Paris | Day 4 | Versailles

We headed to Versailles the day after our Louvre visit so that we had reviewed our art history adequately and could fully appreciate the sensory overload that is the palace of Versailles.  We took the train to Versailles, which is an enjoyable 25 minute trip outside of Paris and then a short walk through the city to the palace.  I will say that it was interesting to see how people experienced their tour through the palace- most people just flew through the rooms taking pictures of everything and never actually paid attention to what they were seeing.  They were really just collecting photos of everything they saw and then moving on to the next room made of gold leaf or oddly-small four-poster beds.  I just wanted to shout "You're missing so much!  Just stop and take a minute to digest the fact that people actually lived like this!  The Hall of Mirrors was not created to help you take selfies!"  Jason and I also started to feel bad for the audience who would eventually have to sit down in front of a Versailles slideshow, which would really be 90 minutes of furniture, videos of rooms full of furniture, and the backs of people's heads. But, it was lovely nonetheless, even if it was a bit crowded.

The Salon de la Guerre (the War Room) was an entire hall depicting battles over several hundred years, all painted by famous artists like Fragonard and Le Brun.

The gardens at Versailles are immense, sprawling, and overwhelming.  The meticulously manicured gardens are expansive, with the labyrinth hedges opening to secret gardens and groves.  We were lucky enough to visit during a special contemporary sculpture exhibit by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone.   2013 marks the 400th birthday of André Le Nôtre, Louis XIV's gardener, so there were many events and exhibits planned to celebrate his contributions to the famed gardens, Penone's work being one of them.  I loved these sculptures for their ability to be at once minimalist and also very grand.  The sculptures are featured all around the gardens, the central theme being the melding of organic materials. They reminded me a lot of Andy Goldsworthy's work, and I was mesmerized by the simplicity of their impact.

The fountains in the gardens weren't on while we were visiting, but the still reflective surface of the water is spectacular.

I had been to Versailles once before, but I don't remember ever visiting the groves that can be found among the maze-like hedges in the gardens.  They were amazing!  This one is this The Grove of Apollo's Baths (1670-1673).  It has undergone a few iterations, and the sculptures featured in the grotto are re-creations, but it was an absolutely magical place.   

The paths between the groves were mesmerizing!

After exploring the palace and the gardens for a while, we ventured toward Marie-Antonette's estate, which was the most amazing place!  Marie-Antoinette was the only queen who had enough influence that she was able to change the appearance of Versailles.  Eventually, the opulence of the palace bored her, so she wanted her own hamlet with water wheels and English gardens and a farm.  The hamlet isn't too far from the palace, but it is a lengthy walk, and once you're there, the landscape is so different, you would never know where you were.  As we approached the hamlet, we passed this sculpture in the Temple of Love, a replica of Bouchardon's Cupid Cutting His Bow from the Cudgel of Hercules.

There were winding paths and a marshy, wooded area, and once we reached a clearing, we were greeted by the most peaceful pond just filled with lilies and the sassiest ducks I have ever met.

The mill was also quite lovely, with its gardens and water wheel.  

The Marlbourough Tower, or the fishery tower, is located next to the queen's dairy.

Marie-Antoinette had a farm so she would have fresh milk everyday.  It sounds a bit excessive to have a whole working farm just so you could be served fresh milk, but then I remembered that she built a tiny village just because she wanted to.

We spent hours walking around Marie-Antoinette's hamlet and we stayed there until everything began to close. Right as we left the palace, we discovered the best thing ever in the world: a man who was making tintype portraits!  Tintypes originated in the 19th century as a quick and relatively inexpensive way for people to have photographs of themselves and loved ones.  A thin sheet of metal, like tin, was coated with light sensitive material and exposed in the camera.  This gentleman had a little booth and would make the tintypes under the black cloth in the back.  They were understandably a bit pricey, and after my ridiculous fit about not wanting to have my sweaty tourist clothes immortalized in a photograph on a thin sheet of metal (everyone else was dressed in time period-ambiguous outfits), we eventually decided it would be completely worth it, so we waited in line to have ours done.  And since I have a habit of collecting tintypes of deceased strangers, I decided it might be nice to have one of me and Jason to offset, but probably really just add to, the creepy factor.  But alas, it was getting dark and there wasn't enough light to make the exposure, so the tintype man was done photographing for the day.  It was a wonderful surprise to see this and a great way to end the day.