The Inaccurate Tourist

26. Versailles

The Goldstroms and I spent the Sunday at Versailles. This is one of the most incredible monuments left by the monarchy, conceived by Louis the fourteenth to surpass all the chateaux belonging to the nobility. It was originally a hunting lodge built by his father, and Louis XIV had the foremost architects, gardeners artists and engineers build it into a palace worthy to be the new home of the Sun King and the centre of France's court life.

We took the RER C train to Versailles. The Goldstroms each purchased the Versailles Passport from the metro, which includes the metro fare, the grounds and both of the tours through the chateau. I highly recommend the passport, since it saves you money and you get to bypass the lines (there's a separate door for the Passport holders). Your trip to Versailles will almost certainly be limited by your foot strength -- there's no reason to spend that time standing in the crowded line-ups.

The museum pass is good for one of the two tours in the chateau, but you have to pay for the garden and the second tour. Unless you are only going for the gardens, I can pretty much guarantee that the combination passport is the best way to visit.

On the métro, you should get a spot on the top, Seine-side of the double-decker train. You won't be able to see the Eiffel tower, but you'll be able to watch the Seine and some scenery, and you should be able to see the replica of the Statue of Liberty as you pass. The trip doesn't take very long at all, and once you're in Versailles, the walk to the chateau is fairly short and well marked.

We took the tour of the outer chambers first, flashing our Very Important Person Passports at the side door to skip the already outrageous line. The tour was pretty grand, and the chateau has been well-appointed with furniture and restorations from the period (apparently a lot of the originals were stolen or destroyed during the revolution). One of the rooms with an impressive Hercules painting covering the ceiling had an equally impressive display describing how the most recent restoration was performed and how it repaired much of the damage caused by earlier restorations.

Most of the state chambers were decorated according to mythological themes, but Napoleon left his mark as well. One of the very famous paintings by David is hanging here, showing Napoleon crowning his wife Josephine as Empress under the peeved expression of the Pope.

I had read that the estimated cost of the construction of the chateau and grounds at Versailles (over the years it took) eventually added up to half the annual GDP of France at that time. This is mind-boggling.

The gardens were created to bring to mind the absolute rule the king had over his country, his subjects, the other nobles and nature. Lines were cut into the countryside -- long, broad, straight and green -- so your eye could see exactly how much land he had available for his gardens.

The canals are also long and wide. Tourists (and in a sense, anybody that isn't French royalty is a tourist here) can rent rowboats by the hour to travel on the canal. We sat down with some sandwiches to watch two giggling Japanese girls try to figure out how to get back to the shore -- they obviously weren't salted mariners.

My favourite part of the day were the fountains. They take an incredible amount of resources to run, and originally they would typically only be turned on when the king was in sight. Today, there are certain hours during the weekend when most (but not all) of the fountains are run, accompanied by classical music and guards blowing whistles. The complete list of the fountains and their times are available at the chateau. We were only in the gardens for the late afternoon session, but that was sufficient to see nearly all the fountains.

The Bassin de Latone shows the moment where Latone (the mother of Apollo) has the villagers taunting her turned into frogs. Very imaginatively and disturbingly done, their bug-eyed pleas for mercy go unheeded as their very flesh turns to slime and ribbits. Needless to say, it was my personal favourite of the fountains (a close second goes to the golden titan being drowned alive under black rock).

There are several things to see in the gardens other than the fountains. We walked along the Grand Canal to the Grand Trianon (used as the offices of the president for some time) and the Petit Trianon. There is also the renowned Queen's Hamlet, where Marie-Antoinette could go to play at being a milkmaid or shepherdess in order to escape the strain of being Queen -- needless to say, the sheep were perfumed and the servants did the actual work.

I actually didn't do the second tour at the chateau, which shows the private chambers of the king. I separated from the Goldstroms to visit the few fountains that we hadn't yet seen that day.

One of the non-Versailles highlight of the week was meeting Aaron and Maria, Christopher and some other French people at a restaurant close to Place de Vosges. I had the escargot (for the first time in France), the noix de Saint Jacques and the tarte tatin for dessert. Just so you know.

And if you happen to see Aaron, could you ask him whether a one dimensional hypertorus would be a line segment, two points or a single point? With all the gesticulating over coffee about the four dimensional hypercube that makes up the Grande Arche in La Defense, I completely forgot to bring it up.

Posted by The Inaccurate Tourist at August 2, 2002 12:00 PM