Let them eat cake!

Whilst Louis X1V's policies, spending habits and treatment of his people were undoubtably wrong on every level, he did however manage to leave France and the world one of the best man made tourist attractions ever (I'm sure that there is a lesson in there somewhere!!!). I had imagined that the palace of Versaille would be something like Chatsworth, but on a grander scale. I wasn't prepared for just how enormous the scale was and how this extended to the town or the gardens. Words and pictures can never convey the grandeur and the opulance and the sheer "WOW!!!" of the place. If you have been, you'll know what I mean - if you haven't - just go.



The Opera house which is attached to the palace hosts concerts on a regular basis - the next time I visit, I shall make sure that I catch one of these.

We decided that we would not have time to visit the interior of the Palace as the queues for tickets were enormous - so next time, I will book these in advance. However it was far too nice a day to spend indoors and there were other parts of the estate I really wanted to visit.

All the flower borders had been emptied but the autumnal colours of the trees were beautiful.

Marie Antoinette's "Play area's" were off the scale. I had read about the Grand and Petite Trianon's and the farm when I was at school and had earmarked these as the places I would like to look around.

The little theatre where she staged her own plays (it was too dark to photograph) was the sweetest thing I had ever seen - apart from...........

the hamlet and farm that she had built to play in.

We parked for free, it only cost 10 euros each for hubby and I to visit the Trianons and farm, and like most of the attractions in Paris, kids under 18 go free - so all in all a truly marvelous and inexpensive day out.

Another one of my favorite parts of the day was wandering around the town of Versaille when it got dark and having a good nosey in at all the wonderful apartments lit up for the evening. So simple and elegant and so shabby chic.