We didn’t get to go to the Palace of Versailles, the opulent chateau built by Louis XIV, on our last trip to Paris. I was determined not to miss it a second time.
It would be something of a nostalgic trip for me. I went there on a family trip when I was 14 years old and have clear memories of touring the Chateau with my mom in a wheelchair. Somewhere there is a photograph of us in the Hall of Mirrors in the palace. It would turn out to be my mom’s final overseas trip before her Multiple Sclerosis made it too hard for her to travel.
How bitterly disappointed I was when we retraced the footsteps of my younger self. There were so many sightseers that it was impossible to experience the grandeur of the palace. It was more like trying to make my way through a vast crowd at a rock concert – I was jostled from all sides and it was impossible for me to gain a sense of the rooms because I was powerless to stem the unstoppable horde of tourists pushing from the preceding rooms. That certainly wasn’t how I’d remembered it from my previous visit.
The photo was taken in the Hall of Mirrors, at a moment when the crowd around us thinned out a little – and I’m not kidding. I wish I could find the photo from my previous trip to illustrate the difference of my two visits, but sadly it’s long gone.
After about 45 minutes, we managed to escape the crowded palace and fled outside into the chateau gardens.
I will say that the gardens were beautiful. And I’m not just saying that because so few people bothered to explore them once exiting the chateau. We spent a very pleasant hour wandering around the glades and arbors of the gardens past beautifully sculptured trees and classical statues, listening to the sound of bird song… and the inevitable squeals of young children playing happily on the grass.
Maybe my expectations of the palace were coloured by the nostalgic memories of my previous visit. And maybe the mists of time have left me with a kinder impression of what it was like when I was there before. Maybe the chateau wasn’t as quiet and as grand as I remembered. But I found myself climbing onto the train back to Paris with a heavy heart and a feeling of intense disappointment.
Oh well, at least the gardens were beautiful so it wasn’t a completely wasted trip.
