‘Give me a castle of dreams anyday instead of a palace of opulence.’.. Livonne

Sorry it’s taken a few days but here is part 2 of our trip to Monet’s Garden and the Palace of Versailles.

Everyone started to get back on the bus and before we knew it we were on our way to Versailles. Within about 2 minutes of hitting the road, I was asleep again. Man, this trip is the best thing ever for the soul but it is cryptonite for the body. Anyway, I slept till we were just coming into Versailles and in no time, we were out in the blazing sun lining up to meet the new tour guide who would take us through the palace.

You can see it pretty easy. It’s the one with all the gold. Gold tips on the fences, a huge gold crown at the gate, gold on the roof of the palace. I reckon if you stood still long enough back in the day, whichever King Louis it was would have had you dipped in the good stuff too. This castle said to the world “I am richer than you., I am more powerful than you and I am the most important of all.” It was absolutely beautiful and absolutely garish at the same time. All the cobbled courtyard at the front of the palace went on for ages without an ounce of shade anywhere. It was in stark contrast to the green, shady beauty we had just left at Monet’s garden.

Iffi (the new guide) was fantastic. She explained everything and took us for a loo break before our allotted time of getting into the palace. As we walked through the doors, we went through more security and were then inside the most opulent place I’ve ever seen in my life. To start with it was a bit decieving as we went in through a hall that was a bit austere. Very creamy walls with a life sized statue either end and we wound our way up a creamy/white marble stair case onto a mezzanine floor with black and marble (I think) tiles. Beautiful, restrained, minimal. Then we got into the rooms..

Holy cow!!! Seriously, this place is more over the top than the Vatican and I thought that was opulent. There is not a ceiling left un-muraled. There are more paintings on those ceilings than in the Louvre I think. So many deep reds of all shades and everything is edged with gold. The paintings above our heads were exquisite. More beautiful in my opinion than the portraits that hung on the walls. They were paintings of angels and gods and clouds and beauty.

We walked through so many rooms, each one as elaborate as the previous. It actually became quite overwhelming. When we got to the room of mirrors, you could barely move for the amount of people in there, all again with their obligatory selfies and posing like Emily in Paris. Seriously, I love the show, but this is an epidemic over here. There were little kids, about 7 or 8 year olds, whose parents were encouraging them to pose the same way. And every second “influencer” was being filmed everywhere they went by their long suffering friends or partners. C’est la Vie.. Back to the palace.

As beautiful (and garish) as the palace was, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. We heard about the way people were segretated into different rooms, depending on their standing in society or their wealth. The King allowed people to watch him wake up each day.. “What did you do today darling? Oh I saw a lovey little show.. The king waking up.. He burped, he farted, he yawned and then sat up and was helped to the toilet by the royal toilet person. (in England he was called the Groom of the Stools… what a job to aspire to) I’ll settle for my little unit in reality and my castle of dreams in my head.

The crowds there are so bad. In fact everywhere we have been it’s been like that and it’s not even Summer yet. The heat is starting to become unbearable and between the heat and the ridiculous amount of people everywhere, it’s starting to take a toll on the enjoyment factor. And don’t get me started on the walking. If it is a 50 metre walk, they will put the cattle races in to make you go up and down the line so you’ve walked a kilometre before you reach that 50 metre point. Don’t get me wrong, I am loving it all, and I don’t know how you can even begin to control it, but every Paris attraction is so busy ALL THE TIME! And heat in Europe sucks lol.

By the time we had got through with the tour, we just wanted to sit and have a cold drink, so we went to find a cafe. We found one and sat down with our drinks trying to summon up the energy to get to the gardens. We were so looking forward to seeing them, but by this time, our energy was so depleted, we weren’t sure we would actually make it to the entry. But like the worn out but warrior women we are, we pushed on and made it to the gardens. We were really struggling in the heat and seriously, in the area near the perfectly manicured gardens, there is no shade at all. We took a bit of a walk and then Cecile sat while I wandered off to get some snaps of the statues I could see in the distance.

As I got closer to them, I rounded a corner and the most perfect vista came into view. The fountain with the gold statues and beyond that a beautiful huge perfectly symmetrical pond. This is all surrounded by lush lawns and greenery. Oh thank God for that. I took lots of pics and wandered down to the fountain and was heading towards the first pond nearest the palace, when Cecile came wandering down. It was only then that we noticed we could have hired a golf cart to get around. If only we’d walked that way first we’d have seen so much more than we did. But we are only human and our bodies were honestly wracked with pain and exhaustion.

We wandered back to the bus, over the cobbled courtyard again (which is the size of a small city) and went to find the bus. We are finding the cobbled paths really hard to walk on and they are everywhere. I am stunned when I see Parisian women walking over them in high heels.. They are made of tough stuff here. My ankles are screaming at me walking on them in runners lol. We got on the bus and by the time we were ready to leave there were at least 6 people missing. There may have been more. We waited an extra 20 minutes then had to leave. I’m not sure whether they decided to stay on or if they just lost track of time, but anyway, we were on our way home again.

This time I didn’t sleep, though I wanted to. We got back to Paris pretty quickly and all got off and dispersed as quick as could be. We got a taxi and got home to the unit and I wrote the first part of the blog, then my eyes could no longer focus and I had to sleep. Everyday is a bigger one than the day before it seems and the next day is another big one but we’ve promised ourselves a bit of a sleep in. We’ve earned it. Till then….

Happy dreaming in your own castle…. Livvy xxx

The Palace of Versailles

The Gardens of Versailles