Mhm, we went to Versailles this day. We headed out early and caught a real train up. When I say a real train I mean one that was above ground. The metro is not a real train, it's a subway. On the way there I enjoyed looking out the windows at the graffiti and thinking about the silence of the metro. No one looks too long at anyone on the metro. It's just a given rule. If you stare too long then you're up to no good. I don't mind this too much, staring makes me kinda uncomfortable anyway. You also don't talk to other passengers unless you're friends. Since I don't know any French, this is not a problem for me. What is a problem is trying to be nosy and listen in on conversations.
Ah well. Once we got off the train we went down to hill to Versailles, walking slowly past the windows of the town as we went. Versailles is not way out in the country like the Sun King (Louis 14th) had wanted. It was on the outskirts, but it wasn't in the country. The grounds gave them plenty of open space though, so I'm sure it was no problem. The French call him the Sun King because he loved the sun and he built Versailles so that the sun would shine through on the sun rise and the sun set.
The Kings and Queens quarters were the main thing that we looked at inside the palace. There were rooms in these quarters that were dedicated to certain Roman Gods. For instance, the king loved to hunt and thus had a room dedicated to Diana, the goddess of archery. The Kings chambers appeared to have more gild than the Queens chambers. Believe me I did not mind this one bit. I thought that the Kings chambers were far too ornate. The Queens bedroom had a very fine flower wallpaper, whereas the kings bedroom had mostly gold. Not that the Queens chambers didn't have gold and gild, it just didn't have it to the extent that the King did.
The Hall of Mirrors was so beautiful! It just showed to me just how much the French love their sunshine!
In each room there was something that stuck out like a sore thumb, and that was a modern day "sculpture". Some of them I thought were very interesting, while others I thought were downright silly and just looked wrong in the room. Why would I think that? Well, many of the "sculptures" looked like blown-up toys (floaties). There was one sculpture that was just a blown up lobster hanging from the ceiling by a chain. A different style that was used was ceramics. In one room there was a life-size sculpture of Michael Jackson (all ceramic).
In the Hall of Mirrors there was something quite simple. There was a blue moon that reflected the hall in no other way done before. Many people probably hate this because it obstructs the view and makes it difficult to imagine the past courts whenever there's a huge, blue blow-up toy at the end of the hall. I actually liked it. I thought the new view of the hall was very interesting and fun.
Outside on the grounds we got to look at the prissy French gardens. The gardens mostly consisted of arranged trees and shrubs. In between shrubs there were flowers that poked up and out. The shrubs created the general, structured piece, and the flowers displayed the color and liveliness. I thought that the way the flowers poked up and out between the fine structure was quite like the French people. They're very well put together on the outside, but on the inside they're wild and quite beautiful.
I managed to talk Ahmee and Poppy into walking to Marie Antoinette’s little hamlet. This is a little town that she bought and did up. This ended up being quite a walk however and once we got there Ahmee's feet were killing her. She sat down on a bench while Poppy and I went and walked through a garden that was entirely different from the previous one. This one wasn't laid out in a grid pattern. It had windy paths that weren't labeled, tons of shrubbery, trees that were allowed to grow wild (this is unusual-the French like Lollipop trees), and loads and loads of flowers once you reached the little village. It wasn't surprising to me that Marie Antoinette adored that small town of hers. The English gardens and the area surrounding the village were absolutely gorgeous. Again, saying that too often.
I took tons of pictures while on the walk. I would've liked to have had a longer look around but Ahmee was waiting and we were all kinda getting tired. We hopped onto a tram that took us back up to the palace where we dropped by the gift shop (I think it's Poppy's worst nightmare now) and then headed back to the train station to head back to Paris.
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