Versailles is not French for “overkill.” It just looks that way. It was built as a 17th century escape from Paris. Who, you ask, would want to escape from Paris? Back then, anyone who could afford to.
Chateau de Versailles
For nearly two centuries, this was France’s most royal address. It was built west of Paris by Louis XIV, the Sun King, who wanted to get away — FAR away, apparently — from his capital city.
Initially, it was a hunting lodge, although some say His Majesty did the bulk of his “hunting” indoors, if you catch my drift.
To be fair, Paris in Louis XIV’s day was a nasty place. What we shove down the garbage disposal and flush down the toilet was routinely dumped in the streets. Just breathing Parisian air could take years off your life.
If the air in Versailles wasn’t rare, at least it was clean.
Work started on the chateau around 1660. Twenty–five years later, it was the largest royal palace in Europe, probably the world.
Everything about this place is a monument to over–the–top, in–your–face excess — and that’s just the palace. The elaborate, precisely manicured gardens — the Grand Parc — seem to extend to the horizon, if not beyond.
One can almost imagine the Sun King leading video cameras on a tour of the palace for MTV Cribs. Talk about big pimpin’!
And that was before we ran into Michael Jackson and his monkey.
Okay, Louis, we get it. You’re obscenely rich. Fine.
His thousands of subjects, suffering cheek–by–jowl in the Parisian stench, didn’t get it, but they did resent it…mightily. Louis XIV gave way to XV and then XVI, but for the ordinary Frenchman, little changed, except for his anger.
That whole “Let them eat cake” thing from Louis XVI’s queen, Marie Antoinette, didn’t go over too well, either…not that she was any more indifferent to the plight of the French peasant than he was.
(There are those believe she didn’t really say that, or didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Did history give Marie Antoinette a bad rap? This writer is one of many who think so.)
In any case, by the time the royal cluelessness realized how fed up the people were, the French Revolution had taken hold, and both king and queen were being sized for the guillotine.
Versailles, however, was left alone.
Instead of being razed as a symbol of royal excess, it was kept as a testament to culture, grandeur and — unintentionally, perhaps — the foibles of the human ego.
Don’t even dream of trying to see all this place in one day. Even if you succeed, you’ll kill yourself.
IF YOU GO:
The chateau is closed on Mondays, French holidays and for special events. Check their website calendar, just to be safe.
The RER C train takes about 30 to 45 minutes from central Paris. There are city buses that go there, but the RER is much faster.
WARNING: There’s more than one RER C train running in this direction, but only one goes to the chateau. You want the one going to “Versailles — rive gauche.” It will say “VICK” on the front.
Your camera flash damages paintings, so PLEASE turn it off. You can take perfectly good shots without it.
Chateau de Versailles official site
Paris by Train: Versailles
The Louvre
Would you believe all this was was once half a palace? First built as a defensive rampart against invading armies, it now welcomes daily hordes of rampaging tourists eager to see perhaps the world’s greatest art collection.
In the beginning, this was not a very welcoming place at all.
The Louvre was first built to defend Paris against those heathens from England. Back then, a massive watchtower was part of the facility, just inside a large perimeter wall that circled the entire city.
The watchtower and all but odd fragments of the wall are long gone, but the Louvre remains.
Initially, it was on the western outskirts, but as often happens with big cities, Paris’ skirts grew wider and eventually enveloped the place.
As time passed, its role changed from fortress to palace, actually a couple of palaces, the Louvre and the Tuileries, that later were joined into one, which Louis XIV had in mind to make his home.
Eventually, however, the Sun King changed his mind about that. He decided he wanted to get a lot farther west, basically as far away as he could from what was then a fetid and unruly Paris.
Thus, in what may be one of the first documented cases of white flight, Louis headed for the suburbs, which led to the construction of Versailles, and the Louvre falling into a neglect that lasted for years.
Like Versailles, though, it too was spared both the destructive zeal of the French Revolution and the ruthless urban renewal of Baron Haussmann.
The Tuileries palace was torched during the rebellion of the Paris Commune in 1871, but the Louvre survived. Over time, it became a palace of culture instead of royalty.
Instead of invading armies, hordes of heathen tourists now pour through it daily, barely slowed down by ticket takers and a metal detector.
Today, it is perhaps the world’s foremost center for public art from all over the world, and home to some of the most famous pieces ever created, such as the statues of Venus de Milo, Winged Victory and, of course, the Mona Lisa.
But the Louvre is not some static cultural mausoleum. Art is a living thing here, a point made in a number of ways.
First, there’s the very modern glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei and erected in the center of the courtyard outside. To some, this modern addition still doesn’t fit the 12th century surroundings, but to me, somehow, it just sort of, well…works.
That very modern glass pyramid also serves as a canopy over an equally modern underground terrace that seamlessly joins the Louvre to shopping, a food court and two Metro stations.
Again, it sounds as if it shouldn’t work, but it does. It’s especially handy if you set out to visit the Louvre on a rainy day.
The Louvre also has a lot of places where a weary tourist can sit down — and believe me, you will need that! You see the visitors arrayed around the low, circular, cushioned seats in the middle of the hallways, staring up at masterpieces everywhere, until they themselves seem like another exhibit.
Most of all, though, at least for me, there are the young art students. You find them scattered through the corridors with their brushes and easels and palettes.
Each is stationed along the walls, doing their own versions of the famous paintings hanging there, all but oblivious to the herds and hordes of tourists trooping back and forth, digital cameras and camcorders in hand.
IF YOU GO:
The Louvre is easily reached by Metro and has two stops of its own, one at each end of the museum. It also is a stop for any of the hop–on, hop–off tour buses that weave their way across central Paris all day long.
The museum is closed on Tuesdays, holidays and for special events. If you go on the first Sunday of the month, admission is free. As with Versailles, don’t even think about trying to see it all in one visit.
Remember Things 1 and 2 for Versailles? They apply here, too. No flash photograpghy, and no killing yourself trying to see it all in one visit.
The Louvre official site
Paris by Train
L’OpenTour bus
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