Château de Versailles

There are lots of palaces, castles and chateaux in Europe, but the grandaddy of them all is the  Château de Versailles.  It was the residence of the king and seat of France's government for 100 years.  In 1682 Louis XIV moved out of the Louvre in Paris and into a luxurious palace he had build in the village of Versailles.  Versailles quickly became the cultural center of Europe as well as the home base for a country with a booming economy and a powerful military.  Two more Louis held the reigns at Versailles; Louis XV and Louis XVI, but the era of France's power was weakening and Louis XVI and his lovely wife, Marie-Antoinette were deaf to the rumblings of brewing rebellion.  In October of 1789, Louis and Marie were forced to leave Versailles and were sent back to Paris.  In Paris they had an on-again, off-again (mostly off) relationship with the French people and they both finally lost their heads over it in 1793.

Luckily for all of us, the National Convention of the French First Republic decreed on 5 May 1794 that the château and gardens of Versailles would be placed under the care of the Republic for the public good.  Now, 217 years later, it's even better than when the Louis lived there; it has flushing toilets!

As I'm sure you've guessed by now, that was our destination for the day.  We had a busy morning first though - Dennis and Beth got to tour our Sunday street market first, then we walked all the way down Rue de la Convention to the Seine and the Javel train station.

Beth and I were busy chatting away and didn't realize the guys had stopped for a little window shopping:

Lots of nice toys in that shop!

We arrived at Javel train station, bought our tickets to Versailles and then descended to the quay.  Javel is not a major train station so we didn't even get to sit whilst we waited for the next train (almost 20 minutes!).  

Yes, this is Javel station - but notice the blue sky!  Much nicer day already!

The Javel train station is a typical smaller, outdoor station.  In general though, it reminded us that in the city, the view from the train isn't the best one.

Looking east towards the Eiffel Tower

The view west, and the direction we're headed

Wha...???  It's a 20-minute wait and we're hungry!

The train trip to the château is a fairly short one as Versailles is only about 20 km southwest of Paris and the walk to the château from the train station is about 10 minutes.  We arrived at the main entrance at about 1:45 pm.  Arriving at the château is a little like arriving at Disneyland in Anaheim.  The Happiest Place on Earth is smack dab in the middle of a bustling city now, and the approach to the park isn't special in any way.  You literally turn a corner and there it is.  The Château de Versailles is similar; you turn a corner and there it is.  The  square in front, Place D'Armes, isn't landscaped or decorated in any way except for the gilding on the gates.  There  are big parking areas for cars and tour buses on either side of the main walk. 

The Grand Entrance (Place D'Armes) isn't so Grand - it looks like a big parking lot with some fancy schmancy buildings

Ron and I have been to Versailles quite a few times and we've toured the château several times as well.  We decided to split up so Dennis and Beth could tour the palace and we would tour the gardens.  

The château is big, but the gardens are bigger!  This is the Latona Basin and you can see the Apollo Basin just before the Grand Canal and the Petit Canals on the sides

We were a bit disappointed though; the trees were still leafless, the flowers weren't planted yet, the fountains weren't running (more on that in a future post!) and all the statues were covered with canvas!  Ah well, the gardens were free and we enjoyed walking around and seeing the garden before it blooms.  And despite the fact that the gardens aren't quite ready for the onslaught of spring and summer tourists, you still get a sense of the elaborately planned, pruned and decorated gardens of Louis XIV.

These trees have all been precision trimmed!

This will be a beautifully shaded path when the trees leaf out

Everything is planted in neat rows - no helter skelter gardening for Louis!

After biting cold under cloudy skies the day before, the bright sunshine was inviting for a family day at the park

Rowing on the canals

Because there were no planted gardens to see, we decided to have a treat at La Flotille, a lovely restaurant in the park:

La Flotille

My hot chocolate

Ron's coffee

Ron's Banana Split - but he shared with me!

