Someone once told me not to bother visiting Versailles, the palace home of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI. I wish I could remember who so that I could call them they to inform them they were dead wrong. Ruby and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. Ruby was so blissed out, she asked at the end of the day if she could carry something for me. Unprompted.
“I just want to do something nice for you,” she said.
Now we can go home, because it isn’t going to get any better than that.
Versailles is totally over the top. Everything is covered in gold, fine paintings, velvet wallpaper and matching curtains. Ruby couldn’t wait to see the Hall of Mirrors, which Marie Antoinette passed through in her diamond-encrusted wedding gown to marry the future king of France.
We particularly enjoyed standing in the King’s bedroom and looking down into the courtyard and imagining the hundreds of peasants who stood there screaming for his head on his last day at the palace.
The trip has really come full circle for Ruby when it comes to Marie Antoinette. She read a fictional diary written by Tony that describes her life as a young girl. She explored the palace Tony lived in after getting shipped over from Austria. She saw the cell where Tony spent her last days in prison. And then she wandered the Place de Concorde, where the angry masses watched the execution make her a foot shorter. The kid has a much better grasp of French history than I did until ... well, until this trip probably.
Better than the palace, though, are the gardens. Sigh. So beautiful. Everything was perfectly green and manicured. The ponds and fountains glimmered. Statues are scattered throughout the huge estate. A faux Venetian canal divides the gardens. Best of all is the tiny Austrian village Marie Antoinette had constructed and filled with actual peasants.
It looked as though the gardeners were about to plant annuals because all the tulips were gone and the beds were freshly tilled. But in Louis XIV’s day, he’d have the gardeners go out every day to dig up the flowers and replace them so he could enjoy a new color scheme and “nasal cocktail.”
We spent the entire day, rented a boat (breathe, Sanford) so we could eat a sandwich on the “canal,” watched a catfish feeding frenzy, and examined a stream full of incredibly loud French frogs.
Ruby dubbed it the best day in Paris yet, then madly began writing her Marie Antoinette play, to be staged on Bastille Day.
3 comments:
I think it is possible I was the dullard who told not to go to Versailles - but only because I thought you would have to choose between it and Orleans. But the joke is doubly on me because you were smart enough to do both.
Ok - I know your heads are in the 18th century right now but Ruby might be interested to know that Obama lost by approximately 10% today to Hillary in Pennsylvania. The fight goes on.
I loved Versailles. We actually got to stay there at the palace for 3 nights when I was in high school. It was amazing!
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