Those French sure know how to gild a mirror

Wow! I’m still in golden-glam overload from visiting Versailles today. I’ll tell you first about our train trip, our lunch (of course) and then about the little “chateau” that helped spawn the French Revolution.

First of all, Versailles is a city in and of itself, not just another name for the famous – or infamous - center of French royalty’s opulence.

Our party of four Parisian wanderers boarded the train from a station within steps of our home base. The ride to Versailles was no more than 20 minutes, even with several stops, so the city seems to be and is a suburb of Paris.

The train ride offered view of the more modern outskirts of Paris including multi-story office buildings and more modern apartment houses. It also afforded us an along-side view of the Seine for a few miles. We spotted what Stacy had known was here, but not where it was, a small replica of the Statue of Liberty. We saw it briefly from the train and a check of Wikipedia (the internet information source for all that’s right and true) and found this location description:

“The second Statue of Liberty is near the Grenelle Bridge on the Île des Cygnes, a man-made island in the river Seine.”

The reference to it being the “second” isn’t to its big sister in New York, but rather to a smaller, life-sized version in the famous Luxembourg Garden in Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jardin_du_Luxembourg).

We hope to visit the one in the river before the end of the week. It looks to be within walking distance or an easy metro ride from away.

But I digress…

We were hungry when we disembarked the train and found ourselves in the quaint but bustling city of Versailles. We walked a few blocks from the train station, a bit puzzled by the map we had consulted, but eventually found a charming pedestrian-friendly street and selected a corner brasserie (café) named Le Saint Claire (www.saintclaire-versailles.com). We chose it over some other eateries that seemed either empty or not as attractive to the locals. Plus the menu promised one of Kelley’s favorite French dishes, cassoulet.

Side note: In France, all restaurants are required by law to post their menus so they’re visible to passersby. This is a tremendous benefit to travelers.

We were seated around 12:30 p.m. and soon Le Saint Claire filled with local businessmen, blue-collar workers and ladies who lunch. Our choice had been affirmed.

Our party attempts to adhere to the rule of no two people ordering the same thing so we can all try one another’s selection. This has proven to be a smart plan. Our lunch selections were:

Cassoulet ordered by me (of course planning to share with Kelley). Cassoulet is a porridge of big white beans, a rich tomato-based red broth, a hunk of Bratwurst-like sausage and a leg of braised duck.

Mille Feuilles Croustillant ordered by Kelley because he couldn’t resist the badly translated descripton of “one thousand being crusty sheets…” filled with shrimp, avocado and topped with a chive cream sauce. Turns out it was a salad and not an “en croute” hot pocket notion he envisioned. Nor was there any avocado to be found. Stacy had seen the classic French toasted ham and Swiss cheese sandwich, a “Croque Monsieur,” in market food cases since our arrival, so she ordered her first today.

Rusty decided pasta sounded good, so he ordered Penne au Jambon Cru which was penne pasta topped with a creamy gorgonzola sauce and “country ham.” The country ham to which the French referred is what everyone else knows as prosciutto. The huge and almost paper thin slices of premium ham were simply laid on top of the penne and cheese.

We each enjoyed our tastes of the others’ dishes, though I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed in the cassoulet. The big white beans (fava?) weren’t cooked nearly enough to be the comfort-food fix I was aiming for. However, the sauce, sausage and duck accompaniments were well executed. And by the time lunch had ended, there was no food left on anyone’s plates. We even had a “dessert” course of an assortment of cheeses, just like the French often do.

On to the chateau

Perhaps when first constructed, the chateau or palace of Versailles (www.chateauversailles.fr) was set apart, out in the countryside. Not now. I was surprised that the enormous, walled expanse of buildings and grounds were only a few city blocks’ walk from where we had lunch.

The approach to the palace's gilded gates is not lined by lawn or trees or even grass, as I had envisioned. Instead, the imposing expanse is paved with four-inch square, unevenly settled cobblestones. The surface was not comfortable underfoot, even in comfortable shoes.

Entry to the palace was not allowed until going through a metal detector, but that’s certainly understandable given the priceless artwork, craftsmanship and history inside. The first and one of the most impressive views of the whole chateau is the chapel.

Calling it simply a “chapel” is quite an understatement. The place of worship was a late addition to the chateau, but like the rest of the place, is caked in carved marble, granite, gilded wood work and plaster.

Almost each room in the complex is dominated by enormous paintings depicting members of the monarchy, Greek gods and goddesses, or scenes depicting the royals’ victory in battle.

There are too many rooms in the main chateau for me to count, each extravagantly decorated and each with a specific purpose. There were the king’s and queen’s separate bed chambers, the rooms in which they allowed an audience, formal rooms for government proceedings and political meetings. Many of the rooms were solely meant to impress and intimidate, and I can certainly see how they accomplished that.

This isn’t my first lush and lavish residence to tour. I was awed by Biltmore, the Vanderbilt-built American “castle” in Asheville, North Carolina when I visited it a few years ago. So, I expected gilded mirrors, fancy chandeliers, expensive silk draperies and amazing antiques to be the rule of the day at Versailles. That expectation was far surpassed and by the end of the tour, I felt as if my retinas had been flash-burned by all the shiny glitz and glam. But I also felt something else.

Though the audio tour didn’t speak to it very much, I was very aware that generations of French royalty and politicos had surrounded themselves with unbelievable décor, isolating themselves from the reality of the daily life of their subjects. The monarchy figuratively lost their heads in faulty justification when they escaped Paris and began to create their own world in Versailles.

Those first missteps led successive royal generations far off course, ending with the literal loss of their heads in the French Revolution.

With that in mind, the tour was a bit somber for me, but nonetheless impressive. No one should visit Paris without touring the chateau at Versailles.

Good night!