Advertisement
Published: March 4th 2012
Our Bathroom sinks
two is better than oneThis entire day is dedicated to seeing Versailles from a private tour of the King’s chambers to the Gran and Petit Trianon’s. The bed as you would imagine was very comfortable and we slept very well. In fact, I didn’t really get up until our breakfast arrived. Since we would not have time to get into town for breakfast we opted for breakfast in our room.
Room Service Room service is usually much more expensive than going to the restaurant, here it is really about the same price and just nicer. They set up the table by our balcony with a view of the Chateau. Jerry had an English breakfast, which is bacon sausage and eggs. I had eggs Benedict. The hollandaise while cold was very good. We also had a basket of fresh breads and pastry; you can’t start a day in France without a croissant.
Private Chambers Tour We finished our breakfast, got ready and walked through the gardens to meet Bruce in front of Chateau Versailles. Our guided tour today was of the King’s private chambers and the Opera house. Yes, the king had is own opera house.
TIP if you have a Paris
Pass, both the Chateau and the Trianon’s are included so you don’t need to pay to get in. However, if you don’t have a Paris Pass, then by all means pay for the private chambers tour, because then the rest of Versailles is included. (I don’t think the Trianon’s would be and I know that the gardens when the fountains are going are always an extra charge no matter what even with a Paris Pass).
I don’t really have much to say about the private tour, I can not even begin to remember all we learned. I can say this, when you tour the main chateau, you see all the public rooms of the court. You will notice there are always doors in the back of the rooms, these doors (some are servant entrances) lead to the private chambers of the King, Queen, etc. Our tour took us behind those public rooms to where Louis XVI really lived.
Versailles is always in a state of renovation and attempting to get the furniture that was looted from the palace during the revolution. Some of the rooms we saw were fully renovated others were not. No king or leader has
lived in Versailles since Louis XVI, it is just too expensive. Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Louis Philippe did live in the Gran Trianon.
The kitchens of the main Chateau no longer exist they have been converted to offices or storage. There were two kitchens, the King’s private kitchen above the king’s quarters, and the main kitchen of the Chateau which prepared the food for the rest of the court.
Our tour of the private chambers concluded with the Opera house. This is a small opera house that seats probably 300 patrons. It was build by Louis the XV for the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. The main floor rose to be level with the stage so that balls could also be held in the opera house.
Chateau Part II This is the point that Bruce headed back to Paris; we had another night in Versailles. We said our goodbye’s to Bruce arranging to text him when we got back to Paris. Yesterday we were not able to complete our tour of the main Chateau, so we grabbed out free audio guides and continued on. The difference in crowd size was night and day. Not as
crowded as during high season, but 10 times as many people as the day before. Since we had seen the first part of the tour we quickly made our way back to where we ended the other day, the Queens public chambers. The tour normally goes on and through the upper south wing to the hall of battles (longer than the hall of mirrors) and to lesser court member’s chambers. This was closed today, so we continued down stairs to the dauphine’s chambers. This is below the Queens chamber’s and is the residence of the prince who would be come King. Louis XVI parents and Louis XVI lived here when he was a child. Louis the XVI father who would have been king died before Louis the XV so that his how Louis the XVI became king. Louis the XVI mother was in fact the mother of three King’s of France, Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and I can’t remember the thirds name. These quarters while still grand by any standard are not as large or decorated as the King’s and Queens chambers above.
Having now seen all of the chateau that was open at this time, we walked back
through the gardens to our hotel for a break and foot rest. I blogged a little and Jerry reviewed the information on the Gran and Petit Trianon’s and the Queens Hamlet.
Gran & Petit Trianons The Gran Petit was originally built for one of the Mistresses of Louis XIV, I believe Madame Mere if I read the signs correctly. It is quite large, but dwarfed by the main Chateau. The Trianon’s are still on the grounds of Versailles about 1 mile from the main chateau. A mile in the 18
th century was quite far given no cars, now it is a pretty easy walk. There are so golf carts you can rent at 30€ (a little steep for me) or a small train that transports you between the main Chateau, the Grand Canal and the Trianon’s.
A moment about the Grand Canal. We did not walk along the canal this trip as the fountains were not going and nothing was in bloom, in the spring it is quite picturesque. You can rent bikes and ride along the canal; you can rent boats and row around the canal. The canal goes from the Apollo pond to the Gran
Trianon. In the time of the Louis’ it was full of fish and the court enjoyed fishing and rowing in the canal. On our next trip to Versailles I think we will rent a row boat.
The Gran Trianon has to wing joined by an outside hall or gallery or loge. One wing was for the King the other for the Queen. This palace was used when the King wanted to escape the rigors of daily life at Versailles. Napoleon I also lived in the Gran Trianon during his time as Emperor and most of the furnishings are in the Empire style.
