A Tale of Two Palaces

There's "the other side of the tracks," and "the haves and have nots," we're also "keeping up with the Joneses," and intrigued with "how the other half lives," and then, there's The Louvre and Versailles. Both are palacial masterpieces... oh, the French, so fabulously opulent and decadent they are...

So here's your French History 101: King Louis XIV decides he doesn't care to live at the Palais du Louvre and in a controversial act, moves to Versailles. He really liked his father's hunting lodge in Versailles so he begins construction of a royal palace to rival the Louvre.

King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antionette were the last ones to live at Versailles. Now its a historical museum.

A look at the LOUVRE:

Winged Victory

Venus de Milo

Mona Lisa

Three of my favorite historical ladies. I am as enchanted by them now as much as the first time I laid eyes upon them. For two decades of my life, I only ever saw images of these masterpieces through art history books or in slide lectures. I can't begin to describe the emotion of seeing them in person. And as annoying it was to have so many strangers around (and in the way) it really was fine. I'd rather be at the Louvre any day than thumbing through an art history book!

The building itself is a work of art.

A detail of David's Oath of Horatii.

and then there's VERSAILLES

The ornate, green and black velvet wallpaper, made this one of my favorite rooms in Versailles.

A bust of Marie Antoinette.

Marie Antoinette's bedroom. The open door to the left, which led into the king's room, was the door Antoinette fled through when the townspeople came for her. Mother's were angered, claiming their children were starving, when Marie Antoinette delivered the infamous remark, "Let them eat cake."

The gardens at Versailles, in one word: exquisite.

If I have one complaint about the Louvre and Versailles it's not having enough time to see it all. The solution: a return to France next year!

fashionado