Bloody royals

Yesterday we visited the Versailles Palace, and Chateau de Chambord, both former royal palaces to different kings.

Both incredible structures.  The hall of mirrors at Versailles was particularly spectacular, with windows along one side, and then mirrors on the other exactly matching the windows in position and shape.  Chambord was about 2 hours from Versailles (which was just out of Paris), on 4,500 hectares of largely forest.  Inside it was largely empty, although it had a fantastic staircase that they believe may have been designed by Leonardo Di Vinci when he lived there for 4 years.  But it was the setting of this enormous castle, in amongst the forest that was the most striking.

I don’t know enough about French history to make sense of the French revolution, however the enormous excesses at these buildings gives a bit of a hint as to where resentments might have bred.  There was evidently considerable wealth within France in order to construct these palaces, but it would seem that wealth was restricted to a very few, who then felt the need to spend it building grossly excessive homes and living ridiculously decadent lives – the king at Versailles had a going to bed ceremony and a getting out of bed ceremony.

Perhaps it’s no different to other parts of the world, eg, Taj Mahal in India, but here it seems the people decided enough was enough and threw the royals out.  They’ve left behind some great tourist attractions, but I think if I was the average French person back in the day, I’d be glad to see the back of them.

Paul