When Dennis and Beth were finished touring palaces,  it was getting close to closing time so we all walked back towards the main entrance.  The clouds had started moving in again and as the sun was going down we had some spectacular light and sunsets:

The Chateau from just above Latona Basin

Looking back over the Grand Canal

Reflection in one of the Water Parterres

The gang above the Orangerie

Examining the perfectly manicured topiary

Sunset over The Orangerie

It was a beautiful day out at the chateau and it was nice to be warmed by the sun and breathe fresh air.  We will definitely go back to the gardens though; we want to see the summer water show extravaganzas in the fountains.

Point Zero

I never imagined blogging my adventures would be so time consuming, but if I had stopped to think about it, I probably could have guessed.  I'm a photographer, so I take A LOT of photos.  And I'm a perfectionist, so I agonize over the photos I've taken.  And I'd like to say that it's because I'm a bit of a creative genius in Photoshop, but I spend an inordinate amount of time in the digital darkroom; playing, tweaking, converting, masking and tinkering until I'm either bored or satisfied and then I move on to the next photo.  To say that I've got a backlog of thousands of photos is an understatement.  

Sadly though, my flurry of photographic output has faltered - my camera is broken.  We were traipsing about the Pompidou, and I suddenly noticed a dagger-shaped, over-exposed  strip running through my photos.  Urg.  Not good.  But not unexpected either.  I discovered that I have nearly 30,000 shutter clicks on this camera, and the shutter is just now getting arthritic.  Not bad, really, but the timing could have been better.  The good news is that I might be able to catch up on editing and story-telling until I'm armed and dangerous again.

You might be wondering why it's so hard to stay caught up.  Well, I'll tell you.  Twice now, we've had visitors from home and both times they were here for one week.  While they're here, I spend the entire time wandering around the city with our guests, camera in tow.  We leave the apartment in the morning and don't return until late in the evening unless we're having dinner at home and then I'm busy in the kitchen.  The memory cards stack up and before I know it, I've got thousands of photos to sort, edit, process, finish and then write about.  And I was already behind when they got here!  It's a tough life, I know!

I'm not sure what prompted me to launch into an explanation of my seemingly lackadaisical posting style, but I suspect a small measure of guilt has something to do with it.  What I really want to tell you about is the week I spent with my brother and sister-in-law.  It was their first time to Paris and we had a blast touring the city and squeezing in as much as we could in their time here.

Dennis and Beth arrived on a Saturday.  We met them at the airport then took the train/metro back to our apartment.  We let them relax for about 5 minutes before we dragged them out the door and off to see the sights.  We thought they might experience the dreaded, sudden-onset jet-lag and crash while out wandering, so we kept our plans loose and flexible.  That's where Point Zero comes in.  Our first stop was Notre Dame cathedral.

My very first photo of the day was of Point Zero.  This compass rose marker, set in the pavement in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, marks the official center of Paris and it is the point from which all distances to and from Paris on national highways are measured.

All toes point to point zero

It was very cold and the skies were gray, so I didn't take a photo of Notre Dame at a distance.  I have other better photos than I would have gotten on this day anyway, but I did notice something; when I'm with a small group of people, I get to talking and I'm not seeing.  If I'm not seeing I'm not photographing.  So my photo journal is a bit choppy, but that's okay.  In looking at these photos now, I'm intrigued at what caught my eye and made me stop talking long enough to make a photograph!

 We had to wait in a security line before we could enter the cathedral:

This was less like a line and more like a loosely-formed column of people all moving in the same direction

Notre Dame facade - The Kings Gallery- 28 Statues of the Kings of Judah and Israel

The Central Portal depicting the Last Judgment

Portal of Saint Anne - Jamb sculptures of Saint Paul, King David, Bathsheba and Another King

Many cathedrals are very dark inside and on a gray day, they are even darker.  Notre Dame is no exception.  I took this photo with a fairly long shutter speed and since I don't have a tripod here, I have to find a makeshift horizontal surface or use the floor for a timed exposure.  Still, I manage to get a few photos inside:

The beauty and grandeur of Notre Dame Cathedral

 By now you know I'm drawn to the candles, and partly because where there's candles there's light!

