July 3, 2022 - Chartres, France (including a trip to Versailles)

 Today’s post will cover yesterday and today.  I decided that I was close enough to Versailles to take the train up to it to see this royal palace.  I had not seen it on previous trips to Paris.  I’m less knowledgable about French History than I should be, but Louis XIV, who built Versailles, is the longest reigning monarch in history.  He reigned for 72 years and 110 days, when his father King Louis XIII pronounced him king on his deathbed.  However, at the time of the King’s death, young Louis was only 5 years old.  After the king died a governing council was formed sing Louis XIV was to young to serve as king.  Queen Anne, Louis XIII wife, became head of this council, thus allowing her to reign without admitting the fact for 12 years until Louis XIV was old enough.  So, even though the record books say that King Louis XIV is the longest reigning monarch, 12 years of that time were really under the reign, or at least influence, of his mother.

In any case, Louis XIV distrusted Paris and the Paris Aristocracy.  In order to avoid it, he set up residences and his center of power just outside of Paris in Versailles.  It took 50 years to build the palace and it was adorned with as much gold and marble as he could find to prove his power and wealth.  After all, Europe was in a race to see which nation would outdo all the other nations at this time.  Versailles is truly over the top.   It is slightly larger than Buckingham Palace.  Knowing how large it was, I decided to hire a private/semi-private tour guide to show the most interesting parts.  Etienne, our tour host, met with me, a student from China, and a couple from Italy who are currently living in London.  Etienne approached our tour in a completely different way than other tours.  He gave us a brief slide presentation and said, “when we go to tour the palace, I want you to feel the passion of the King and understand his place in history, the subsequent monarchs that ruled from here - Louis XV and Louis XVI, and finally the end of the Monarchy and the rise of Napoleon.”  Etienne was a fantastic tour guide and truly conveyed the passion of the King, his interests, what motivated him, how his offspring fared with the growing distrust of the populace, how the monarchy was overthrown and how Napoleon rose to power and declared himself Emperor but wanted to be Caesar.  The palace was literally packed with people and without Etienne’s help I would never have appreciated Versailles or gotten much out of seeing it.

Here are some of the pictures I took.  Everything is decorated in beautiful brocades of green, blue, red, and gold.  And everything that could be gilded, was.  Every ceiling has scenes painted on it that depict Greek/Roman Gods fighting wars.  The only ceiling with no ornamentation is the king’s bedchamber.  Why?  Because it needed nothing more to enhance it, but the king himself!

And the hall of mirrors is “something else” entirely.  The first picture shows a map of Versailles and its gardens.  The small gray area just below the center of the photo is Versailles itself.  Understand that this “small” building in gray has 2,300 rooms in it and is 88 million square feet!  What is so immense above the “small” gray building are the Gardens of Versailles which are 2,000 square miles.

The King’s Room

And the Hall of Mirrors

Having grown up at Longwood Gardens outside West Chester, I’m pretty spoiled.  And on a personal note, my great-grandfather ran the fountains.  So it’s difficult to compare other gardens.  Longwood (from the DuPont family) really is probably in the top ten if not top three of the most beautiful gardens in the World.  And there truly are no better fountains than Longwood’s.  Versailles is beautiful, but in all honesty, it’s just big.  Here are some pictures of the Gardens of Versailles.

I had arrived early for the tour, so Etienne and I had gotten about a half hour to talk over coffee before the tour began.  He was intrigued by my travels and my Sabbatical.  We had an interesting discussion about Christianity, particularly Catholic vs. Protestant.   When the tour was over and I’d taken the 1 1/2 hour train ride back to Chartres, I got a text from Etienne asking if I wanted to meet with he and his girlfriend in Paris to hang out and chat some more, particularly about my project; Breaking Bread with our Ancestors.  Oh, how I had wished to be able to do that!  But, unfortunately, it would have required another 1 1/2 hour train ride back to Paris and I wasn’t even sure of the schedule.  We shared each other’s contact information, so hopefully we can stay in touch.

I had dinner that looked onto the side view of Chartres Cathedral.  I had a rack of lamb and cider.  Cider has become my new “go to” drink.  It’s not wine and it’s not beer, but sort of somewhere in between.  Enthusiasts (and snobs!) of these two beverages will have a lot to say about that statement…lol. But, I said what I said.  After dinner I ordered a Dame Blanche - basically vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, topped with whipped cream.  To be fair, it should have had a description of being a gigantic vase of Whipped Cream, a drizzle of chocolate sauce, with a small spoonful of ice cream at the bottom.  It was not a dessert I’ll ever order again.

Today, my last day in Chartres, I finally found a restaurant that didn’t cost an arm and a leg where I had brunch.  It’s called Feuillette.  Kind of like Panera if Panera had better pastries, food, bread, and style.  Panera has better salads, I’ll give it that.

I had quiche with chorizo and mozzarella, green leaf lettuce salad, cafe crème, and a cannella.

There was a little train that went around town, picked people up outside the Cathedral and returned about 45 minutes later.  Although I’d been walking around the town for the last few days, I never saw where the train actually went.  I had nothing else to do today, so took a ride.  I’m so glad I did.  There was a lot more to Chartres than I realized.  The original OLD TOWN is below the hill that Chartres Cathedral sits on.  Here are some pictures that I took of the old town and two additional churches; one, in really bad condition - St Peter’s, but still is home to a worshipping community and another, St Andrew’s, that has been turned into an art gallery.

St Peter’s Church - originally built in the 8th Century by a group of Benedictine Monks.

I was afraid to wonder for long about whether the green on the stone was residual paint or mold.

And St Andrew’s - there really wasn’t much information available about this unless you can read French.

And finally for dinner tonight I ordered an appetizer of grilled sardine pate, a passionfruit mojito, and what the menu called a Caesar Salad.  It was the strangest tasting/looking Caesar Salad I’ve ever had.  It wasn’t bad, just not what I was expecting.  The breaded chicken had a little spice to it and because it was so odd, I couldn’t at first figure out what it was.  But, then I noticed that the breading was a little yellowish.  Can you guess?

Curry Powder:

Tomorrow I take the train back to Paris to get the high speed train to Bordeaux.  I’ll have a lot more wine once I get there and maybe will have a lot to share about it, too.