Start the Revolution Without Me

Yesterday we took the long train ride to Versailles to reflect on the excesses of past French royalty. Our guidebook guru, Rick Steves, told us to avoid Saturdays and to go early, but we had little choice. Today was the last valid day on our four day museum passes and we opted to go anyway. The RER suburban trains are not as fast as the Metro, even though they make fewer stops, and it took about an hour total to get to the palace. By then the train was pretty full, and it even took a while for the crowd to just exit the station. We found a tourist information office nearby and asked if it was possible to just tour the Trianon palaces, and we were glad to learn they were accessed by a separate entrance.

The walk to the "little palaces" was beautiful, first through some city streets, past a Waldorf hotel that had a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (Foie Gras 55 euros) and then, once through security at the "Queen's gate," along a beautiful rural lane lined with trees and running along side a vast sheep paddock. It took a full 45 minutes to reach Maria's crib and we really enjoyed the walk.

Marie's little place turned out to be a fairly impressive two story villa with the bottom floor mostly unfurnished, (even this groovy little kitchen that looked like it was ready for Mrs. Patmore was bare except for the copper pots) but upstairs elegantly decorated with period furniture and portraits of the ill-fated queen. You could just imagine her hanging out here kicking back while people in nearby Paris were getting ready to do away with the whole concept of monarchy.

The next thing to do was tour the little private world she built herself outside, complete with a fake village (presumably staffed by fake peasants) and a real working farm with plenty of chickens, rabbits, goats and sheep.

There were miles of pathways through what appeared to be untended woods and fields. Along this walk Jayne saw a creature that resembled a giant rat, or maybe Ted Cruz, but was likely a muskrat.

Then it was time to tour the bigger little palace where the king had his hideout. We went through an amazing stretch of sculpted hedges and arbors to reach the place,

but it was overwhelmed by a crush of tourists who all seemed to have arrived at once in their rented golf carts. (I didn't really resent that; I wanted to drive one of those puppies around myself.) However, they made a slow moving line of shutter snappers once we got inside and it was hardly worth it to view the eighteenth century version of the Trump Tower. Outside, however, was the most beautiful garden that stretched on for acres and acres, lined with classical Greek statues, ponds, fountains, ect. And this wasn't even the MAIN gardens, which cover the two kilometers between the little palaces and the main show!

And we did get to see the main gardens. Little shuttle trains run tourists from the Grand Trianon to the main palace and we caught one of these, stopping along the way for a glass of wine and a snack at a beautiful cafe situated along the grand canal that quarters the grounds. Once we arrived at the main palace, we saw all the fountains in play,

with beautiful classical music issuing from hidden speakers all around the place. It was a great way to end our visit. No, we did not go see the hall of mirrors, but I think we got a pretty good idea how the one percenters were living at the time of the Revolution anyway!