I model the Hall of Mirrors for you.
Versailles Palace from the garden
The Royal Chapel
The Hall of Mirrors
The broad, public part of the gardens, sweeping away from the Palace
A part of the gardens
We went to Versailles our first morning in Paris. We left the hotel by 8 and almost immediately passed a metro station. We paused; we studied its signs; we decided it was not the one we needed and continued on.
An hour later, after missing a turning and back tracking and winding up at the proper station, only to discover that our particular metro wasn't going through that station this week, we wound back up at the first station, a gentle five minute stroll from our hotel.
Auspicious beginning, I know. But the Versailles trip went very smoothly after that mishap.
We took the metro out to the edge of Paris, the end of its line, and then switched into a train that took us out to Versailles. Everyone around us were American tourists, oddly-- a large family and two couples.
We walked through a small village from the stop to the estate. The palace is huge, encircling the courtyard that we entered. We toured the interior, viewing the King, Queen and Dauphin's bed chambers, a Hall of Mirrors, the Royal Chapel, and so on, and so forth. The walls were muraled, statues commanded every nook, complicated crystal chandeliers hung in rows in hallways as well as rooms, portraits and paintings encumbered the majority of the walls-- Dripping opulence spattered our dusty, tacky tourist shoulders as we walked in the footsteps of long dead nobility.
Once we finished with the house-- or the house had finished with us, spitting us back out into the brilliant sunshine-- we had the gardens left to tour. The Versailles gardens are magnificent; there's a broad avenue swathed in grass sweeping out before the house, so as to keep from obstructing the view, and to either side hedges swept down and out to create an illusion of privacy on the other side. There were gardens designated for the King and Queen-- really just private areas screened by the hedges-- an Orangerie, and several gardens built around mythical statues (Pluto, Neptune, etc).
We walked until we could walk no more, and my nose and cheeks were burned, and then headed back to the train. Our day was not done; we had the challenge represented by the Louvre yet before us.
