Let them eat cake.....

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Versailles, France

Well today I got up early and did a little bit of work….well actually I just booked my Eurostar ticket from Paris to London for tomorrow. Figured I could save some time standing in queues and get it online. The trip should be just around 3 hours and I booked something for the evening so I have most of the day to check out a few more things.

The front gates to Versailles. You can't actually go through these gates but I had to take a picture of them.

Today I also had a few things planned. My all day event was going to be a visit to Le Chateau de Versailles which of course was the castle of the French Kings for a long time (all those Louis and of course Marie Antoinette). It was about a 30 minute metro ride there but the train literally drops you off about half a kilometre from the gates so nice and easy to find. Of course you can also follow all the people…..or all the signs which once again has made the need for a map non-existent.

One of the main halls at Versailles. This is the first room that you see and gives you the first glimpse into this great palace.

So when I first arrived at the Chateau I guess I noticed how it looked out of place. There are so many buildings in the area now. It should be sitting off by itself but from the side I entered at it looks quite crowded. Once I got around the backside though the entire image of it changed as that is where the vast gardens that surround the estate are.

The backside of Versailles.

Versailles of course is not like Buckingham Palace in London in that it is no longer a working palace and is just a museum. This certainly gave it a different feel. The grandness of Versailles is a grandness of old where as Buckingham Palace still has a present day grandness.

One of the rooms in Versailles.

An example of the artwork you will find on the ceilings.

The Hall of Mirrors. This corridor was used as a passageway during receptions and balls. There are 17 windows down the right side of the corridor and 17 mirrors down the left side. Just a magnificent room.

Anyway, my ticket included access to all the open rooms, the Marie Antoinette estates and of course an audio tour. There were a few people out visiting today but I must say I can imagine that there would be a lot more in the summer but today the crowd was almost tolerable….almost.

This is the chapel in the state apartments. Only those directly connected to the king and the king himself would have entered via this door.

The first place I visited were the state apartments. This is where the king and his wife would have lived. Not many non-essential people would have walked these hallways back then. Just the King and his attendants and the queen and her attendants…maybe their kids, although many of their living quarters were on the floor below.

One of the bed chambers.

The members of council during some times would have entered to deal with council matters as well. There is not a room in the state apartments (or in the entire chateau for that matter) that has not been altered or redecorated or had its purpose changed multiple times. I could not keep track of who commissioned what items or changes or who slept in what bed but I do know that Louis the 14th had his bed chamber placed at the centre of the Chateau and facing the rising sun because he felt the sun was the giver of all life.

Another one of the bed chambers. Marie Antoinette slept in this room at one point in time.

He also had his council study located next to it. In this room of course they would have discussed council matters but officers of the crown were also sworn in here.

The windows in Louis the 14th's bed chamber.

This giant globe was commissioned by Louis the 16th to help educate his children.

A statue of one of the Louis. I am not sure which one but I think Louis the 14th or 16th.

The inner courtyard of Versailles. The upper windows in the centre would be Louis the 14th's bed chamber.

Once I had wandered though as much of the Chateau as I was allowed to I headed to the gardens. Of course this time of year they are not as nice as they would be in the summer. No flowers or anything like that, but it was still very nice. The gardens are open to the public for most of the day so there were a lot of people running and that kind of thing. I really was just walking through them in order to get to my next destination which was what they now call the Marie Antoinette Estates.

Me with Versailles.

This small (and it actually was very small by royal standards) had been around before Marie Antoinette but was given to her by her husband (Louis the 16th) as a place for her to escape the formality and responsibility of the palace.

The Marie Antoinette Estates. This is the side view.

She decorated and moved some rooms around in order to entertain and relax and just have a good time. The gardens here also would have been beautiful in the summer but I still enjoyed them on this relatively warm day in France.

Me hanging out in the garden.

Some of the gardens at the Marie Antoinette Estates.

The main fountain in the garden. It is known as the Apollo Fountain.

After about 4 hours or so I decided I had seen enough and headed back into the city. Now it was time to go shopping. I found myself on a very crowded, very busy and very full of stores street and just started to walk. It was a lot of fun. What was I looking for? Well foot wear mainly…..boots to be exact. So I bought a pair….ok I bought 2 pairs….and some pants….and a couple shirts but that was it. The exchange rate will hurt me later and I spent way too much money but I can wear them with the too much money I spent in Turkey (flash back to the new leather jacket) so it is ok….right?

After my fun time shopping, I had to figure out how I was going to get that in my pack. Looking at it all I am still not completely sure but I will figure that out…in a few hours when I have to check out of my hotel.

Julie

The US Capitol and a few flowers

November 16, 2007

Although I am not even a little bit surprised, security around the Capitol is extremely tight. You can barely go into any building without first passing at least one security guard. The day I decided that I would take a tour of the US Capitol I made sure to book plenty of time because I knew I would be spending a lot of time going through metal detectors and empting all the liquids out of my bag.

Tickets to tour the Capitol are free but they only hand out so many each day and you can only enter at the time on your ticket. Of course once I got mine it was about an hour wait so I had to find something else to do for a little while. Lucky for me, right across the street is the United States Botanical Garden. Like so many other things in the area it is free to visit. This is full of all kinds of flowers and was in the process of being decorated for Christmas and was definitely an interesting place to kill some time. It is home to about 5,000 different types of orchids.

A couple of the orchids you can see in the garden

This is a Silver Vase or Aechmea fasciata from Brazil

I think I spent more time going through security than actually touring the Capitol itself. They limit how much you can see and to head into the House or Senate you have to have special tickets which is a real pain since I am not a US citizen so I just took the small tour which included the Rotunda,

The ceiling of the Rotunda

and what they refer to as the “Whispering room”

When it was the House the design of the room made it almost impossible to hear what the person sitting beside you was saying but you could hear the guy whispering across the room. It made it hard to hide secrets from the opposing team. It actually was really need to see the demonstration.

We also took a tour through the old Supreme Court. This was the site of the final stages of the Amistad Africans trial. It is in the very dark basement...no windows and not very big at all.

This sculpture is also in the basement. If you notice Lincoln is missing an ear. The artist felt that because his presidency was incomplete this sculpture should be too.

Me with the Capitol

Looking down the Mall from the steps of the Capitol.

Julie