Versailles
We visit the Palace of Versailles, the creation of “Sun King” Louis XIV and an enduring symbol of royal opulence. We tour the magnificent château and massive gardens before returning to Paris for a fondue feast.
Whenever Marianne and I discussed the idea of returning to Paris for the first time in more than two decades, we agreed on one key destination to cross off our bucket list: the Palace of Versailles, the brainchild of the “Sun King,” Louis XIV, and one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 17th century.
Making the most of a day at the sprawling palace southwest of Paris requires a clear itinerary and an early-morning wake-up call. We boarded a train near our hotel at sunrise and rode it for about 40 minutes to the Versailles Château Rive Gauche station. It’s a good 15-minute walk from there to the golden gates of Versailles, where a queue had formed before the palace opened.
We shuffled into the back of the line and slowly reached the front right around our scheduled entry time. Before long, we were in the Royal Courtyard, free to explore this lavish symbol of the French monarchy at its absolute height.
Louix XIII first established Versailles as a royal hunting lodge in 1623, and it was expanded into a relatively modest château a decade later. When the king died in 1643, Louix XIV took the throne at the age of four (under the regency of his mother, Anne of Austria), and he spent his childhood hunting at Versailles.
In 1661, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who had served as the young king’s high-profile chief minister, died. Now 22 years old, Louis XIV was ready to rule. “Up to this moment, I have been pleased to entrust the government of my affairs to the late Cardinal,” he proclaimed to his court. “It is now time that I govern them myself.” That same year, the king attended a festival at the baroque Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte in Melun and left inspired by the opulent palace and its extensive gardens. Work began to expand the king’s property at Versailles soon after.
Construction throughout the 1660s focused on the gardens. But by 1669, emboldened by his victory over Spain in the War of Devolution, Louis XIV decided to convert Versailles into a magnificent royal residence that would become a symbol of the king’s tremendous power and affluence during the monarchy’s Grand Siècle (Great Century). The spectacular Baroque-Classicist palace was the principal royal residence from 1682 until the French Revolution in 1789. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with 2,300 rooms filled with treasures across nearly 680,000 square feet.
We ascended to the second floor and entered the King’s State Apartment, a series of seven colorful drawing rooms for royal receptions packed with artwork and Italianate ornamentation. Along the way, we took in views of the royal chapel and the gardens outside.
The palace overwhelms the senses. Gorgeous statuary and paintings deserving of earnest contemplation are easily missed amongst the tumult of rich decoration — marble columns and archways, glittering chandeliers dripping with crystal, frescoes arching down every inch of ceiling space, and many thousands of golden embellishments framing everything.
We turned the corner from the King’s State Apartment and entered one of the most extravagant rooms on earth: the Hall of Mirrors. Built to replace a large terrace that opened into the garden, the hall is a sparkling masterpiece of regal splendor, with 357 mirrors extending from floor to ceiling and 30 painted compositions by Charles Le Brun celebrating the mounting political and military victories of Louis XIV’s reign.
The route through the palace turns next into the Queen’s private apartment, featuring a (naturally) golden bedroom, plus six other impressive rooms. It then moves through the king’s private apartments on the opposite wing.
We finished our palace tour in the Gallery of Battles, a 390-foot-long hall filled with paintings and busts commemorating France’s military successes, from the wars of King Clovis of the Franks in 496 to Napolean’s conquests of the early 1800s.
Marianne and I pressed through a packed gift shop and into the fresh air of the French formal gardens, covering about 2,000 acres.
We walked down a series of steps to Versailles’ famous fountains, which were both beautiful and disappointing — none of them were running during our day, and several major pieces had been removed for restoration in advance of the Paris 2024 Olympics. As we circled the aquatic scenes, piped-in classical music played dramatically and loudly, reminding me more of Disneyland than 17th-century France.
The main path through the gardens is flanked by a series of smaller displays, encouraging quieter reflection amongst the hedges, fountains, linden trees, and chestnuts.
We stopped for lunch at La Petite Venise. It specializes in Italian pasta and mains and is one of the few places to eat within the palace grounds. Our respite included a large bruschetta appetizer that — appropriate for Versailles — was the most extravagant prosciutto-delivery vehicle you will ever see.
Right after lunch, we rented a golf cart — an absolute must if you want to see a good portion of the enormous gardens — and drove it to the estate of Trianon. “Drove” is probably a strong term: The carts are equipped with guidance systems that prevent drivers from veering too far off the approved path.
Having transformed the palace into an official royal residence, with the constant comings and goings of courtiers, guests, and servants — not to mention his mistress, Madame de Montespan — Louis XIV built a further retreat in 1670 called Grand Trianon. We stopped for a brief tour of its refined palace grounds.
We continued on to Petit Trianon, a neo-classical mini-château commissioned in 1758 by Louis XV to get him and his entourage just a little further away from the hubbub.
The grounds of Petite Trianon feature gardens that were thoroughly remodeled by Marie Antoinette in 1774. The French queen’s “English Gardens” were kept simple and bucolic, with only two ornamental buildings — including the Temple de l'Amour, with a sculpture of Love Carving a Bow from Hercules' Club under a classical cupola.
We dropped off our cart and headed back toward the palace, stopping in a few more side gardens to discover their hidden beauties.
Exhausted from a big day of walking, Marianne and I walked a bit further to the train station for the return trip to Paris. Once in the city, we took a direct route back to the hotel for a good rest before cocktail hour.
That night, we stayed in the Latin Quarter for dinner, enjoying a fondue feast of meat, cheese, and dipping sauces, complete with a bottle of Bordeaux from Margaux.
On the short walk home, and no doubt fueled by the grape, we once again paused to take photos beside the enigmatic Saint-Séverin Church, delighting in its expression of Gothic attitude against the night sky.