Hey Steemit!
So if you didn't catch the last few posts, this series is about our trip to Paris way back in June 2016 when we went there for summer school! Both of us enrolled in a Luxury Management course at a college called HEC Paris. The course itself was 2 weeks long, but we booked our flight a week earlier so we could travel and explore the city.
In the last post, we finished up our Saturday exploring the city; checking out a couple of monuments and visiting the Eiffel Tower!
I also added a little teaser at the end of the last post, saying we were gonna be visiting the Palace of Versailles so here we go!
19 June 2016. Sunday.
We were pretty tired from all that walking yesterday, so we slept in a little bit. But by the time we got to the train station it was still around noon, so it wasn't too late.
I think we took a different route to the station, and ended up a little off the beaten path. It was still a shortcut, somewhat. But we came across this little estate of houses that looked like a scene straight out of a fairytale!
They looked like genuine cottages that I used to read about in children's books; with the cobblestone paths, the vines growing up the walls, the wooden gates, slanted roofs and everything! It was like teleporting into a whole other world!
We don't have anything remotely resembling this in Singapore so that was pretty much the first time I ever saw houses like this. It was so cool!
Not too far from here was the station, and we had some time to kill. So we messed around with my phone camera and found the selective focus feature; which basically focused on the foreground and blurred the background, or vice versa. Which made for some pretty cool shots imo.
I think I kinda messed it up here, because the left is clear while the right is blurred, but I thought it was kinda cool regardless.
Anyway, about 45 minutes or so later, we finally arrived at Versailles! And maaaan, it was crowded af!
Look at that line behind us!
Turns out it was a bad idea to come on a Sunday. We were really tempted to leave and go someplace else. But it was already 3pm and if we did that, it was gonna be very late by the time we got back to campus. Aaaand since we had a morning lecture the next day we couldn't really do that.
So we decided to just stick it out and take some pictures.
And I think in taking this picture we managed to squeeze ourselves ahead of the line quite a bit. So yay! There were many tour groups there at the time, which was the reason for the crowd. But thankfully nobody noticed the 2 of us squeezing in behind one of the groups.
So it wasn't too long a wait before we got in, yay! Just 15 minutes after the above pic was taken, we got in! What a lucky break!
It was starting to get sunny out, and we were finally blessed with good weather... just as we were about to head inside. Of course.
So just a little background info before we head in, The Palace of Versailles was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It was initially a simple hunting lodge and later a small château with a moat until 1661, when the first work expanding the château into a palace was carried out for Louis XIV. In 1682, when the palace had become large enough, the king moved the entire royal court and the French government to Versailles.
The palace is now a historical monument and UNESCO World Heritage site, notable especially for the ceremonial Hall of Mirrors, the jewel-like Royal Opera, the royal apartments, and the vast Gardens of Versailles, among many other features.
We had to wait a little bit for our turn, as we went in as groups. They didn't have physical tour guides, and used audio guides instead. I guess that's more efficient for different languages. But they were all out of audio guides, so we pretty much just went in as is, looking around and taking pictures.
In the first room we went to, there was a scale model replica of the entire Palace, and several oil paintings on the wall.
I was using my selfie stick (minimised) and was constantly being eyed by the security since they frowned upon using selfie sticks. But it was the smallest it could be, and helped in taking pictures given my short stature. So I tried to hide it as best I could.
More paintings, and lots of people. You get the idea. We were pretty lost since we didn't have a guide. So we were just following people around and taking pictures.
I believe that was one of the King Louis and his wife on the right there.
More paintings, and some sculptures too.
Some of the paintings were really huge! But I didn't have time to admire them unfortunately, since there was people everywhere! And I didn't want to cause a hold up in traffic. Given that, I don't know how useful the audio guide would've been either, since you had to go through so quickly. How would you know which painting they were talking about?
They also had a room where they played a video showing the inside the Palace. But I believe it was all in French. So we couldn't understand it anyway. Great.
