Day 5 Paris: Versailles Palace gardens and park

Vendredi 21 Août 2015

Today we ventured out to the royal Chateâu de Versailles via the SNCF train on Ligne C to Versailles Chateau Rive Gauche station - located 20km south west of Paris - then a short walk to the palace, after I had a great cafe au lait from the brasserie opposite the station while Penny enjoyed her cafe latte from Starbucks next door!

As expected there were massive queues to enter the palace but, fortunately, we only wanted to see the gardens and park- these have free entry and we walked straight in! We spent 5 hours wandering along shady groves or bosquets of magestic 400 year-old trees, colourful blooms and perfectly trimmed hedges in the parterre gardens, ornate fountains, white marble statuesque picking the rivers of France and various Greek gods and goddesses, avenues of sculpted pleached, trees, topiaries in many shapes and sizes and verdant woodlands with their dappled light and birdsong.

 

These pretty gardens are at the back of the palace.

        

The gardens were designed and laid out by landscape architect Andre Le Notre from 1661 onwards, who went on to design the Tuileries Gardens near the Louvre. The Orangerie was superb - with pots of citrus trees and sculpted topiaries on the perimeter of superbly patterned parterre hedges.

The groves gave a welcome relief from the hot sun (29C in the shade) and we enjoyed strolling in the dappled light under the cool green canopy along paths where kings and queens once walked or rode their horses.

          

        

L' Orangerie 

A shady canopy!

          

The Linden Walk.

      

       

The old stone wall.

Quaint buildings. 

The cruciform Grand Canal. 

Looking back to towards the Chateau.

   We stopped for a picnic lunch - we remembered the baguette this time, plus cheeses, mâché and fruit - on a bench seat overlooking the Grand Canal - a crudciform lake really - replete with swans, ducks, row boats or hire and frequent signs warning of the polluted water!

I stopped for a cooling cassis sorbet by the Grand Canal lake - it was a dark purple in colour and  strongly flavoured - yum! 

We then walked through the King's Garden with its gorgeous floral crowns made from succulents, begonia and other colourful flowers.

We found the amphitheatre or ball room, decorate with sea shells and stones from the Red Sea - the terraces are actually a fountain which must look superb when operating! This ballroom was depicted in the movie 'A Little Chaos' where it was said to have been designed and built by a female gardener hired by Andre le Notre - I'm still not sure if that is true!