I would like to see an episode of Grand Designs on Versailles. ‘Louis wants to convert this old hunting lodge into something he can bring the whole court to. But I don’t think he can do it without bankrupting the country.’ Apparently they went pretty close.
Versailles is not architecture, it’s the performance of power, from the layout of the wings to the rituals performed within them. It’s exciting to walk the corridors and imagine who has been there before, and what intrigues political and romantic they plotted.
The Hall of Mirrors is elegant and devastatingly beautiful, exciting when you consider it was where the Sun King held court, and tragic when you remember it was where the Treaty of Versailles was signed, destining Europe to another three decades of hell.
From the Palais to the far end of the canal is three kilometres, but the glare makes the lines indefinite, making it stretch somewhere out there. With the trees beginning to bud again, everything seems slightly diffuse and fantastic. It must look spectacular in late spring, but even now it looks like – really – a fairytale land.
When you go to Versailles make sure you go to the Trianons. They are a one-and-a-half kilometre trek from the main chateau, past water features and through maze-like gardens (think of topiary on forty-foot trees). The Grand Trianon has a similar sumptuousness but is warmer and more intimate than the Palais; the Petit Trianon just down the road is the granny-flat of the chateau, small and less flashy, but with a jewel of a garden, with paths and groves and caves and water features that must have been a delight to walk among, and a great place for kids to play.
The salon du thé in the Palais is run by the Angelina chain, and the chocolate l’Africain is the best in Paris.
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