Until yesterday, I had never visited Versailles.  And I’m not talking about Versailles, Missouri (which exists, by the way, and is pronounced “Ver-say-leez”).  I’m talking about Chateau de Versailles, built by Louis XIV in the 1600s.  The fact that I’ve never been there is rather shocking considering that 1) I’ve been to Paris several times, 2) tourists who visit Paris for only 4 days manage to visit Versailles, and 3) I’m an architect and I studied the building in school.  Yesterday, I went to Versailles.

Here’s how Versailles came to be:

King Louis XIV had a finance minister who built an impressive chateau called Vaux-le-Vicompte.  Louis went to the housewarming party, got jealous of the nice house, threw his finance guy in prison, and then stole his designers to build an even bigger and flashier house.  Fifty years later, the project was finished.  And then Louis died.  The end.

On the way to Versailles, we met some Americans who were vacationing in Paris and headed to Versailles as well.  One couple was from Kansas City and the other from Dallas.  We spent a good hour chatting with them on the journey and discovered that we had lots in common.  Well, most of that “common” stuff was me.  I grew up in Missouri and my brother and my childhood best friend now live in Kansas City.  The two women in this group are court reporters and their husbands are lawyers; my brother and friend are both lawyers.  I lived in Texas for several years, attending undergrad and grad school there.  One of the couples had a daughter who went to my alma mater, Trinity University.  It is a small school, and most people have never even heard of it, so it was fun to make that connection.

Once we reached the train stop for Versailles, we walked the 10 minutes to the chateau, chatting all the while.  At the entrance, we said our goodbyes.  Chad and I had to buy tickets, but the other couples had pre-purchased online and were able to walk right in.  I’ve gotta tell you, for as big as Versailles is and for as many people were there, we bumped into those folks several times.

I took pictures of Versailles from the outside, but they are terrible – not because I’m a terrible photographer, but because it’s simply impossible to take pictures of that place because it is so big.  You just can’t capture what it’s really like.  As Chad says, “It’s like trying to take pictures of the Grand Canyon.  What’s the point?”  To give you an idea of how big this place is, when it was in its heyday, 20,000 people lived there.  20,000.  20,000!  That is a lot of people in one house!

However, even though it’s impossible to convey in photos, here are some photos:

Approaching Versailles. Everything you see is the chateau and it’s all one building.

Again, this was one dude’s house. And the roof was trimmed in gold. The sun came out at this moment and illuminated the gold which was appropriate, because Louis XIV was known as The Sun King.

The ticket lets you see the main rooms of this humble abode.

This room was crazy for all of its paintings on the walls and ceilings. One of the designers that King Louis stole from his imprisoned finance minister was a painter.

This is the famous Hall of Mirrors.

Okay.  I’m going to be honest here.  Maybe I’m just jaded, but I wasn’t that impressed with the chateau.  Not that it’s not an impressive place to visit, but I think I had built Versailles up to be something lifechanging, and it kept reminding me of other chateaux and palaces and museums and cathedrals that I have seen elsewhere.  Don’t get me wrong; I realize that Chad and I have been fortunate in our travels.  However, the hordes of people were stifling, and the pushing and jostling got to me.

Our one reprive from the crowds was lunch.  The chateau has 3 food venues inside – a sandwich/salad/soup counter, a cafeteria, and a sit-down restaurant.  We chose to eat at the restaurant because it was the most expensive option and would take the most amount of time, thereby ensuring that it would be the least crowded.

Ordering lunch while seated in the Baby Prince’s Room. I thought this was pretty cool!

When I say that the restaurant is in the chateau, I mean in the original chateau.  We were seated at a table in the baby prince’s room.  Lunch was a little expensive, but we’ve come to expect that in Paris.  Plus, the food was pretty good.  After lunch, we made a beeline for the exit to see the chateau gardens.

For me, the gardens were the best part.  People make such a big deal about the chateau itself and the grandiose architecture, but the gardens are just stunning.  I’m sure part of the reason I liked them so much is that I had no expectations for the gardens and that we could escape the crowds.  And by “escape the crowds” I mean, “how far do you want to go?”  The Versailles property is larger than Manhattan.  No, I don’t mean larger than Central Park.  I mean larger than Manhattan.  Um, yeah.

