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.
randy khan
These photos are from Versailles. When you think about Versailles, you think about the main palace, but there’s a lot more, including other smaller palaces, a farm where Marie Antoinette played peasant, and the gardens. Since this is springtime, these photos are all about the gardens.
Okay, one indoor photo. This probably is the most famous room at Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors. It’s basically impossible to get a clear photo here, but you get the idea.
This is from inside, looking down on the gardens. They’re really big. This photo doesn’t begin to show how big they are.
There are dozens of these cone-shaped trees in neat, pruned rows.
Not to mention dozens of these square trees in neat, pruned rows.
There’s sculpture everywhere. A lot of it classical style (you could see some of it in the overview shot), and a lot of it wildly baroque.
They grew citrus fruit at Versailles, and they still do today. They put the trees in boxes and took them inside in the winter, and they still do today. These are orange trees.
They still farm at Versailles, too. Or at least they raise sheep.
A nice little formal garden (or, you know, little by Versailles standards).
There is a huge cross-shaped artificial lake at Versailles – it’s about a mile along one axis and ¾ of a mile along the other, with roundish basins on either end of the long axis – and you can rent a boat and cruise along it.
There are lots of flowers there in season, too, but you kind of get mesmerized by the architectural elements of the gardens. This is a pretty good example of what you can see when you’re not mesmerized.
Omnes Omnibus
Wonderful photos. When I went there, I hated the place. It brought out my inner revolutionary. Weirdly, the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges brought out my inner Protestant in the same way.
JanieM
What a wonderful post. Thanks, randy khan. I love the droll descriptions, and the sense of both the gardens themselves, and the history of the place.
And how nice to have OTR back in the evening!
Mike in NC
Odd how Versailles inspired a two-bit thug from Queens to cover everything in gold leaf.
CaseyL
I was at Versailles way, WAY, back when – and my overwhelming impression was Hugeness, Muchness, and Still More Oh My God.
I couldn’t imagine how anyone could live there.
But I did love the gardens.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC:
Louis used real gold, not paint.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: It was meant to intimidate. His nobles as well as other monarchs.
StringOnAStick
@Omnes Omnibus: That was my reaction to the summer palace in Vienna; at one point after yet another room of ridiculous excess, I turned to my husband and asked where they kept the guillotine.
oatler.
“The Supersizers Eat…” episode placed some references to the hallway shitting problem.
Benw
@Omnes Omnibus: too bad he didn’t record a diss track tiger style:
French Royalty ain’t nothin ta fuck wit
French Royalty ain’t nothin ta fuck wit
Straight from the motherfucking gardens of Versailles
French Royalty ain’t nothin ta fuck wit
VOR
After visiting Versailles I understood the causes of the French Revolution. I remember there was a room which originally had all solid silver furniture but they had to melt it down to pay for a war. Versailles is absolutely worth visiting.
Librarian
Versailles was not only a royal residence, it was the center of government. When I was there, I saw in addition to the Hall of Mirrors the king’s bedroom, the council room, the various salons, and the king’s private apartments, which included the room with Louis XV’s desk. Versailles was the place from which France was governed.
cain
I frequently find the homes of the rich and the disturbed to have really crappy taste. I just can’t imagine living in any of these places. But I suppose it’s probably better than some hut eating bark.
randy khan
@Librarian:
I’ve read some descriptions of how business actually got done at Versailles, and they’re fascinating. As you say, it was the center of government, even though Paris was officially the capital.
Louis XIV also used Versailles as a way to control the nobles – basically, they had to be there all the time (one reason why it’s so big) and couldn’t be off doing empire building in their own fiefdoms.
Halteclere
I went to Versailles many years ago when I was visiting a friend from Paris. My friend, who was a native Parisian, and who had visited there too many times on field trips when in school and later when friends would come from America to visit, just dropped me off and said “I’ll be back in 2 hours”.
