Chateau de Versailles (Interior)

Versailles is a baroque monster crouching in a garden.

But let me explain; two weeks ago, I, with three other Americans, took a train out of Paris, for the artificial town of Versailles. Why do I call it artificial? Because the town was plopped down on the countryside when Louis XIV decided that he wanted a new palace, in order to better contain his nobles. Perhaps I exaggerate, but Louis was, in my opinion, both a megalomaniac and an egomaniac, and one of his greatest talents was his creativity in finding ways to remind the rest of the world that he, the Sun King, was at the center of the solar system.
After we passed security, and assured our free admission thanks to our student IDs, the girls and I split up (it was around 11:00 by this point). Ilana and Emily wanted to eat crepes in the gardens, and enter the chateau when the crowds had thinned; I wanted to enter the chateau immediately, so that I could guarantee that I had absorbed the whole interior before I relaxed in the gardens. Alice opted to go with the others, and so we went our separate ways.

And here, unfortunately, is where the detail ends. I became so quickly overwhelmed with the rest of my work that I never took the trouble to "write up" my travel experience while the matters were still fresh in my mind! Although I did take notes (as I usually do), most of the information can be found in the captions of my FB photos. So why repeat everything? Just enjoy the photos as they are; that should be visual tour enough of the triumph Louis XIV.

However, there's one thematic point that I'd like to get across. I left the chateau shortly after 6:00, and arrived back in my dorm at around 9:00 -- in other words, I had spent 12 hours of my day on this visit. I visited every room open to the public in the castle proper, and also hiked, circumventing the garden, to the Trianon and the Petit Trianon, where I likewise visited every room (I never made it to the Jeu de Paume, unfortunately). I never had time to visit the gardens.

And the astonishing thing is, that the girls ended up spending the whole day in the gardens, and didn't stop to enter the chateau proper until after it had closed! This, then, is the point: Versailles is simply so massive, that it cannot be visited in a single day, no matter how determined the tourist (and I assure you that I am very determined).

As for today, it's Toussaint, and the rain ruined my plans to visit the Cluny Museum. Maybe on the weekend...

~JD

"A la mort de Jean II, en 1479, il faut parler d'Espagne: son fils Ferdinand qui a epouse en 1471 Isabelle de Castille lui succede en Aragon; le couple se fait accepter en Castille" [After the death of Juan II, in 1479, one must begin to speak of 'Spain': Juan's son Ferdinand, who in 1471 had married Isabelle of Castille, succeeded him in Aragon; the royal couple made itself recognized in Castille] (Jean-Philippe Genet, Le Monde au Moyen Age, p. 231).