Welp, up we go!
After a while, it kinda felt more like a school excursion. Since we didn't know what was going on, and didn't really care either. We just ended up taking funny pictures, while trying our best to dodge the other tourists.
It was all good though. There would've been too much historical info thrown at us otherwise anyway. I don't think we were interested in it anyway, we just wanted to see what the inside of the Palace looked like.
Soon we got to the actual good parts of the Palace, and came across some really interesting looking rooms!
I think the architecture is definitely what I'm most interested in seeing in all these museum-like buildings, since I'm never gonna remember any of the historical facts anyway. Sorry history buffs.
This room is definitely my favourite I think.
Aptly called the Hercules Room, this was one of the seven prestigious parade apartments used for hosting the sovereign’s official acts. For this reason, it was bedecked with lavish Italian-style decoration, much admired by the king at the time, composed of marble paneling and painted ceilings.
And painted it was! The ceiling was absolutely beautiful!
It definitely gave off that fancy ballroom dances vibe; like those you'd see in old movies like Titanic or something.
The benefits of selfie stick - so we don't end up looking like that girl in the corner, so ha!
We got to go in and see all of the King's State Apartments, each with their own unique theme and design. But with similar luxurious Italian decor.
This was the Venus Room. Like all the other rooms, this room was named after a planet, following a running theme linked to sun mythology which inspired the decoration in Versailles during the 1670s.
It was all really grand and spectacular, just what you'd expect of the Palace. But it was still really mesmerizing to actually see it in person!
I especially liked the painting ceilings, since you'd never see these elsewhere. I kinda wonder what a modern painted ceiling would look like.? And how did they even do it all those years ago? That must've been killer on the artists' back or something.
All of them were really magnificent though. And very well preserved too.
Each of the rooms had their own colour scheme, painted ceiling, and various oil paintings and statues.
I feel like this painting could be one of those renaissance memes.
Unfortunately, I can't remember which room is which at this point. But they all looked really grand and fancy.
Each of the rooms actually had a name plate like this. But I don't think I photographed every single one of them. Also because of the crowds of people were blocking my shots most of the time. Sorry! If you wanna read more about the rooms you can find more info here!
The War Room, or formerly the Jupiter Room, is actually one of the bigger rooms if I recall correctly. Since it is linked to the Hall of Mirrors. Which actually looks really cool!
The walls on the left and right are completely covered by mirrors (well, apart from the support pillars)!
The entire hallway is 73 metres, and links the King's and Queen's apartments (aka bedrooms).
We tried to take a picture using selective focus, but it didn't work out so well with everyone moving around behind us.
Next was the Council Study, where the king presided over the various Councils with his ministers as well as granting audiences and receiving oaths of loyalty.
This was the King's Bedroom, where apparently there were royal rising and going to sleep ceremonies? I mean someone's gotta tuck him in I guess.
I think this hallway was also part of the bedroom:
that lead into this private dining room of sorts. I'm guessing this is where the King would have his breakfast or something while getting the daily news and schedule from his subjects.
And this is one of the halls leading to the exit!
This was the main entryways to the staircase going to the lower levels.
And this was the other side of where we were in the beginning!
As always, we find ourselves in the gift shop at the end:
We got kinda tired after walking around basically the entire Palace. But we had to take a look at the Gardens before heading out.
It was kinda hard to photograph the Gardens because it was sooo wide and huge!
I don't think we actually got to walk the grounds though. There might've been a whole other queue for that and we were kinda tired already. So we just took a few shots and left. And it was also getting hot and sunny.
After we left Versailles we kinda just wandered around for a bit. We came across some souvenir shops and took a few goofy photos:
After which, we took a train from the nearest station back to campus.
It was a really tiring but fun weekend exploring all the famous sights together, but soon it was over and time to start our second week of summer school. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So sorry for the long post, but I didn't really want to split it since it was just us walking around Versailles.
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #56 (Paris): When Eiffel for you 💕
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