Versailles Palace

We were to visit Palace of Versailles today the 30th August 2012.   The name of this palace immediately brings back the memory of a woman ,  who had a tragic end to her life,  Queen Marie Antoinette,  the  French queen who was guillotined in the blood bath of French Revolution. She  was the wife of King Louis XVI  who also was guillotined.
  She was supposed to be so callous about the common people  that she commented when she came to  know  people did not have bread  ' if bread is not available , eat cakes'.  No body knows whether she did say such words.

 We had to take a train (which is outside the zones to which we had ticket, so we had to buy the ticket) to Versailles which is  located in the outskirts of Paris.
It was a comfortable Double Decker train.

We had  tickets to enter the Palace which we had bought online earlier.
We walked to the Palace from the train station and it was not very far.  It was not  difficult to find the route as all the crowd was going towards the Palace and we had to just follow the crowd.

The Palace was huge and I had not  expected such  opulence.  Each State room and the Hall of Mirror and the paintings  and the carvings were simply marvellous.  It has been maintained very well.

The Entrance to the Palace.

The Huge Palace side view.

The Painting on the roof .

                                           Another Painting on the roof

                                                                   Roof again

                                                                  Hall of Mirrors.

                               

Tapestries hung on the Wall.

This Palace has a very Huge Gardens.  There is a trailer like Bus in which you can ride into the garden.  We had to buy extra tickets for this.  There were vehicles very similar to Golf carts which could be hired.  Four to five people could go in this(self driven).  Very well paved roads are there inside the gardens.  

There is another building (Palace) called the Grand Trianon inside the garden which is part of the whole Versailles Palace area.    This is a beautiful palace built by   Louis XIV. 

After French Revolution the whole Palace was shut down and some pilferage was there but luckily it was not destroyed or burnt down.

Later when Napoleon ruled France and declared himself as the Emperor.  After divorcing Josephine he married Marie Louise of Austria. (Austria was defeated by Napoleon  in the war).  She married him reluctantly and this Grand Trianon was refurbished for her. 

The pink marble pillars are wonderful. 

                                   The floor and the surroundings look so good.

State Room in Grand Trianon.

Another Room

The trailer like Bus to take you around the Garden and to the Trianon.

A Fountain inside the Huge Garden.

The Neatly laid Garden.

Another part of the lovely garden.

One of the many sculptures  in the Garden.

Another Fountain.

The Garden and the many Sculptures.

We got down from the Trailer where ever we wanted,   roamed about and took another one to go to another part as these trailers were moving around picking up people and dropping them.

We were in Versailles Garden till evening and started from there with great reluctance.   

It was a grandeur par excellence.

We come back and before going to the hotel room go and see the Eiffel Tower from the other side which we had not seen the other day.  We sat down there looking at the magnificent Tower and returned to our room.