complete without a Laduree boutique. My friends and I decided that if we split a box of six among six of us it would only be mildly outrageously expensive. That was how we ended up eating these:
In this setting:
With this overhead:

I love France.