Versailles

Today we took an hour long metro ride to the palace of Versailles which used to be the biggest power berore the French Revolution. It started when Louis XIV wanted to get away from the city so he moved his palace to Versailles taking the whole French government with him to live in the castle. When he died Louis XV took over and ruled until he died and he was probably the least significant ruler becuase nothing happened to him. Louis XVI ruled and married a woman called Marie Antoinette. She wanted to live in the country so she built a village right near the palace and pretended like she lived there and had a simple life. Louis XVI built a canal to remind him of Venice. When the French Revolution started they both got beheaded. When we got there there was a huge crowd of people heading towards the castle which couldn't be good. Of course there had to be like 7 switchbacks before the final stretch and the guy was yelling that it was a 2 hour wait. Mom and dad held our spot in line while me and Amelia went and got drinks and a sandwich. After that me, Isabel, and Amelia went and sat on the wall. When we finally got in it was an elaborate room which mom would describe as gawdy. The first king to rule there (Louis XIV) called himself Apollo after the sun god because he said he brought everyone light or something. The first room we saw was the cathedral where there was a big throne where I assumed the king sat. The first thing we walked through were the art galleries which had a lot of war pictures and paintings of the king. They were all different colors and seemed to all have a different mood to them like some might be light and some were dark. It seemed like the rooms went on forever but then again it was said to be the most magnificant palace in France. There were great chandeliers everywhere and marble staircases, gold railings. Mom said she wouldn't want to live there becuase of how big it was but I'd be more than happy to take it. I can imagine myself on a skateboard or go-cart or something driving or riding down the halls and all that. Nobody would even find out because the chances of 2 people running into each other in such a ginormous house are very minimal. Upstairs is where all the royal bedrooms were. Of course they had other rooms but I'd describe them all as the same thing, elaborate. The king's room was kind of dark but lined with gold and a huge canopy over his bed where he could completely close himself in. There were big feathers on top of it and royal chairs were for some reason facing the bed. He also had a second bedroom where he'd put on a show for the other people in the castle of him waking up in the morning. I thought that'd be a pretty boring show watching him go through his morning routine but I guess it was some kind of ritual. The queens room was even more elaborate I thought, maybe because it was lighter but it was pretty much the same thing. I was surprised that the king and queen wouldn't sleep together like most couples but back then I guess it was more of a delicousy maybe to have your own bed, of course I'm just making an obsevation and a guess. There were rooms lined with statues and chandeliers and war paintings. Finally, we got to the gardens outside. It was pretty hot out because there was barely any shade at all but it was beautiful. Everything was semetrical and there was a lake of in the distance from the palace. You could rent one but the line was too big and they were coming in too slow. We got Panini's for lunch which are a lot like baget sandwich's but on a different type of bread. We also got there on the day that they had the water fountain show which had different statues spurting out water. I would go into detail about all of the elaborate statues but that would take far too long. It would have been a lot nicer though if the guards wouldn't have been blowing their whistles for people to get off the grass.