PALACE OF VERSAILLES

Kevin and I decided to tour the Palace of Versailles on our own.

BIG MISTAKE!

The guided tours are the way to go if you want to learn anything or just know what you are looking at.  Otherwise, touring a palace is just looking at ornate rooms with pictures of people you have no clue who they are.

So we went back and and got a headset with an audio tour and that helped.

The Palace of Versailles, just outside of Paris, is an enormous 2,300 room palace of over 63,000 square feet.  It is unbelievably ornate, almost vulgar.  Today it is valued at more than $50 billion.  I just hope at the time they built and furnished it, they didn’t have a kingdom of starving people.

The palace was first built as a chateau in 1623 and used as a hunting lodge by King Louis XIII.  Once he died and his son became king (King Louis XIV) he expanded the chateau into a palace.

The Palace of Versailles was the principal residence of the French kings from the time of Louis XIV to Louis XVI.  It was the royal residence for over a century.

In 1789 the french revolution forced Louis XVI to leave Versailles for Paris.  It was never again a royal residence.  It became the Museum of the history of France in 1837.

The Hall of Mirrors is the most famous room in the palace.  There are 30 paintings on the ceiling and 357 mirrors.  The whole length of the hall of mirrors pays tribute to the political, economic and artistic success of France.

The War Room pays tribute to the military victories which led to the peace treaties of Nijmegen.  The walls are covered with marble panels decorated with six trophies and weapons in gilded bronze. 

The Peace Room – themes of the benefits of peace brought to Europe by France.

AND FINALLY ………. THE CABARET

We did it!  We went to a cabaret show.  You can’t be in Paris for a week and not go to a cabaret show right?  This one was a latin cabaret show.  Really good dancing, a little sexiness and a lot of humor.  The costumes and special effects were super entertaining.  No pictures allowed 🙁

And the best part?  No, it wasn’t close to the Eiffel Tower 🙂 but, it did come with a bottle of champagne ………

Some Paris/France observations …..

So the good news is that the French don’t seem to hate Americans like I thought.  For years I have heard that they grumble when they hear someone is American.  I even told Kevin that we should tell people we are Canadian 🙂  But we held true and admitted to the French that we were American and it turned out ok.  What they really like is if you try to speak their language and even ask them how to say things.  Sometimes they laugh and you know you said it wrong (Kevin’s specialty) ……………. but you tried right?

Another good thing is that although there are a few homeless people in Paris, there’s not that many!  Nothing like San Francisco or Detroit.  And the one homeless guy we came across took great pride in his tent.  His bedding looked quite comfortable, probably better than the Moxy Hotel, and everything looked clean.

There are NO American made cars in Europe and gas is super cheap!

France serves more Italian dishes than French cuisine.  And the food here was great!

We are leaving France today and heading south into Spain again.  Our trip is winding down and we are on our way back to Lisbon Portugal to turn in our car and fly home on Monday.

Paris was a blast!  But I am looking forward to a couple of days in Spain to maybe hit some tapas bars!  YUM!!

Au Revoir Paris

Merci pour les souveneirs!!