The Petit Trianon a short walk from the Gran Trianon was originally built for Madam Pompidou the mistress of Louis XV, it was later give to Marie Antoinette by Louis XVI she transformed it to what it is today. The Marble House (one of the Vanderbilt’s mansions in Newport Rhode Island) was in fact based upon the petit Trianon. The Marble house is much larger. This is also the only place we got to see a kitchen. It wasn’t really a kitchen but a room where they brought the food and reheated before serving it. The
The Royal Dinning Room at Versailles
If your important you can sit, otherwise just stand around and eat. actual kitchen is outside the trianon. We got to tour two floors of the petit trianon; there is a third that is open during the high season.
Queens Hamlet From the Petit Trianon we walked to the Queens Hamlet and farm area. The Queens Hamlet was specifically built for Marie Antoinette and it is hear that she escaped the very public life of Versailles. Here is where she had her rendezvous with her lover, don’t ask me his name, watch the movie with Kirsten Dunst. It is also here that she spent her winters because it was much warmer than the main palace. We could only tour the outside as the buildings are only open from April to October. You will notice that the buildings do not look anything like the Chateau Versailles, Gran Trianon or Petit Trianon, but more like a quaint English country house.
Our tour of Versailles complete we took the long really long walk back to our hotel. We walked in the entire day in total I would say about 5 miles. My feet were ready for their treat.
Spa It did not take as long as we had planned to
Kings Library
Chateau Versailles see the Trianon’s so we had a little while to relax before my massage. I blogged a little and Jerry went down to the front desk to ask for a dinner recommendation (he got a great one). At 6:15 I headed to the spa for my massage, we made the appointment yesterday and requested that more time be spent on my feet than other areas. The massage was in deep tissue style and very relaxing, she worked my feet wonderfully and I fell asleep during part of it. I usually would not post a picture of clothing on the web, but this, well lets say only in France. In stead of just undressing leaving your underwear on and getting under the sheet, in France you must wear a special piece of clothing as you can see from the picture it didn’t cover much.
While I was being massaged Jerry was in the Steam room, sweating out all his aches and pains. We then took a nice dip in the pool and headed back to change for dinner.
Le Bœuf a La Mode The front desk (Elise was her name) had recommended a restaurant frequented by the locals
of Versailles. The name was Le Boeuf a La Mode, beef with ice cream (I think it really means sauce). Elise had made reservations for us in advance and because of this we got to eat upstairs with all the locals. There was a large table next to us, where a grandfather was holding court and all of his grandchildren were dutifully hanging on every word. There was also a very large party in a private room at the end of the restaurant. The place in short was packed and did several turns while we were there. We were the only non-French people in the place. One of their specialties was calves brain (no I did not order it, but several were ordered by the locals) it came out in a small covered black pot, before serving they would show you it to make sure it was ok, I could never get past the smell to try eating it.
Jerry started with French Onion Soup (had to have before we left France); I started with perfectly poached eggs on toast in a red wine and mushroom sauce. It was very very good. The next course there was a little
mix up, language barrier; we both ordered beef just different cuts but ended up with the same cut, which was fine. It was the best filet we have had this trip. Jerry had his with what else a Béarnaise sauce and I had a Roquefort sauce, both were excellent. We had a nice bottle of Bordeaux and enjoyed our meal. There was a lot of activity our waiter running from table to table. He did have a little bit of French attitude, when he went to Grandpa’s table to take their dessert orders they were in mid conversation and not paying attention to him. The waiter got miffed crumpled the order pad up through it on the floor an ran off to attend to other guests.
Desserts I specifically mention the desserts here because this place did the best job of presentation. They had several items that they came out with and dished right at your table, possibly the favorite was the l’incontournable, (spelling might be off) by known as the unmissable. It was a meringue as big as a hat box. It came out hole and they just sliced you a huge piece and served it with
a Gran Marnier sauce. (we didn’t have this). The next dessert of note was the crème Brule, normally it comes in signal serving size, here it was in a big ceramic bowl and they just spooned it out on your plate (we didn’t have this either) The last dessert of note was a Tarte de pomme (apple tart) this came out on a platter and they just pointed this much this much, you got as much as you wanted (this I did have) Jerry had a baba rhum, he was hoping for the same thing they call baba’ in Italy, but it was not even close. It was a pound cake, probably cooked with some rum, but then they pour even more rum over it, it was pretty powerful stuff.
It was a good thing we had a mile to walk back to our hotel so we could walk off a portion of dinner. Our day and time now finished in Versailles tomorrow was the return to Paris and the last days of our trip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0552s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
