Château de Versailles
Thursday, 22nd September 2005 by Alex Turnbull
With more than 67 staircases, 700 rooms, 1250 fireplaces, 2,000 windows and more than 1,800 acres of grounds, this is the awesome royal Château de Versailles outside Paris, France.
I visited Versailles about 15 years ago (eek!) and it truly is unbelievable how ridiculously, stupidly, horribly extravagant the whole thing is. I mean, just look at the size of the grounds, I have to go to zoom level 3 to fit them all in!
As always, loads more information about this ostentatious sight is available at Wikipedia, the official site is nice, there's a good photo gallery here, and if you're really interested, here's an interactive map 🙂
Thanks: cacafuego, Carson Diltz, Donald, Justin Mancinelli, Errabes, Tim Maffett, Dan Slawe, Randy Johnson, Dave Edmunds, Dave Isaacs, eRez, Erwin, elbisreverri, Julien, Chris, Andrew White, Jeff Vinocur, ringo, victor, Ben Singleton, stz, Daniel, Ignacio, Steve Wallis, Maki Fok, Tom, Skinny-boy, Joe, Jerry, and Steve!
To think the kings lived in such mind-boggling splendor while most of the people were poor and barely had enough to eat. Somehow the guillotine is now easy to understand 🙂
Thanks for giving me a shout for submitting Versailles.
-Bill
Sadly the hall of mirrors was closed for renos so we couldn’t see it all in its brilliance 🙁
Not a single bathroom in the whole joint.
Seriously.
Well, I’m no monarchist, from the wikipedia article it looks like the Chateau de Versailles did have some important advantages. It allowed Louis IXV to centralize the government, stopping rebellion and infighting amongst the aristocrats. In addition it appears the Chateau of Marly actually cost more to maintain than Chateau de Versailles.
Luke you’re right : moving the king and its court from Paris (Louvre) to Versailles was a big turn in the french history. Louis XIV (le roi Soleil) was very chocked when young by a rebellion and so one of its first decision was to go out of Paris. This happened at a very particular moment in the history of french monarchy – but we can discuss about that a long time 🙂
The chateau de Versailles is very huge, it was built at a time where France was one of the very first most powerful nation in the whole world. So it’s big, huge ! One of the biggest problems the architects had to deal with was to bought enough water for all the fountains in the park 😀
“Not a single bathroom in the whole joint. Seriously.”
Wasn’t Louis XIV fond of receiving visiting dignataries as he sat on the royal chamber pot?
aw…let ’em eat cake.
I’m really disappointed I didn’t get credit for submitting this a couple of months ago…
anyways, I was five when I visited Versailles, so I suppose the sheer volume of the halls and expanse of the gardens especially impacted me. And my feet. You can’t walk as far when you’re five, especially when you’re bored out of your mind. Parents never appreciate that when they’re sightseeing.
But 18 years and several college history courses later, I’m very glad my parents exposed me to things like this, and I can’t wait to go back at the first opportunity.
The thing is…. we must apreciate it for the glamour and the thing to be. This is less worst than the Great Wall or other structures that killed more people than a war. I bet that Versailles did not starve people… king’s money was not for people after all… he spent them on the great thing we can now enjoy. I was there also and was unpleasantly surprised of idiot people that carved their names into the walls and paintings. Now that is idiot!
Hope you can apreciate the efect and not analyze the cause, coz, at the end, this is not a thing we want to disapear from face of the Earth… history buildings and geographical sights are the most precious things the world have. We must preserve them and enjoy… not to destroy them like brainless people we most are!
Thank you!
Im so interested in this aspect of life. I think he is such a great role model to us all in society now. The 21st century is totally out of control! oh how i love Louis! heheheheheheeheh!! txt me louis babe xoxox