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| Marie-Antoinettes faux dairy farm |
I had the best time ever on my first trip to Paris, this planned holiday started out as an eleven day road trip, however a certain person who shall remain nameless only discovered two days before we were due to hit the road that his photo driving licence had expired! I know these things happen, but when you have paid for ferries and booked and paid for hotels in five locations and spent months discussing routes and the joy of reaching PARIS on your way back, well one can only splutter into ones tea whilst going very red in the face and trying to maintain a dignified silence for fear of filling with so much hot air that you head skywards and combust like one of Harry Potter's nasty relatives! In the end G came through big time and managed to book last minute flights to Paris and two hotels so we got half the week in Versailles and half the week in central Paris, which was five days more than if we had done the road trip to France, for which I'm now very grateful!!
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| main gates of Versailles palace |
It might seem slightly insane but my first lot of pictures from our first three days in Versailles all revolve around the buildings at the house of Versailles the home to Louis the fourteenth and Marie- Antoinette, we went other places, had nice dinners etc, but for those of you not familiar with the pomp and splendour of the palace I thought you might enjoy a peek. I have been to many old stately homes (as I like old buildings mainly the exteriors weirdly more than the interiors) including those of the Venetian variety but this is the first building and grounds that I actually got goosebumps the moment I stepped through the golden gates. The buildings consist of the main palace and (which we didn't get to view due to queues of up to three hours, we missed the spectacular hall of mirrors, their own personal opera house and chapel amongst other room with titles like the Mars salon ) two holiday palaces! These feature the yellow room and the harp room and there is also a whole faux farm built for Marie Antoinette's amusement so she could enjoy playing milkmaid apparently!The faux farm was like going to hobbit land it was charming beyond reality and on the third day we went to the famous light and water show along with ten thousand other people in the palace gardens from nine till midnight which finished with fireworks.
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| portrait of Marie- Antoinette |
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| Marie- Antoinette's favourite harp room in the first of her holiday palaces |
I loved standing around the huge gaping lake whilst jets of water in the centre changed form and pace, from blue to green, to a feathery pink spray and then to a molten red in time to the opera music that trilled from loud speakers, the quality of the sound was so crisp I was sure I would stumble across a whole orchestra sat on the lawn wearing powdered wigs with rouge smudged across their cheeks! But that was not all, a synchronised procession of fat copper flames came to life one by one, then moved so swiftly they gave the illusion of a train steaming down a track. Not sure if that makes any sense, if not I hope you enjoy the photos.
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| The lemon yellow room |
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| The sun casting a golden glow on the main palace buildings |
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| Statue of Louis fourteenth, I love the bow on the horses tail |
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| more house at the farm |
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| dense water lilies another building at the farm |
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| love the weeping willow |
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| more of never ending gardens and water features |
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| Amphibian feature fountain with frogs that through evolution transform to a half man half frog |
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| So pretty sun setting over this water feature |
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| synchronised fire |
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| coloured light and water display in the palace gardens |
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