A young girl that was with an American family in front of me accidentally bumped into me and politely said “I’m sorry”. When I replied “It’s OK”, she said “Oh! You speak English, too!” I didn’t tell her that most of the people at Versailles were tourists that probably also spoke English.
randy khan
@Halteclere:
Too true! I love it.
Librarian
Actually, only the richest and most powerful nobles lived at Versailles, while the majority stayed home in the provinces. Louis XIV did not order nobles to live there, but those who wanted to have the king’s ear knew what they had to do. Nobles who wanted favors- offices, titles, land, money- didn’t have to live there, they could ask other nobles, like provincial governors, to make the case for them to the king. There has been a revision among historians of the traditional picture of Louis as all powerful, which emphasizes the limits on royal power, which considers Versailles as a facade which didn’t really show the reality.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Librarian: there’s a French movie called Ridicule that addresses some of this, set under L 16, not 14, but it’s an interesting view into that whole world.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There is a series called, oddly enough, Versailles on Netflix that gives a soap opera version of the development of the concept and building of Versailles. I just watched it recently.
ETA: Ridicule was great.
Comrade Colette
@VOR:
Oh yeah. Monsieur Colette and I kept saying to each other, “no wonder they cut off their heads!”
We only visited the interior once when we lived there – that was enough excess to last us forever – but we went back to the gardens over and over.
Comrade Colette
@randy khan: Thanks for the pix and the droll descriptions and the memories. The rose is lovely! I didn’t see nearly as many flowers in your photos as I remember – was that just happenstance, or was renovation or something else going on? Of course winter is much longer there than where I live now, so my memory/expectations for late May may be faulty.
TriassicSands
Try the gold leaf, it’s not so tough.
Omnes Omnibus
@TriassicSands: No fiber.
randy khan
@Comrade Colette:
There were quite a few flowers, but the photos that seemed to fit best for this post were more landscapes.
But if you want flowers, I believe there’s something coming up that will make you pretty happy.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
Love the fact you used the word “mesmerized” too appropriate for anything to do with Marie Antoinette
bjacques
Late to the thread, but I understood (also from the “Versailles” series), that the complex was also about soft power, of France. Visiting dignitaries from the 1670s on were given sets of books describing the palace and gardens, illustrated by the best engravers of the time. I learned of this after buying an old drawing that turned out to be a source for one of those engravings.
By the time of the Revolution, though, soft power would have devolved more onto a country’s general prosperity, in which France had fallen behind compared to Britain and the Netherlands, which was obvious to educated French people or even uneducated ones living in cities through which many foreigners traveled. Versailles and its inhabitants by then were a monument to waste.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@randy khan: When I took the train/extension of the Paris Metro out to Versailles, I was struck by how many languages I heard spoken. Everyone from everywhere was a tourist when it came to Versailles.
After I had seen the palace, I wanted to visit Le Petit Trianon and Le Hameau. I and started walking, having NO idea how big the gardens were . I saw shuttles but haad dismissed them as being for lazy people. At a certain point I realized walking there was not going to happen and turned back. The gardens are HUGE. It seemed like miles. I just Googled the distance and found a woman who said it took her 45 minutes of fast walking to get there.
Betty
I am just thinking about the ladders you need to trim those square trees. What a job!
Barry
Thank you very much! This is incredible.
StringOnAStick
@Betty: We saw the hedge trimming device they use at the summer palace in Vienna when we were there. It’s like a giant vertical band saw and only takes one pass, then it moves on to another side that needs trimming; no ladder needed for most of the work though I’m not sure about the horizontal too surface because we didn’t see them do that.
BigJimSlade
@randy khan:
Regarding the trees at Versailles, a big storm blew most of them down in 1999 – great to see they’re back!
https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/key-dates/storm-versailles-1999
J R in WV
@StringOnAStick:
There’s yard equipment for every requirement. Even Versailles.
Hard to believe, but there it is, eye witness testimony.
The pictures are great, and I know they don’t even touch the over-the-topness of it all. I suspect I would have been in favor of the off-with-their-head party back then, being constitutionally opposed to autocracy.