Paris - The Château de Versailles - Versailles

Plate CXIV - The Chateau of Versailles…

From the edge of the Tapis Vert (Green Carpet) looking back to the buildings, one gets a panoramic view of the front façade of the chateau. Today’s most well known aspects of the ‘palace’ are the work of teams of architects commissioned by Louis XIV (and carried out throughout his long life), namely Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Robert de Cotte and Louis le Vau. Painter Charles le Brun was responsible for many of the interiors, and the fabled classically French styled gardens, covering some 800 hectares, still largely follow the original designs of Andre le Notre. Le Notre worked closely with the architect Hardouin-Mansart, and from the start of what is called ‘the third building camapign’, begun in 1680, le Notre incorporated many of this architect’s construction features into the landscapes.

The chateau and its gardens were declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1979, and attract an estimated ten million visitors annually. You really should be one of them. I’m glad I once was. 

It was a very soaked and dishevelled, but strangely contented visitor that crossed this rain sodden gravel parterre to return to the chateau, and then on back to Paris after taking this photograph. It's appropriate then that this image should be presented as a 'watercolour'.