Chateau de Versailles - The Palace of the Sun King

Another early start - NOT! It was 1100 before we left Michael & Angie's house - guess we're really still on US time. We planned all day to see Versailles and it's a good thing because we still didn't see it all even though we were there over 5 hours!

We started by going to the travel office of the RER (the French Train System) to make arrangements for our travel to Rome. The lesson we learned here was to make reservations early! We could not get on the Friday night train like we had desired, but had to go Saturday night instead. Oh well, FORCED to stay another day in Paris - what a hardship - NOT! :-) This was actually a very fortunate turn as this way we got to see Michael who had been in Stuttgart GE for training and just got back tonight.

Anyway, what a beautiful day for walking the Palace and gardens of Versailles. This really is the most opulent, amazing site I have ever visited - especially for a placed that started out as a huntin' lodge! The entrance and roof line are decorated with statues and sculptures that if they were in any other museum would be in a room by themselves under heavy guard!

Each of the major rooms is named for a Roman deity like Zeus, Apollo or Mercury in order to link the King to the grandeur of Rome and reinforce his Divine Right of Rule. Each room's ceiling was decorated with a painting of that deity - here's an example of Mercury, the messenger:

In addition, the Hall of Mirrors is a huge room - about 150 yards long with mirrors on one side reflecting columned windows overlooking the gardens on the other. At the time the hall was built, a small hand mirror would cost half a year's wages so it's cost was astronomical!

And these guys didn't do anything small - I've never seen painting this big before! They're as big as a house! This picture of the coronation of Emperor Napoleon is over 650 square feet!

The gardens were so beautifully kept - even in September there are plants blooming all over! In addition, there were intricate fountains like this one.

Not sure why none of the fountains were spraying but guess that's a question for next time!

After walking around so much, we were both exhausted so we went & laid on the grass next to the Grand Canal and watched the people and row-boats go by like in a Monet painting. Just before we left this flock of swans came on shore & started chasing people eating sandwiches to get a bite.

To end the day we went back downtown Paris and walked around the Eiffel Tower and had another wonderful meal at a small cafe that we stumbled across called Le Cafe du Marche.

Kind of hard to see but that's Vicki & I hugging under the arch of the tower.

Well, it's after 1 AM so guess I better get to bed so we can start another early day!

V&V