Paris - Versailles Palace

This is Versailles. Well most of it anyway. It is so bloody huge that I really could not come up with a good way to photograph it. It is even bigger than the Louvre I think. Way up there in the middle you can see the central gates. It is in a little town now. Back when Louis XIV lived there it was in the countryside, twelve miles south of Paris. Now it is basically like a suburb - urban sprawl and all. The day we were there was on and off cloudy and rather cold. We spent most of the day inside the palace so that was not too big a deal. The gardens are supposed to be so spectacular. But as it was November, there were no flowers, the trees were losing their leaves, and all the statues were covered to protect them from winter. You can kind of get an idea of it from this though. All those areas that are trees to the left and right of the main concourse are part of the gardens too. It was absolutely huge. My digital camera died before we got there, but back in the wooded area to the right, there is a constructed imitation of a peasant village. Marie Antionette used to dress up and go play peasant when she was bored, while the real peasants were starving in the streets. No wonder they chopped off their heads! The opulence was incredible. This is a shot of Louis XIV (later used by Louis XVI as well)'s bedroom. The entire room was gold. I cannot fathom how much money it would cost today to do something like that. The rail was to give the king a small amount of privacy. There was at least a dozen people in his room every morning for his waking up process, but they could not go behind the rail. Still kinda creepy if you ask me. Unfortunately the Hall of Mirrors (supposedly the most impressive room in the palace) was under construction while we were there. This is one of the chandeliers though. You have to do upkeep at some point, right? Anyway, for those of you who are historically challenged, this is a bust of Louis XIV, not bad for all the inbreeding!
Also see the painting from the Louvre that I put in the last post. So Versailles was opulent and filled with ridiculous amounts of history and overdoneness. All in all a good day. That night we went to this totally fabulous restaurant in Montmartre. I got a few pictures of the Moulin Rouge, but on my film camera, not the digital (the battery died at Versailles). And once again we crashed fairly early because it was a really long day. Traipsing all over the French countryside can really take it out of you. I will post on the rest of the trip soon. Love to you all.