Château de Versailles

Two days ago we went to Château de Versailles. It was a Castle like the Heidelberg one accept bigger and with no moat. The fence was covered with gold but it was old so it didn't look very nice. The guide explained that they are always in the process of renovation because there is so much gold guilding around the castle. Louis the 14th, 15th and 16th lived there. Louis the 14th and 15th lived for a long time but Louis the 16th was beheaded during the French Revolution in the 1770s.

The castle had two stables, one for normal people then one for the King.

  

There were some very fancy rooms with paintings, frescoes and sculptures everywhere. Their main use was for parties. All the rooms are named after Greek gods like Apollo, Hercules and weirdly Diana instead of Artemis. They also had a mechanical clock which was unique at the time. 

There was a nice chapel with a really big pipe organ. The king would sit looking at the people singing and everyone else would sit looking at the king. He loved music so he got a composer to write a new song every day for them to play in the Church. 

Mirrors were really rare and unusual at the time but they had a hall with a bunch of them to reflect the light from the windows. It was called the Hall of Mirrors.

We also learned about the Fluer-de-lys which is the royal symbol of France that means freedom, liberty and fraternity. It's the little flowers in gold on the blue globe in the photo above.

We were lucky because the fountains outside aren't on all the time and we got to see them on from the window. 

  

 

The chamber pots have been a common theme in our travels. You may remember I mentioned chamber pots in the Woodburn house in Pendleton, South Carolina. Cora mentions chamber pots in her post about visiting the French cousins. There was a lot of fancy stuff in the castle but I still wouldn't want to live there because people would be using chamber pots in the corner and it would really smell. 

A lot of the rooms looked the same so it was helpful to have a guide show us through and explain what each room was used for. I also liked seeing the gift shop because they had a quill calligraphy set.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay socially distanced especially from guillotines when your name is Louis.