September 2000 › August Collection › Sunday in Paris › Lisa visits Versaille › Paris Nightlife › Wednesday afternoon in Paris › Tour of Madrid, Spain › More Madrid Sights › Still More Madrid Sights › Retiro Park, Madrid › Friends in Madrid Other Months › Index page

Lisa visits Versaille Saturday, September 09, 2000; posted by Lisa Images and text by Lisa. A shot of the side gardens from one of the rooms in the Chateau. Most people refer to the Chateau as a Palace, and it certainly seems more fitting. Maybe it was called a Chateau for tax purposes. Another view of the gardens at Versailles from inside the State Apartments of the King and Queen. You'd certainly feel that all of France was at your command with this kind of view. Turning around from the view of the Parc de Versailles, the Chateau. A view of the Chateau from the main entrance and my place in line. The Chateau may look gigantic, but the narrow passageways throughout most of the rooms make it impossible for large groups of people, especially the clusters of guided tour groups, to move through efficiently. Still, you'd think there would be a way for you to purchase a ticket quickly and then roam around until you wanted to get in line to go in. The tour guides, it must be said, are not particularly helpful or efficiency-minded when it comes to tourism. Very little in the way of signs and directions around this massive place. Odd. Not really sure of the purpose of this room, but it is magnificent. I messed up with the camera and put it on low resolution instead of no flash, so the quality is not that good. Gold everywhere and tremendous stature; this seems to be popular in early French monumental architecture...let's make it big and shiny. Here are the magnificent Parc de Versailles beyond the Chateau de Versailles, looking out on the Grand (facing straight out) and Petit (crossing the Grand farther out) Canals. Did not have time to walk the length of it because I had to stand in line for an hour just to get into the Chateau. Another glorious summer day in France. One of the colossal rooms inside the Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces, I think), the War Drawing-Room, and the Peace Drawing-Room "form a magnificent series of rooms extending along the western facade of the Chateau looking out onto the Grand Perspective of the gardens." Again, lots of gold, glitter, height, and overwhelming, nearly suffocating decorousness. Some of the smaller rooms, without the benefit of these giant widows, were quite stuffy in an over-decorated kind of way. I don't have better information on Versailles because the attitude of the proprietors was so grouchy and anti-tourist that I did not buy any guides. There was only one dinky little free pamphlet for my 60 francs entrance fee and these two women from Britain and I had to maul the unattended pamphlet stand to try to find replacement English versions. Pretty funny, the three of us pulling and tugging on the drawers, finally victorious!