La Versaille

amaIt was October 2010 the sky was clear blue and i can felt the autumn breeze touched my skin, it was the second day in Paris with Nolan my friend from USA who also went to France for AFS exchange program, we both went to Paris for four days with Nolan's host family they were so kind to asked me to come along in this trip, so we stayed in Nolan's host brother's apartment who studied in Paris.

We traveled to Paris with Nolans'We planned to go visit the Palace of Versaille on the second day, i got so excited by the idea, i've seen a lot of pictures and tv shows that showings parts of the palace. Nolan's host parents told me a little bit of a history about the castle and so about Paris. Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of theFrench Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime 

Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world (Félibien, 1703; Marie, 1972; Verlet, 1985). Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau, landscape architect André Le Nôtre, and painter-decorator Charles Le Brun began a detailed renovation and expansion of the château.As a result of Le Vau’s enveloppe of Louis XIII’s château, the king and the queen had new apartments in the new addition, known at the time as the château neuf. Thegrands appartements, which are known respectively as the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine, occupied the main or principal floor of thechâteau neuf 

The original arrangement of the enfilade of rooms was:

• Salon de Diane (Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt; associated with the moon)
• Salon de Mars (Mars, Roman god of war; associated with the planet Mars)
• Salon de Mercure (Mercury, Roman god of trade, commerce, and the Liberal Arts; associated with the planet mercury)
• Salon d’Apollon (Apollo, Roman god of the Fine Arts; associated with the Sun)
• Salon de Jupiter (Jupiter, Roman god of law and order; associated with the planet Jupiter)
• Salon de Saturne (Saturn, Roman god of agriculture and harvest; associated with the planet Saturn)
• Salon de Vénus (Venus, Roman goddess of love and beauty; associated with the planet Venus

Forming a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi, the grand appartement de la reine served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, as duchesse de Bourgogne, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712

The appartement du roi is a suite of rooms set aside for the private use of the king. Originally arranged and used by Louis XIV in 1683, these rooms were used by his successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI for such ceremonies as the lever and the coucher. Then what became of my favorite part of the palace is the Hall of mirrors, The galerie des glaces (Hall of Mirrors in English), is perhaps the most celebrated room in the château of Versailles. Setting for many of the ceremonies of the French Court during the Ancien Régime. The room is so big with mirrors all over the walls, decorated with humongous crystal lamps above, and the paintings on the ceilings. it was so beautiful to be insed and seeing what the palace had to offer