Now this is living the good life...

The palace at it's finest...
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Dessy and I awoke extra early in order to get a chance to see the Palace of Versailles and get back and have a day in Paris. We were told if we didn't get there at the 8am opening we would be waiting in line for hours, so we set our wake up calls for 6am, thirteen mile train ride at 7am and finally the palace by 8am.

It was just a short walk from the train station and we didn't even have a map, the signs made it very accessible. Once we got there we had to wait about maybe fifteen minutes, which wasn't bad at all. Our ticket included a free headset that guided us around multiple sights on the grounds, which was actually fun and informative.

History of beauty and physics...

True tourists with our headsets...
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Before I even get started, how much history does this place have to offer? It's the flamboyanty decoracted home of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI which helped to cause the French Revolution. It is also the sight where the Treaty of Versailles was signed (name makes sense) in 1919.

We started off in the palace chapel- already astonished, did we even need to go on? The room wasn't that large but was more intricately designed than anything I had ever seen (nor will probably ever see). Apparently one of the kings believed that he had to constantly add to the chapel as a measure of giving to G-d and the additions continued to result in what we see today (restored after damage during the French Revolution, but same concept of intricacy). We continued onto L'Opera which was a gorgeous mix of lights blues and silver with mirrors on both sides to give the visual effect of it being double as wide. Apparently some of the most famous performers ever graced this stage- I am standing in a place that has been filled with royalty and fame, unbelievable.

The garden statues...
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We continued onward upstairs to see water holding tanks on the roof of the palace that were apparently placed here because the pressure of the amount of water and gravity downward is what allowed all of the fountains on the grounds to work. The beauty of physics even hundreds of years ago.

We continued the tour through many sitting rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, studies, past hundreds of pieces of art, upstairs, downstairs, past many sarcophagus, and finally ended up in the Hall of Mirrors. This room is something else, mirrors and statues and paintings EVERYWHERE you look. It's like a condensed museum, but is actually quite large in itself. The view from the windows looks out over the gardens which we would later venture to. Even with ongoing construction the room was a sight to be seen.

Out back of the palace...
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The next room we entered was a bedroom where apparently 19 (I believe...) French royalty were born in, as well as a few deaths. It was decorated very feminine with pastel florals all around.

The final stop on the grounds of Versailles were the elaborate formal gardens. Last but not least is right in this case- I have never seen a garden like this, nor this much land that could even be produced into a garden like this (250 acres to be exact). At every glance there was something else; flowers, shrubbery, garden art, statues, fountains and of course many other tourists. It would be the perfect place for a wedding, a tea party, or really for anything you could think of involving natural beauty.

Dessy's turn to pose...
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This excursion was well worth the time and price- and left us with many memories and time to get back to the city.