"There are a lot of people in Versailles today."

Trip Start Sep 07, 2010
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Trip End Aug 21, 2011


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Flag of France  , Île-de-France,
Thursday, April 28, 2011

Amy and I started our trek out to Versailles quite early so that we could "beat the crowd;" however, we would soon learn that it was also everyone else's plan as well. The nice part was that we road out on a classy double-decker train which don’t exist in England, and I hadn’t ridden on one since I was in the Netherlands.  Essentially, everyone on the train unloaded at the station, and we all walked together to the Palace of Versailles.  Upon arrival, we were greeted with an extremely long line that looped around on itself.  We rotted in line for over two hours (in front of an obnoxious German family that didn’t understand what “personal space” meant) to finally get up to security to find out that the line we’d been in was not the line for tickets but only the line to get in.  Apparently, tickets should be bought in the not-very-well-marked building on the left.  In our anger and frustration, we got out of line to buy tickets before walking right back up to the front of the line and walking right in
Versailles
Versailles
.  We weren’t about to play that line again.

The Palace of Versailles (or the Château de Versailles in French) served as the central political power of France for over hundred years between the 17th and 18th centuries, beginning with King Louis XIV.  During this time, the original structure was expanded upon until it grew to the size and grandeur that it is today.  The palace is filled with lush apartments and grand hallways.  One of the most famous is the Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces) in which mirrors line one wall that faces another windowed wall to the outside.

Once inside, Amy and I were wedged between a million Asian tourists.  It was hot and overcrowded inside.  Some of the rooms were simply too small to accommodate all the people they let inside and would bottleneck the entire tour leaving everything at a standstill.  The audio guide that was included was good, but, after awhile, it was hard to bear being pushed and shoved around by everyone else that it wasn’t worth it.  We mostly started pointing out locations in which Kirsten Dunst performed certain actions (mainly running down hallways or crying in the corner) from the 2006 film Marie Antoinette.
Versailles
Versailles

The Palace of Versailles was nice, but, of course, not as nice or big as we had imagined, and the overcrowding ruined it all.  We meandered outside for a little while wandering the gardens which were quite nice as well, but mostly we just wanted to go back to London.  We slept on the train back to Paris, but we were excited because we had only one day left in that terrible place before we finally were swept back off to London.

P.S. The title of this blog is a quote from the film Marie Antoinette to which the response is, "Yes, there are."
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Comments

Fran Fran on

Such enthusiasm for France!

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