Three visits to Chateau Versailles/Carlos Pueblo

Three visits to Chateau Versailles/Carlos Pueblo

I had received three recommendations in the hostel from three well learned

Taiwanese young ladies, the Reims Cathedral, the Chateau Versailles, and

The Chateau Fontainebleau. One day recently my new moving neighbor across

the street dropping by and introducing herself as a French from Champagne

area. I proudly announced that I just came back from Reims and she was very

surprised and further explained that she was actually from a small city called

Troyes, famous of crocodile polo shirt and some underwear manufacturing. I

Was like her old acquaintance in another town. Second one tip was the Chateau

Versailles where I had had three visits and the third tip was Fontainebleau which

I would have another description later.

I took a light rail at a nearby Porte d’Italie westward to Porte de Versailles which

was a mistake and after wondering on streets for a while. I boarded another train

C5 between Issy-Val de Seine and Issy to Versailles-Chateau final station. I met a

young Chinese couple and the man becoming my guide off the train. City of

Versailles is an attractive town with a city hall looks like a palace. I dropped by

a visitors center and walked toward the gold laced luxury architecture. Chateau

Versailles is huge, luxury, and respectably standing there. First two stables, small

and great stables, then a statue of Louis XIV and his horse, then the honor gate

entering to the palace. Two ministers’ wing on both sides of a square then the

main palace. I entered by left side pathway to the orange garden and was totally

speechless.

There are steps descending to the orange garden, actually it is not quite warm

enough in Paris for orange growing. All trees and bushes are trimmed well like

the movies of Versailles shown. The experience of my visit to this palace and garden

is really so fantastic which drives me back again two more times. There are two more

palaces on the back of the main chateau, Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon with additional

Marie Antoinette’s Estate and the Queens’s Hamlet. Grand Trianon was for Louis XIV’s

mistresses while Petit Trianon was Marie Antoinette’s project, the wife of Louis XVI.

From the front look of both back garden palaces, there are not as significant as the

Main Chateau; however, if we take a look from a locked gate on Grand Canal, it is

Really a huge project with lakes, creeks, and garden farm, etc.

There are many historical activities occured in the Chateau Versailles. France was a

dominant European empire especially the Bourbon and Napoleon dynasty combined.

Look at the Army Museum, it took 6 or 7 international allied force to defeat both

Napoleon and of course, France was getting weaker and weaker after so many wars.

I am so glad that the wars damage are manageable so far and so much to see for the

later generation.