Versailles

Advantages: Nice town
Disadvantages: Shame about the palace

...of taste, but to me Versailles is too grandiose, too inhuman in its scale, too tiring to trudge around, somehow too contemptuous of its visitors. * History * The product of envy and self-importance, Versailles got off to a bad start. It was built as a statement rather than a home. Indirectly, Louis' first finance minister, Fouquet by name, was to blame. Fouquet had commissioned the foremost architects and designers of the time to build him a palatial ...
...the royal hunting lodge at Versailles into the most prestigious palace in Europe. This was no small undertaking. The mound on which the main chateau was to stand had to be greatly enlarged, the surrounding swampland drained, rivers diverted and forests transplanted before the main task of construction could even begin. Twenty years elapsed before Louis' court moved to Versailles in 1682. Two years later there were still 22,000 labourers and 6,000 ... Read review

Advantages: A fabulous day out
Disadvantages: One day is not enough, you will be exhausted!

...choose from. We chose Versailles Chantiers, but as it happens, it would have made little difference if we had got off at the other one. From the station, it is a pleasant 20 minutes walk to the castle, although had I known how much we were going to walk that day, I might have tried to find a bus or got a taxi. Many of the buildings you see on the way there are contemporary with the castle itself and were connected to it in one way or another. Among ...
...were of course signed in Versailles and the Trianon. Charles de Gaulle, slightly megalomaniac as he was, nonetheless considered advice to take up residence in Versailles 'somewhat exaggerated'. However, he refers to the place 40 times in his memoirs. His presidency was the start of a tradition of glamorous parties in Versailles (with dinner in the Hall of Mirrors) for the likes of Khrushchev and Kennedy amongst others. This practice has continued ... Read review