Palace of Versailles

Today we visited the Palace of Versailles 

It was a bit of an early start, as we had a guide and we had to pick up other people fort he tour. Versailles is really not very far from Paris.

Apparently just 2 hrs by horse and carriage, 25kms. We were surprised that the area around it is quite built up with housing, however once you get to the rear of the palace, it's like being in a different world.

As you can see the skies looked a pretty threatening, but the rain held off for most of the day.

We started off with a tour of the L'Orangerie. so the story of this garden is that Louis the 14th wanted a citrus garden , but the climate at Versailles in winter is not ideal for orange trees, so the trees are cared for in glass houses, just beside the above garden and when the weather warms up the trees are brought out and positioned decoratively. Sadly for us it's only just spring and the gardens are only know being prepared for the summer season so a lot of the gardens were not as spectacular as they are in the midst of summer. But they were still pretty amazing.

The hall of mirrors would by far have to be my favourite room in The palace. The palace was very 

opulent and from the small amount that we had seen, not the cosiest place to live . . . Lol

This is the Petit Trianon, this was Marie Antoinettes area. She liked to get away from the court of Versailles and spend time in a much more relaxed environment. Apparently she hated the whole, having the court watch her eat and the everyday etiquette.  So since Louis the 16th ( her husband) loved her he had this area created for her to " getaway" from the court. Her little palace was so much cosier and inviting, then Versailles.  Marie Antoinette totally ruled this area, to the extent that the King had to be " invited" to come to her grounds.

This is a replica of her bed, what was really interesting is that all the mirrors in Marie Antoinettes petit Trianon are original from when she was alive , however they were all in two pieces, because in that time they didn't have the knowledge to build large mirrors so the made two and put them in the huge guilt frames.

It was very interesting to see the palace. It was and wasn't anything like I expected. But I am so glad that we seen the grand and petit trianon's they were both beautiful and interestingly everyone in our group liked these mini palaces the most.

Au revoir

Googy Girl

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