Versailles

This morning I woke up early, made myself breakfast, and headed to the Montpanarsse Bienvenue station to catch the metro to St Michel. From there, I met my tour guide Onno, a dutch guy who has been a tour guide in Paris for a few years now. There were 7 of us on the tour, and we caught the RER train to Versailles (about 30 minutes). 

When we got there he taught me some very interesting things about the palace, especially why it was built in the first place. Story has it, the Minister of Finance at the time apparently had a lot of money (go figure), and built himself a chateau south of Paris that was quite large and spectacular. He invited King Louis XIV to a housewarming party to show off, and three weeks later the minister was sentenced to a life sentence in jail for embezzlement (how convenient). Only a few days later were a landscaper, an architect, and an interior designer hired by Louis XIV to start turning what used to be a small lodge in a swamp used for hunting by kings past into what we now know as the Palace of Versailles. King Louis XIV did not like being shown up.

It took 5 million Euros to restore just the gates in the front of the palace in 2008. Imagine what it cost to actually build the thing! It is a total of 2000 acres (King Louis XIV actually owned about 10x more land than this, though) and took about 25-30 years to fully complete. It used to be swamp land and the landscapers had to pump water out of the swamp before starting to make the gardens. There are 50 fountains in what was supposed to be "the new Rome" in the Sun King's eyes, and it took 5% of the total GDP of Paris at the time to make (yikes).

In the 1680s, 8,000 people of high ranking lived in the Palace. King Louis XIV kept his friends close and his enemies in the room next door. He kept the nobility busy by turning everything he did into a spectacle--100 people watched him get dressed every morning, and 3-400 people watched him eat breakfast, and so on. This way the nobility wouldn't realize that Louis was not really letting them do anything, because he was always giving them frivolous tasks.

I'll shut up about it. Here's some pictures!!

I did not go inside (the tour was of the gardens only and lasted a good 2 and a half hours). The inside looks just like the Louvre, and it cost more money and there was a long line. I was reassured missing the inside wasn't a big deal--it's really the grandeur of the building that matters, and wow, was it grand!!