We sat by some very nice people who I first attempted my dreadful French on, and he answered in nice slow French, only to discover that we both spoke English much more successfully. I think they were from Mexico and had traveled through Spain then France. I mention it because he thought New Mexico was "somewhere in California" which is a first for me.
Anyway, we went to church first, a family ward elsewhere in the town of Versailles. We stayed for both hours, and I think Matt's French was good enough that he understood some of the language (he used to be able to read the Book of Mormon in French, more or less), but Mattie and I didn't understand anything that we weren't actively looking up in Google Translate. But it was nice and there were some Americans there (even some teenagers who translated for the kids in YM/YW) who had moved for various reasons, that we could talk to afterwards.
After church, we miraculously caught two buses on tight connections (with some running involved) and made it to the palace area. We first got lunch in a deli, which was a really fun experience. It was crowded and we didn't recognize too many of the foods. This made Zoe sad but the rest of us had a great time trying some interesting things. I should have taken pictures of our meals, but Pierce and I shared a saucisson brioche and I made sure to get a screen shot when I looked it up, so I could make it at home later. Now I just need to find French sausage. It was BIG, like a small slice is plenty for anyone except Pierce.
The line to get into the palace was very very long and snaked around the enormous courtyard, in kind of an amazing state of neatness, so we decided to see the gardens first.
The gardens are often free to visit, but this Sunday there was a charge because there was going to be a musical fountain show. Always see the musical fountain shows if you can! Evidently these fountains are not normally running - if you're visiting, you should figure out when they are because it's pretty amazing.
Anyway when you walk out behind the palace, you look down and see this gorgeous huge formal garden.
It's pretty amazing, but then when you look at the map and figure out how to orient yourself (Pierce was especially good at this), you start to realize the scale of the gardens. The picture above is looking down at area 34 on the map, just a tiny portion of the 1976 acre park. This would fit almost 4 of the entire Disneyland Resort in California. (No wonder our feet were so tired!) The entire park is not even shown on the map below - this is just the garden section, which is quite a bit less.
Once we figured out how much there was to see, we set off towards the left side of the map. I think it was area 43 where we saw our first musical fountain. First you hear the music - it's beautiful classical music, pretty loud (recorded, not live). Then you wind your way through the hedges and gates to see this lake, where the fountains are synchronized with the music. It's more amazing than it sounds.
This must be area 55. I think this was the Queen's Garden or maybe the King's Garden. We started off with an organized approach to our garden viewing, but quickly got distracted and separated.
I think this is looking down the aisle from 47 to 62 with the palace at the end of the path. The hedges were amazing.
This, I believe, is the Apollo Fountain, #40 on the map. Later, the fountain turned on, so it will show up again here.
The whole place is just massive. From here we left the gardens for the larger park for a little bit, got some lovely ice cream, and came back in for further exploration - but we got separated and struggled for the next hour to find each other (cell phone reception was very poor so texts were very very slow).
The grand avenue down the middle of the park (#36) is lined with large classical statues. All of which have handy modesty leaves, so Zoe wasn't too offended here at Versailles (like she was in other museums).
I got pretty turned around for awhile (Pierce was the only one who didn't) and I can't remember which fountain this was, maybe the Neptune fountain? but it was an amazing area. I think it might be #52 on the map, or maybe 57. I should ask Pierce - I bet he still remembers.
And speaking of Pierce, I was reminded that I haven't taken any nice pictures of him really at all for a long time, maybe a couple of years (he is quite resistant to photography), so he consented to sit down and let me take a few pictures here in this garden.
And since I'd recently taken about a million senior portraits for Mattie, I didn't make her pose for me too much.
We wandered back around towards the back of the garden,
then back to the Apollo Fountain, which we waited around for the exact time when it started fountaining, but realized there was no musical fountain show here, so we walked all the way back to the other end of the garden to meet up with Matt and Zoe.
This is cool - when King Louis XIV lived at Versailles, he would take a stroll through his gardens, and since it took so much water to run the fountains, they would just turn on the one he was close to. Then they had a system of whistles so that the next guy would know to turn on his fountain when the king was headed his way.
So I think in general the fountains are off - just if you go on the right Sunday, you get to see them spray.
They were waiting at the Latona Fountain. It's like a wedding cake but the statues are gilded.
We tried out a few family photos.
Then we went off to see some of the gardens to the right side of the map.
My directions got pretty hazy, and also we were getting quite tired, but it was one amazing sight after another.
We rounded a corner and came upon a fountain even more amazing than we'd expected. I really should have Pierce come remind me where all of these were. I think we only saw a little more than half of the formal gardens.
We decided to go up and see what the line was like for the palace, but before we left the gardens we needed a few more pictures. Here Zoe is wearing her new dress that she chose in Bath. It's so pretty!
So many animals spraying water out of their mouths!
Up the stairs again to the back side of the palace.
And, as luck would have it, the line was gone and we got right in to see the palace. It was still crowded, but I know it gets much much worse, so it was a blessing that we'd waited to see the inside. The first room has the most amazing ceiling!
There is a ton of history - the palace was really built into its most opulent state by Louis XIV. I don't remember too many details, but all the pictures I took show how there is no boring, undecorated surface. Everything is a masterpiece.
Every little corner of the ceiling is decorated with a different work of art.
Many of the statues are Louis XIV. He was so noble.
And sooooo many things are gilded.
All of these ceiling paintings are unique.
We had audio tours - some of us liked it better than others. I really liked it and listened to the whole thing.
Notice how Louis tramples his enemies, hair perfectly coiffed, while angels sing overhead. That's just how he was.
This is the beginning of the Hall of Mirrors. At the time, mirrors were one of the most luxurious things you could have, so of course Louis XIV had a whole hall of them.
I think this is his bedroom.
What's his favorite color? This is just a guess, but I believe it might be gold.
And this is his noble bust (one of them).
This is Marie Antoinette's bedroom. Many people in France were starving - I can see why they'd want a little revenge. There is a secret door off to the right of her bed, through which she escaped when the palace was stormed, but she was soon found and taken away to her doom.
If you go a little farther, both in distance and in time, Napoleon turned some of the palace into a museum "for the people", where he hung some truly gigantic paintings featuring Himself being victorious. We actually saw this painting twice - once here and once in the Louvre. It's the famous one where he's crowning Josephine Empress.
In all of the pictures, he is conquering something.
On our way out we saw this lovely statue of, again, Napoleon. We were so exhausted that we didn't see any of the other open areas of the palace, which I was disappointed to later learn, include an amazing chapel that I would have persevered for if I'd known.
The closest train station was packed full of people, so we decided to walk FARTHER to another station, which was easy to use and uncrowded. By that time we had logged many miles so we enjoyed sitting down and watching the city go by. Evidently we were too tired for any photography. We got out in Paris and walked EVEN MORE and found a delicious crepe restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed both savory and sweet crepes, then finally got to the hotel and laid down, totally exhausted. What a day! Mattie's fitbit says 18,869 steps, but I'll tell you what, today was exhausting like if it had been 10,000 steps more.
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