On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Today we get a look at some of the lesser-known parts of Versailles, thanks to Auntie Anne. Sometimes getting away from the crowds can make all the difference! We’ll see Auntie Anne again this week in Paris After Dark.
Auntie Anne
The tour company my travel buddy and I use gives you your last full day at one location so you can explore to your heart’s content. In France, we had an entire day at Versailles. We started with a tour of the main palace, but it was so crowded that frankly, it was unpleasant. Yes, I saw the Hall of Mirrors and the high points, but much preferred wandering around some of the “lesser” parts of Versailles. These are the places I’ve included in this OTR.
Crowds lining up to enter Versailles. We had the first tour of the day – this was before opening.
The Orangery Parterre. During the reign of Louis XIV it was adorned with several sculptures which are now kept in the Louvre. It consists of four grass sections and a circular pool. In summer there are 1055 containers with orange trees, palm trees, oleander, pomegranate trees and Eugenia bushes that are kept inside the building during winter.
My favorite place at Versailles was the Grand Trianon. It was commissioned by Louis XIV in 1670 so he could get away from the arduous pomp of life in the court and pursue his affair with Madame de Montespan. The building was heavily influenced by Italian architecture and is made up of a single story flanked by a courtyard on one side and gardens on the other. There are two wings connected by this peristyle.
The Trianon’s original furnishings were lost during the Revolution. With a few exceptions, the palace now appears as it would have during the First Empire period. Napoleon had the Trianon fully refurnished and occasionally spent time here with the Empress Marie-Louise. This was formerly the bedroom of Louis XIV. The bed stood in Napoleon’s bedroom in the Tuileries Palace.
The gardens on the way to the Petit Trianon.
Completed in 1768, the new residence on the Trianon estate was known as the Petit Trianon to distinguish it from the Grand Trianon. It was here, in April 1774, that Louis XV experienced the first symptoms of the pox which would lead to his death a few days later, bringing the young Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette to the throne. Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon and its estate as a gift to his young bride, who rapidly made it her own and set about redecorating the exteriors.
Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom at the Petit Trianon.
The hamlet was a real farm, fully managed by a farmer appointed by the Queen, with its vineyards, fields, orchards and vegetable gardens producing fruit and vegetables consumed at the royal table. Marie-Antoinette escaped the responsibilities and structure of court life to her private estate. She enjoyed dressing as a young shepherdess or milkmaid and acting like a peasant, while surrounded by the comforts of a royal lifestyle. The queen was accused by many of being frivolous, and found herself a target of innuendos, jealousy and gossip throughout her reign. Although for Marie Antoinette, the hamlet was an escape from the regulated life of the Court at Versailles, in the eyes of French people, the queen seemed to be merely amusing herself. This unintentional mockery of the economically depressed French peasants helped build the resentment towards the monarchy among the French people that eventually led to the French Revolution.
eclare
Beautiful photos and history!
donatellonerd
lovely pictures, but … unintentional? really? like Melania in her I don’t care coat? & like Ivanka? thoughtless to the verge of criminal negligence, maybe.
JPL
Last night instead of the convention, I started watching A Little Chaos which is a period piece about the gardens of Versailles. The reason I said started is simple I fell asleep. Thank you for the pictures and the history lesson.
Barbara
@donatellonerd: More like, disconnected from reality.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We walked out to the other buildings the last time we were there too. The whole “let’s pretend to be simple folk” just blew my mind.
arrieve
The first time I went to Versailles in 1976 I for some reason I decided it would be appropriate to wear platform sandals. Walking on cobblestones in platforms is not fun, even if you’re as young and stupid as I was. So I didn’t see as much as I would have liked, and all I really remember is: 1. The Hall of Mirrors and 2. Trying not to break any bones.
I did go back, many years later, dressed appropriately. We rented bikes and rode around the gardens. That was fun.
Thanks for the memories!
There go two miscreants
Nice pictures! We spent a day at Versailles on our first trip. It is hard to convey the scale of the place in pictures, but I think your second shot gives some idea (and that’s only part of the grounds). It didn’t take long before I was sick of gilded stuff and we spent most of the day outside in the various gardens.
bjacques
I’d love to go one of these years. I got to stay in the hotel in whose grand dining hall the Treaty of Versailles was signed. From there I could peek into the gardens.
Barbara
@arrieve: When I went to the Acropolis I was really grateful I was wearing sensible foot gear. I saw people around me wearing flip flops, platform soles and so on. Even so I though I was going to break an ankle, because some of those stones were as slippery as ice, so polished they are from a few thousand years of foot traffic.
Mike in Oly
Love the gardens! Sure would like to go in spring sometime and see those bearded irises in your one shot for myself.
Bill
Thanks for the great pictures and descriptions. When I visited about 20 years ago, only the main building was open. A huge storm had knocked down a lot of trees. Trees and statues and grave markers were damaged throughout Paris. Maybe January wasn’t the ideal time to visit the outdoor sections in any case.
opiejeanne
Thank you for sharing these pictures with us.
We visited Versailles 8 years ago and for unexplained reasons the Orangerie was not open to us. There was an “art” exhibit throughout the building and the grounds, the most interesting and hilarious of which was a gigantic stiletto-heel shoe constructed of pots and their lids. It was strangely beautiful. I can’t find the photo now, but this was at the far end of the Hall of Mirrors.
There was an extra charge to enter the gardens because of a “concert” which was just taped music broadcast throughout the gardens but we paid because GARDENS! And the gardens were amazing in size and plantings, even though it was September and hot and things were not at their best.
I think one of the Trianons was closed and while I do remember walking through that colonnade, I don’t recognize the interiors in your photos, so thank you for letting us see some of what wasn’t available when we were there.
opiejeanne
@arrieve: We should have rented bikes when we were there. On a hot day t’s a very long walk out to the little village.
ETA: and either my computer isn’t remembering who I am, or the site isn’t. I can’t tell which.
Blue Galangal
These were lovely. Thank you so much for sharing.
J R in WV
@opiejeanne:
The site knows who you are, but your ‘Nym and email address for your new comments is kept in a cookie on your current computer. If you have purged temp storage or otherwise changed any cookie related settings that may have interfered with your local ‘Nym and email data storage.
Auntie Anne, thanks for the tour of the Gilded Palaces of Versailles, shows why there was a revolution in France, really.
Ordinary people starving, the Aristocrats living large! Great pictures of a fascinating artifact of the past.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Bill:
We lived there (Paris, not Versailles) during those storms, in late December 1999. The winds were incredible, and the damage everywhere was just heartbreaking. Whole forests were flattened and many of the regional parks and woodlands were closed for months afterward. We could still see damage from it years later, in almost every part of the country.
Auntie Anne, thanks for the lovely shots and memories of Versailles. The gardens are open late into the evening in summer and are free on weekdays, so Monsieur Colette and I used to take the train out there after work and sit by one of the lakes with a picnic dinner. Magical.
ETA: @J R in WV: When you visit the palaces and then go to the Musée Carnavalet and see the models of the squalid tenements most Parisians lived in, the only surprise is that the revolution was so long in coming.