At the opulent Château de Versailles, palace of the French kings

You know you're getting near Château de Versailles, palace of the French kings, when the roads become quieter, more trees line the roads, and the din of the city of Paris, with its trains, buses, and hurrying people, could no longer be heard. The neighborhood takes on a genteel air. Only a few restaurants and shops could be spotted. And traffic is light.

Toward the end of the main road are a couple of royal-looking edifices, and just when you thought these were somehow part of the Château, you find out that these used to house the stables for the kings' horses.

Ah, the king. As if to remind visitors whose place this was, there right outside the Château's golden gates is a statue of Louis XIV astride his horse. It was he who was behind this opulent palace, and it took years to transform his predecessor Louis XIII's brick-and-stone hunting lodge into the grand palace Château de Versailles turned out to be.
 

 
Guidebooks say Louis XIV preferred Versailles to the gloomy Louvre (which became a museum), since the latter was too close to the common people—their houses were just right outside the Louvre’s walls. In contrast, at Versailles, he had plenty of room for luxurious apartments and gardens. Also, the king reportedly hated the Parisians and their city, and envied the palace his finance minister built for himself. And so the Château became Louis XIV’s refuge and kingdom, a world away from the French who eventually took part in the Revolution, costing the life of his successor, Louis XVI and that of his queen, Marie Antoinette.

When a friend learned I went to the Château, she asked, “Could it have really inspired the French Revolution?” I said yes, yes, and yes, and you’d know it even if you were just outside the golden gates of this place, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The whole place, you see, is simply—for lack of term—palatial, but even that is not enough. It’s opulent, grand, and luxurious.
 

 
Entering the golden gates, you walk across the cobblestoned Courtyard of Honour, and immediately notice how ornate the buildings all around you are. They have gold embellishments and sculptures, and clearly are well maintained. Another golden gate leads to the Royal Courtyard, and further on is the Marble Courtyard with its marble floors.

Inside the palace, you come across room after room showing fine French furniture, chandeliers, and paintings from floor to ceiling, and ornate heavy drapes. The Royal Chapel, where the king and his court heard Mass daily at 10 a.m., had paintings of Old and New Testament scenes on its ceiling. The king’s and queen’s bedchambers both had gilded railings separating the sleeping area from the rest of the room, and had views of the gardens from their balconies.
 

 

 
The Hall of Mirrors likewise overlooks the well-manicured gardens, and one cannot help but imagine how regal the whole place must have looked when the royal court had functions in the 1600s and 1700s, with women in their ballgowns and men in their best attire. Later on, the Hall of Mirrors became the venue for the signing of the Treaty of Versailles which signaled the end of World War I.
 

 

 
The gardens are a sight to behold, and they seem to stretch out as far as the eyes can see. The fountains were not running when we visited during the winter season early this year, but on weekends in spring and summer, they come to life. Groves, ponds, and sculptures can be found here, and further down are a couple more palaces, the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, and the hamlet of Marie Antoinette.
 

 

 
Restoration work continues to this day inside the Château and in the gardens. If what I have seen was just part of it, the full glory of the palace in the days of old must have been breathtaking. — BM, GMA News