We took a side trip into the Treasury:

Beautiful Stained Glass in the passageway

Joan of Arc

Sculpture detail

The Treasury Ceiling - ornate and colorful

Saint Denis and Dennis

While the inside of the cathedral is dark and mysterious and filled with whispers, the square  of the west facade is filled with light, laughter and amusement:

We don't know who he is or why he was wearing this mask...

but he was having fun and enjoyed being photographed!

From Notre Dame, we headed to the Pont Neuf - the New Bridge - which it isn't as it is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine.  It connects the Left Bank to Ile de la Cite and the Right Bank.

The many faces of Pont Neuf

A bastion on the Pont Neuf

Bastion and Face detail

Not all was gray and dreary on the stone-clad quais:

Primroses and Pansies!

By now, I was sure Dennis and Beth would be craving a hot meal and a warm bed, but no!  Here we are consulting a map for our next stop:

At the tip of Ile de la Cite - and planning our next stop

Can you tell it was cold?!

 And because a day doesn't go by without some interesting scene in the City of Lights:

Try as he might, Little Doggie could not get his person to keep up

The Carnavalet Museum

Wow!  I guess the shorter and more frequent posts didn't work out so well.  We had house guests for a week and then I had some heavy duty work to do.  Despite the fact that it feels like I'm here to play, I do have work and it gets in the way of the fun Parisian stuff.  Ah well.  All play and no work would make me dull, right?

Our walk through the Marais was leading us to the Carnavalet Museum.  The Carnavalet is a museum for and about Paris, focusing on The Revolution but including Louis XIV-period rooms all the way through the belle epoch.

The museum opened in 1880 in the Hotel Carnavalet, a mansion built by the President of the Parliament of Paris in the mid 1500's and was later purchased by the widow of Francois de Kernevenoy who was later known as Carnavalet.  By the late 20th century, the museum was bursting at the seams so the mansion next door was purchased and the two became one museum.  Our visit to the Carnavalet was a bit helter skelter and half the museum was closed that day, but we had an interesting visit nonetheless.  The first room we entered was filled with antique shop signs.  There were hundreds of them hanging from the walls and ceiling.

This was my favorite!

Le Chat Noir

Next we wandered through the mansion where we saw the luxury of the Louis (XIV, XV and XVI that is).  There are a lot of furnished rooms that let you get a feel for the opulent life of the kings and nobles before the Revolution.  Some of the rooms have been moved from the mansions at Place de Vosges.  There was a lot of flowery wallpaper, carved wood, massive fireplaces , ornate chandeliers, brightly colored walls with embellishments, and amazing parquet floors that rolled and groaned beneath our feet.

A chandelier in an opulent room

Another chandelier, another point of view

Detail of bright yellow room with ornate wall decor

We saw maps and scale models of historic Paris and a few paintings and busts.  But the things that caught my attention more than anything were the windows.   I love the old windows!  They were multi-paned and had colored glass and you could tell a lot of the panes were old because the glass was wavy and had bubbles in it!  There were also many different designs. 

Window with round leaded glass panes

You can really see the color in the panes in this one - plus a nice view of the courtyard!

Another design and more of the courtyard

 

A set of doors with a floral motif

 

When we finished perusing the interior, we headed to the courtyard.  There is a beautiful portico between two wings with a formal garden on each side:

Portico between wings

From the portico, looking into the garden

Garden detail

Impeccably landscaped and well-manicured!

We really enjoyed the Carnavalet Museum, but like almost everything else, we'd like to go back and see the part we missed!

As we exited the museum, we were treated to a typical Parisian street scene:

The band was lively and had attracted quite a crowd.  We watched them for a bit, then wandered off deeper into the Marais accompanied by the usual city sounds and a little music.