Let them eat cake!

Friday - 22 degrees (in the sun - the wind a little chilly) - a perfect day to go to Versailles. We were picked up in a mini van by Rebecca - the best French, English speaking tour guide we've had to date. She was both knowledgeable and humourous and didn't just bombard us with dates and facts, but she told stories about the notable people, what they were like, how they related to each other and we, her group of 6 (us + a couple from New Jersey and a Filipino lady from New York), were hanging on her every word - and we're still in the bus, we hadn't even arrived at Versailles yet!

Because we had arrived with a tour guide, we scooted in front of the cues and straight in which was lucky as there were billions of people there.... it's nearly the end of the school year here, so lots of school groups were obviously wasting a day wandering the gardens - learning something I'm sure!

I had been to Versailles before and had wandered around with an audio guide - but going with a tour guide is 100% better. She told little anecdotes that you didn't get with the audio facts or with other tour guides - we heard another guide who looked and spoke a little like Julian Clarey - the French version, tell his group about a painting we were all looking at and he was very basic in his information whereas ours told the background story, what other people say about it, the painter's vision and why it was painted the way it was - all very interesting little add ons that the poor people in Julian's group weren't privy to! We learned that Louis XIV was a shortarse who wore very high hair, silk stockings and little pink heeled pumps to make him look taller - he even commissioned statues of himself in short tunics so that eyes of the viewer would go straight to the knees and then up - giving the illusion that he was taller and painters were ordered to put him into heroic positions on horses and in battle - talk about short man syndrome!

Rebecca left us in garden to wander around and take photos and awe at the grotesque display of wealth that was around us. It's quite amazing how much the royal family had and how much money they must have spent on that palace and surrounding dwellings when the people of Paris were starving! No wonder they cut off their heads! One of the King Louis even bought a gondola from Venice and had it brought back to Versaille only to realise that he had nowhere to use it..... so he had a water way in the shape of a cross built in the garden -1.5 km one way and 1 km the other way - of course!

This was a tree near Marie Antoinette's 'little' palace which apparently was there in her time - I thought it was beautiful with the heart shape in the middle.

After a lovely luncheon in the garden restaurant, we headed down to look at Marie Antoinette's day house, where she escaped to each day to be free of the "eticate" of the palace. Apparently she didn't like all the pomp and ceremony that went with her position. She also had a little theatre made where she would perform for her friends - self indulgent? Just a bit!

The crazy thing is that she NEVER slept in this palace. She had a bedroom set up and everything, but she only spent her days there and went back the main palace at night. Not only that - she also had a hamlet built - a little old fashioned village made up of wooden houses so that she could go there and pretend to be one of the "people".

She even employed a family to live in the makeshift village to make it look more authentic. We missed this part last time we were here - so this was a fabulous surprise.