Class Visit to Versailles Gardens

Today, for my Paris Monuments and Political Powers class, we took a tour of the gardens at Versailles. A little background info on the palace: It was built by Louis XIV, the Sun King, though it was originally the hunting lodge of Louis XIII; the palace is 1/4 mile long; there are 2143 windows. Though it was grey and freezing (try taking notes outside for two hours), the gardens are really cool and I can only imagine what they would look like in the spring/summer with all of the leaves and flowers and sun. The pictures below are mostly just photos of fountains (of which Versailles has 32, which is a multiple of 4 - which is considered the "human" number and tons of things are found in 4's, while 3 was considered the divine number, think Holy Trinity), but they all have a meaning and a message.

View of the female quarters of Versaille. The queen had the left wing, while the king had the right and they would meet together in the middle in the hall of mirrors. Also, those big arches underneath the garden is where the royal greenhouse is located, which was a symbol of the King's power over nature. For example, they would grow lemon trees, lime trees, potatoes, peas, none of which were available to the people of France yet.

The royal greenhouse leads out onto this Italian garden. The lake on the right was called the Queen's mirror, because she could look out at it and see the reflection of the palace. Also, everything, including this lake, is completely man made. Louis had the Swiss guards who were supposed to be protecting him dig the lake because he didn't need their protection but still wanted them to be working.

This is a fountain of a giant being pummeled and killed with rocks by Zeus, after the giants threw rocks at Zeus. It's a message to the nobles ( = giants), that if they throw rocks at the King ( = Zeus), he will throw back and kill them.

This is a fountain of Apollo, the god of light, sun, and truth. He's either about to take off to make the sun rise/set, or just landing. Apollo represents Louis XIV, and the really cool thing about this fountain is that on August 25, the feast day of Louis XIV, the sun sets exactly on it.

Concerts used to be performed here, including a performance by Mozart. The statue in the middle is of Persephone, who created the seasons. There are 32 (multiple of 4!) of everything in here, including the arches, the columns, the fountains, the urns, and the diameter.

This fountain depicts winter, and if you look closely, you might be able to see that there are seashells and mussels around the bottom of the fountain. Why seashells and mussels? Winter was the only time they could eat them because there was no refrigeration. There are also fountains for the other 3 seasons. (Here's the number 4 again)

This was really, really cool and I don't think the picture can do it justice. This was an outdoor ballroom. On the right was a waterfall, with seashells from Madagascar, which were incredibly expensive. The nobles would practice a ton to make sure that their dances were perfect; to mess up would be social suicide.

This fountain was recently restored and all of the fountains would be this gold and bright when they were first created. It depicts Triumph and shows Louis XIV defeating the Hapsburgs and Spain.

This is a fountain of the dragon and was one of the first fountains made for Versailles. According to mythology, Apollo saved his mother from a dragon by slaying the dragon.

There were statues depicting the 4 (!) continents that were discovered at the time. This statue is of America.

This is a statue of Apollo's mother, Leto. She was running away from Hera, Zeus's wife, and she stopped in village with her 2 children (Apollo and Dianna) to drink some water. The villagers threw rocks at them and into the water, to make it muddy and in return, Zeus turned them into frogs. The story parallels that of Louis XIV when he was little and the people of Paris revolted against him and his mother. Because of this revolt, Louis hated Paris and this is why he built Versailles, so he could live far away from the city.

Picture of the gardens with Versailles in the distance, on the left.

And that was my trip to Versailles. Though afterwards I got so incredibly lost looking for the train station and I ended up walking around the town for a good hour before I finally found it. After that though, I safely made my way home.