The gardens are traditional French gardens with manicured hedges and trees, long vistas, and fountains.  There’s not a lot I can convey with words about the gardens, so here are some photos:

This pathway was called Allee des Eaux – Alley of Water – and there were beautiful fountains on both sides of the path all the way down

This fountain made us laugh because it looks like the dragon is about to eat the pigeon.

We rented a boat and paddled around “Le Grand Canal,” a lake in the Versailles gardens.

Our favorite find was this little area called the Queen’s Hamlet.  This was built for Marie-Antoinette in the 1760s as a getaway for her and her closest friends.  It was a pretend English village where they could escape the structure of the chateau life and do as they pleased.  We particularly liked the English-style gardens which are less manicured and more wild.

Typical English garden design with a “folly”. A folly is a false greek or roman “ruin” that was built into French and English gardens when people actually spent time outside before being distracted by televistion.

A little house from the Queen’s Hamlet. Note the vegetable garden in the yard.

While walking around the “jardins anglais” (English gardens), I was wondering what it was like to be royalty in the 1600s and 1700s.  There would be no privacy.  It sounds like Louis XIV had every minute of his day scheduled.  Chad told me that if France depended on my public “waking schedule” (which Louis had), the country would be in dire straits.  (FYI, I’m not a morning person.)  And did the gardens provide escape for those who were always in the public eye?  A way to hide just around the curve of a hedge?

Chad on one of the walkways through the Versailles gardens.

But then I thought about the gardens and how beautiful they are.  The grounds are so big that you can’t even try to see everything as a tourist in one day.  There is something that makes me wistful about that.  What if I could tune out the siren song of the iPhone and the computer and the web and, instead, spend hours walking around the gardens of Versailles talking with my friends or just listening to the thoughts in my head?  Reconnecting with people?  That sounds ideal.  But then there’s a little part of me that thinks that Marie-Antoinette would have giggled with glee at the idea of Facebook…

Today was a cold, rainy day in Paris.  Chad was a little more motivated to do things than I was, so while he ran an errand this morning, I sat around in my pajamas and read my Kindle.  I started out by reading a book about the moral, social and environmental impacts of eating meat, and then I was all, “What the heck am I doing?  I don’t want to be reading this!  I’m on vacation.”  And I switched to a good mystery.

Chad’s errand took him to a famous kitchen supply store.  (Is anyone out there surprised?)  We had stopped by that store last week just to see what it was all about, and it was pretty cool.  It was like an old hardware store, except with cooking stuff.  You name it, they had it.

This kitchen supply store in near the Pompidou Center.

It is this style of product display that made me think of a hardware store.

And then we saw this:

The holy grail of copper pots.

We’ve been talking about getting new pots and pans for our kitchen, because most of what we have is old with a non-stick coating, and the coating is deteriorating.  Which means the coating is going to get into our food.  Gross.  Well, Chad returned from his errand this morning with copper saucepans in 3 different sizes, and the price was very reasonable.  Cheaper than Williams-Sonoma, even with my 20% designer discount.

Once Chad stopped gloating about his new pans and I changed out of my pajamas, we braved the rain and headed over to Lot of Wine.  This is a wine store/bar in our neighborhood that we ran across on Saturday night.  The owner, Nathalie, was very helpful and knowledgeable about wine on Saturday night.  When I had asked if she had a wine list, she said, “C’est moi!  Je suis la carte de vins!”  (It’s me!  I am the wine list!)   We headed over there today for a light lunch.

At Lot of Wine – caviste et bar a vins

The walls of this tiny place are lined with cubbies displaying the wine.  You can buy bottles to drink there or to take home, or you can get certains wines by the glass.  We had some cheese, some foi gras (get over it, it’s France, for crying out loud), and some wine.  We then bought 2 bottles of really great white wine to bring back to the apartment.  (I almost just said, “to bring home,” but who am I kidding…  those wines will be in our bellies long before we head back to Atlanta.)

