Day 4 - Versailles

August 22nd, 2008:
Originally, my dad and I had planned on going to the beaches of Normandie but when we woke up to find it raining, we decided it would be a better idea to skip Normandie and go to the Chateau de Versailles where we could stay warm and dry.

Since Versailles is located in a suburb outside of Paris, we had to take a train to get there...

Me and my dad on the train.

The train ride only took about an hour and before we knew it we were in the town of Versailles heading to see the Chateau.

This is the Versailles Town Hall.

The Town Hall has a really cool clock in the front - it really works too.

Versailles!! It is under construction right now so the middle part looks pretty ugly.

My dad with his umbrella that he lost on the train ride back. *sniff*

Close up of the construction.

Before we left Paris, we had bought our tickets for Versailles at the train station. It ended up being a great deal because not only was there a huge line to buy tickets once we got there, but we also got a free audio guide. Each room had a number that we could type into our audio player, which would then play a recording teaching us about the significance of that particular room that we were in.

This is what the signs for the audio guide looked like.

Our audio tour started on the lower level of Louis XIV's Cathedral.

Louis XIV was the king who was mainly responsible for building the Chateau de Versailles. His father, Louis XIII, had previously built a hunting lodge on the property, however, it was Louis XIV that decided to expand the lodge and make it the headquarters of the French government. The construction at Versailles was in progress almost all of Louis XIV's life. This chapel was built when king Louis was in his 70s. He died a few years after it was completed.

From the chapel, the tour takes you to a bunch of rooms filled with paintings and sculptures of the Bourbon family (the royal line).

This is the Bourban family tree. I know you can't make out any of it, but I put the pic up here to show you that they explained who everyone was before you went in to look at the artwork. Otherwise people would be like "who in the heck is Maria Teresa?? and why is she in so many of these paintings??" (Maria Teresa was the wife of King Louis XIV).

This is a portrait of King Louis XIV when he was a young boy. I thought it was funny because until I read the info card I thought it was girl.



This is what the set up of the rooms looked like.
Not to exciting unless you're a history buff. It was like looking through a giant photo album except the pictures are bigger, probably exagerated, and on the wall.

This is the top part of the chapel where the king and nobility would sit during mass. It is sooo beautiful!

The painting on the ceiling is incredible.

Hugeee fireplace in the ballroom.

There were a tonnn of people at Versailles - I'm assuming because of the rain.

Most of the rooms in the King's State Apartment are decorated and named for a Roman god or goddess. This is the ceiling of the Mars Drawing Room where Mars is depicted in the center on his chariot. Like this one, all of the other rooms have a painting of the god/goddess that they were named for on the ceiling.

The King's bed!
Every morning there was a ceremony for the "rising" of the king. Important people got to watch the king fet washed, combed, shaved etc.
Fun.

The Gardins of Versailles. Can you imagine waking up to this view every morning?

Famous painting of King Louis XIV. sexy man.

Me in front of the Hall of Mirrors.

The Hall of Mirrors without me in front of it :-P

Close up of one of the chandeliers. This isn't one the originals though; there are only two orginals left and they are on the ends of the hall. During the revolution a lot of things were destroyed/removed from the castle. As a result, Versailles is very sparsely furnished.

The Queen's bed. All the royal births happened here - Publicly. The public had to be able to view the birth so that there were many whitnesses that the baby was really from royal blood.

That pretty much sums up the interior of Versailles. Out of all the rooms in Versailles, very few are open to the public.