Chateau de Versailles

Chateau de Versailles, the former residence of the French royal family is another MUST SEE stop if you are visiting Paris. This chateau is beautiful and the grounds and gardens are spectacular and extremely large. From Paris Versailles is a 20 minute train ride from the Eiffel Tower area and the train ride back to the city is free.

This is the view leading up to the chateau's front gates

This is the front of the chateau but the photo doesn't quite capture how large it is.

The beautiful front gate

The chapel located in the chateau was also where weddings took place.

I love that there are paintings on the ceilings, every room has so much to look at.

This chateau has a lot of gold detailing.

This room is called the Hall of Mirrors, it was my favorite room in the chateau because of the beautiful ceiling and all of the crystal chandeliers.

Below is a photo of a painting I liked because it shows off the time period. As I strolled through the chateau I could imagine what life was like and in my case what fashion was like in that era. Most of the paintings I encountered in the chateau and other museums that we visited like the Musee d'orsay consisted of paintings that were a bit disturbing to me. Many of them depicted a clash of violence and eroticism. There were also many paintings of war, heaven, hell and the afterlife.

This hall was lined with photos of the time period. Mostly depictions of battle scenes and war.  

In this photo you can see a portion of the back of the chateau.

The gardens at Versailles are so extensive that you can opt to take a train, rent a golf cart and even a kayak to explore them. We decided to rent a golf cart because we did not have the energy to do any more walking.

This is a photo of the back lawn and garden.

This is another back view of the chateau

This was a room in separate house on the grounds of the chateau, there were a few other houses on the grounds belonging to the royal family of France.

Bed chamber

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

For more of my posts on traveling Paris and photos please visit my travel page HERE