On the way home, we stopped off at the cheese shop.

Cheese display in the cheese shop

The white on this cheese is mold…fluffy, fluffy mold. If you look closely, you can see fingerprint indentations in the mold from the guy who placed it on this display board.

Next was a stop at the produce store to pick up some salad fixings for dinner.

I thought this produce display was very pretty.

This was also around the time that I realized that the soles of my shoes weren’t waterproof and that my toes were feeling “squishy.”  So, next stop was home to shed the wet shoes, dry off, and warm up for a few minutes.  Then we headed back out to go to the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie which showcases contemporary European photography.  It’s free on Wednesday evenings, and, as I mentioned in my Parc Floral post, we love things that are free.  Apparently, a lot of other people do as well, because the line to get in went around the block.  We decided to go sit somewhere for a while and wait out the line.  We popped into La Cidrerie du Marais, and after being there a little while, we realized that we had had lunch there when we were in Paris in 2009.  How random is that?  The Cidrerie specializes in cider (kind of like beer) and crepes.  So we shared a small jug of cider to pass the time.

The cider was served in the small pitcher into these cups

When we headed back to the photography venue, the line was even longer, so we decided to skip it.  We headed home via the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, window-shopping on the way and then passing through Place des Vosges.

Place des Vosges is a beautiful example of urban planning and architecture.  It takes up about 4 city blocks and is this huge park/square/plaza space.  When you enter from our street, rue St-Antoine, you see this entry:

main entry to Place des Vosges

For some reason, I think it’s pretty cool that cars drive through that central arch.  Anyway, here’s another view of the Place:

Can you imagine living in one of the apartments in those buildings?  I don’t even want to know how much those cost.  And here’s a final image of the arcades that ring all 4 sides of the Place at the ground level of these buildings:

These arcades are lined with cafes, restaurants, jewelry stores, art galleries, very high-end places…

Now it’s evening.  While I write a blog post, Chad is watching the A-Team in French.  Does anyone remember the A-Team?  I remember it being pretty cool when I was a kid, but now it’s pretty awful, even when they all sound so sexy speaking French.  It’s terrible, but it’s on every weekday night in all its glory.  And there is something fascinating about watching Mr. T strut around while hearing French voice-overs.  Yes, it’s exactly as you might imagine…

In Paris, the first Saturday of October is the Nuit Blanche arts festival.  “Nuit blanche” translates as “white night,” and it is inspired by St Petersburg’s “white nights” when the celebration of arts and culture keeps the population entertained during the summer nights when the sun does not set.  Nuit Blanche in Paris had its 12th annual event our first weekend here, with events in 5 neighborhoods around the city.  The interesting part of this festival is that it starts at 7 pm and goes until 7 am the next morning, with temporary art and cultural events going all night long, and people are out and about very late as they wander about seeing art.  Who knew that art at midnight could be so much fun?

This was a woman at the Swedish Cultural Institute doing ice sculpture carving with a chain saw.

And this was the pop-up pavilion at the Swedish Cultural Istitute. It’s a blow-up building. Seriously. If you look closely, the walls are inflated like balloons.

For 2013, one of the Nuit Blanche neighborhoods was Le Marais.  Our neighborhood.  Excellent!  We were able to wander around and check out some crazy art installations without having to go all over the city.  It was a lot of fun.  If it hadn’t been so dang cold and windy, Chad and I would have stayed out longer than we did.  As it was, we came home around midnight.

Here’s a storefront turned into a temporary art piece with a cartoony collage of technology “stuff.” You can see a black and white cartoon cell phone on the left side, there are also 3 real video screens in the storefront. This one was pretty cool.

These are paper flowers illuminated from within. Nighttime art is all about lighting.

These “ghosts” changed colors as the lighting changed.

And now the ghosts are pink.

Our last “art” visit was to this apartment facade.

It was a fake facade set up in a small plaza.

It was like everyone was home for the evening with their curtains drawn, watching TV, except there was horror movie music playing.  But then when you walked around the side to the back, you saw this:

Scaffolding.  Scaffolding and curtains.  Contempoary art.  Midnight.  Fun.