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As the line to get into Sainte-Chapelle had taken up such a large chunk of our morning, we found ourselves facing an incomplete day in which to take in Versailles; in Katie's opinion, the chateau (palace) was overrated; the gardens are a cheaper and more pleasant way to spend the day. She also really wanted to take me to the Queen's Hamlet (which will be my final Paris post), and it would be impossible to take in all three in the time we had left. So, it was decided that we would skip the palace and spend the day outside; anyway, it was around 80 degrees and wonderfully sunny.
After a train ride spent munching baguettes and being entertained by a duo of accordion players, we got off at our stop. We approached Versailles from a distance, but the undulating crowds and the gold-tipped gates were easily visible in the brilliant sunlight. We passed historic buildings on either side of the cobblestoned street. At one time, these served as stables, carriage houses, and other essentials that had no place amidst the glamor of the main palace. The palace itself is so large that I couldn't get a good photo of it from the front. Instead of trying, Katie and I allowed ourselves to be absorbed into the crowd, fighting the swarms of people making for the main entrance, and walked along the gates to the garden entrance.
"The people of Paris were starving, and they were adding more gold to the gates," said Katie, looking up at those gates and shaking her head as we passed them. The gold made for a dazzling sight to modern eyes, but I could certainly understand why they had once enraged so many people.
We waited in line for quite some time to get into the gardens; queuing was our theme for the day, it seems. And there was no shade, so we got a bit sweaty and freckled and browned; I left Paris tan lines on my feet. But we finally moved past the ticket booths and onto the smooth white gravel paths of Versailles gardens. I had expected the view to be grand, but I wasn't prepared for this:
Adding to the grand atmosphere was the baroque music blaring out from speakers hidden by hedges and trees; nice touch, management. I felt like I should be strutting around wearing an enormous white wig and hoop skirts. "Let them eat cake!" (Marie Antoinette never said that, by the way; here's proof.)
Anyway, the long body of water stretching out into the distance is the Grand Canal, which collects water drained from the fountains above and was popularly used for boating parties when royalty still occupied the palace. These days, rowboats full of tourists and regal white swans decorate the water.
The garden is laid out in the traditional French style, here perfected by Andre Le Notre; that is to say, it is symmetrical to the point that I found it almost annoying. The avenues, grottos and gardens are mirror images of each other, separated by the fountains and Grand Canal in the center.
We wandered down along the canal until we came to a tree-lined path that Katie thought would take us to the Queen's Hamlet; all we found, however, was a creek and a brick wall.
After pulling out a map and getting our bearings, we found our way to the far gates of the Versailles gardens, where the estate meets a public park. From there, we followed a dirt path uphill to Louis and Marie's "country house."
Country house indeed. Our admission to this mini-palace included admission to the Queen's Hamlet, which will be documented in another blog because I've already got too many pictures in this one.
After our visit to the Hamlet, which took a few hours, we were so exhausted that we paid an exorbitant amount of money to take a tram the short distance back to Versailles. We crammed into the little seats alongside other tourists and exhaled a simultaneous "whew." We were exhausted! Back at Versailles, we picked a spot of soft grass beside the canal and snacked on the pastries we'd brought from Paris. Our spot was very good for people and swan-watching as well. Couples walked by hand-in-hand, athletes jogged or pedaled by along the canal. For several minutes we watched a couple of swans fly side-by-side, their synchronized wingbeats brushing the water.
We made our way back up the hill to the palace in the still-warm sunlight of the afternoon. We ducked into the remaining grottos we hadn't explored the first time, including one where, Katie says, Marie Antoinette and her family hid from the angry mob that breached the palace gates. It was quiet here, and whether as a result of Katie's story or of intuition, I felt I could sense a long-ago fear, or the echoes of skirts hurriedly sweeping over gravel.
Back behind the palace, I took a video of Versailles in 360 degrees, slowly turning on the spot for full effect. Then, tired as we were, it was time to go.
Outside the gates, where people were still queuing for entry to the palace, we let the crowd guide us back down the stone streets to the train station. When the train finally chugged up alongside the platform, we settled back on the tired vinyl of the crowded benches and let ourselves be carried back into the heart of the city, like leaves on a French country stream.
