Travel the world
There hasn’t been a visit to a castle this year. It’s not on the books for quite a while either. Going through my archive of photos, I’ve stumbled across some which have been sitting around waiting for me to post! It’s times like now that I appreciate looking at them. My photos are what keeps me inspired until I get around to my next lot of castle visits. I’m just fascinated by the sheer extravagance and luxury of this buildings, that’s why I visit so many. It’s like walking into a fairytale.
One of those castles is the famous Versailles which is in the Île-de-France region of France.Versailles has got to be the castle of all castles and my favourite in all of Europe. With it’s luxuriously detailed interior, it was definitely fit for royalty. How much time and money must have gone into creating such a spectacular monument. This is excessive living at it’s best, with Versailles being currently valued at around $50 billion. This palace was place of residence of Marie Antoinette before her beheading.
Luxury & Travel
The most impressive part of Versailles is it’s grand ballroom, which has massive crystal chandeliers hanging from it’s elaborately painted ceiling. This is where the royalty of Europe were entertained. There is noticeably a lot of gold everywhere. While not many of this gold decor was solid gold, it was interesting to read that a lot of furniture in the grands appartements (during Louis XIV’s reign) were made of solid silver. There was an estimated 1 tonne of silver used, which was taken and melted later on to support the cost of war.
You’ll need a whole day to wander through Versailles, which has the largest sprawling garden that I’ve ever seen! The fountains are quite an impressive sight if you get to see them in action.
If you’re up to one, there are fountain night shows with music.
This place gets busy! We’ve made it look like it’s pretty empty with our photography but there’s no quiet time to visit Versailles, but I’d guess that opening time is always going to be best. There is still plenty of quiet spaces to rest if the crowd gets too much. It’s definitely something to head out to see if you find yourself in visiting Paris, as it’s only a short drive away.
Make sure you look through the blog to see some other castles which we’ve been to, including the gorgeous region of Loire Valley.